Rep. Paul Gosar's tweets spell out a conspiracy theory. No, really

Rep. Paul Gosar published a series of tweets Wednesday whose first letter collectively spell out "Epstein didn't kill himself," linking him to a new story in conservative media that claims former New York billionaire Jeffrey Epstein didn't hang himself awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

The tweets, all weighing in on the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump in one way or another, began at 5:21 a.m. Arizona time and continued through 1 p.m.

A little more than an hour later, the conservative Daily Caller had published a story noting the cryptic message hidden in Gosar's Twitter commentary.

A spokesman for Gosar, a five-term Arizona Republican, had a cheeky response when asked about the message.

“All of the tweets pertained to testimony from today’s hearing," Ben Goldey told The Arizona Republic. "Rest assured, they are substantive. Every one of them. All of them. 5 were brilliant. 1 was ok."

Gosar tweeted out the same response from his official account. The first word of each sentence spelled out "AREA 51."

Using his personal account, Gosar also suggested he was just having fun. He tweeted out a story about his tweets and asked, "What? Epstein didn't kill himself?"

The tweets seem intended to draw more attention to a recent story by the right-wing Project Veritas. It was based on a leaked videotape in which ABC reporter Amy Robach complained her employer would not run a story three years ago in which she had linked Epstein to sex with minors, the allegation that landed him behind bars when authorities say he committed suicide on Aug. 10.

Most media outlets have not previously noted the lack of a story about ABC sitting on an Epstein story. Fox News wrote about the ongoing silence, adding to a growing push in conservative quarters to a conspiracy theory that Epstein died from foul play.

To many, Gosar is known as the member of Congress whose siblings endorsed his opponent in the 2018 election because they viewed him as a political extremist. But that event was only the capstone to years of controversies.

In October 2017, Gosar suggested in an interview with "Vice News" for Home Box Office that the deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was planned by "an Obama sympathizer" and that liberal activist George Soros may have been a Nazi collaborator as a youth.

Before Trump's State of the Union speech in 2018, Gosar called for the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants who were attending the speech at the invitation of Democratic members of Congress, including from Arizona.

Before that, Gosar outlined his views on "dreamers," young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children, in an interview with Frank Gaffney, an anti-Muslim activist who has peddled his own widely discredited conspiracies. Gosar has said he opposes any special legal protection for those known as DACA recipients.

"Providing any lawful or legal status to DACA recipients that allows them to stay in the country and work is the definition of amnesty," he said at the time.

Earlier this year, he was part of a documentary showing the efforts of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to corral support among far-right European political figures as part of a trip ostensibly about better understanding free speech issues.

On the same trip, Gosar spoke in London in support of a British man banned from social media for espousing what was deemed hate speech and who was jailed for repeatedly violating court-ordered privacy during a criminal trial.

Reach the reporter Ronald J. Hansen at ronald.hansen@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4493. Follow him on Twitter @ronaldjhansen.

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