By: Devika Kandelwal
January 22 2021
John Hyten, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not create a Telegram channel on January 18. He has not spread QAnon slogans.
John Hyten, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not create a Telegram channel on January 18. He has not spread QAnon slogans.A Telegram account, which was created on January 18, is falsely purporting to be run by General John Hyten, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Before President Joe Biden was inaugurated on January 20, the account falsely told its followers "that the moment they'd been waiting for, the moment Trump would finally act and use the military to crush his enemies, was coming." Multiple posts in the channel also included terms like “great awakening,” “storm” and “nothing can stop what is coming.” These slogans are often used by supporters of QAnon, a conspiracy theory that alleges that former President Donald Trump is fighting "deep state" enemies and a cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibals operating a child sex trafficking ring. Hyten’s spokeswoman, Major Trisha Guillebeau told the Associated Press (AP) that: “General Hyten doesn’t have any professional or personal social media accounts across the board.” Guillebeau further told AP news that Hytenhad reached out to Telegram to ask for the account to be removed.