#2424: Lin Wood

The aftermath of the 2020 election has brought to light a significant number of frighteningly deranged, paranoid conspiracy theories in positions of authority and genuine influence, and several otherwise familiar characters have revealed themselves as the unhinged dingbats they probably were all along. Lin Wood, for instance. Lucian Lincoln “Lin” Wood Jr. is an Atlanta-based attorney, until recently most famous for once representing Richard Jewell, the security guard falsely accused in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta in 1996, and the parents of JonBenet Ramsey. More recently, Wood has been retained to represent Dr. Simone Gold, the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors who was fired for a video making false claims and pushing groundless conspiracy theories about COVID-19, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kyle Rittenhouse. Which is fine. Everyone deserves legal counsel.

 

But in November 2020, Wood also filed a lawsuit in Georgia challenging the state’s process for voiding absentee ballots due to a lack of matching signatures. The lawsuit failed after the (Trump-appointed) judge found “no basis in fact or in law” to stop Georgia's certification of its election results at such a late stage, and that Wood had no legal standing to bring the lawsuit. Wood is a serious conspiracy theorist, however, and failing in court shows to him, at best, that the conspiracy runs deeper than he initially imagined. Wood accordingly continues to assert that Biden’s victory is a result of fraud, and even that Trump won the presidential election with 70% of the vote, a claim based on the default go-to source for this kind of people. In response to imagined election fraud (“Joe Biden has intentionally & fraudulently claimed status as President-Elect,” tweeted Wood; “IGNORE Biden shadow government”), Wood encouraged Trump supporters to do what “our Founding Fathers did in 1776”. Also during the weeks prior to the election, Wood tweeted repeatedly that he worried that Democrats planned to stage a coup to take the White House. Then he blamed Soros. But of course.

 

Wood also asserted – in court – that more votes were cast in Michigan during the election than there are eligible voters in the state, a conclusion drawn from a mistaken comparison of the Michigan vote total with Minnesota population data. Indeed, according to Wood – who has endorsed calls for Trump to declare martial law – Trump won the election with more than 410 Electoral College votes. Trump “damn near won every state, including California” ­­– “I’ve looked at the real numbers,” Wood told a crowd of deranged conspiracy theorists in Georgia December 2020. And who’s behind stealing the election from Trump? None other than the Chinese government: “China’s making its move ‘cause they need our land to grow their food,” and any Republican official who has suggested that Biden won the election, which of course he did, such as Georgia governor Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, are “criminals” who have taken money from China, is part of the plot and should (and probably are going to) be thrown in jail.

 

Indeed, according to Wood, while everyone is focusing on blaming Bill Clinton, Soros, the CIA and other globalists for stealing the election, they are overlooking one crucial group of culprits: “THE REPUBLICANS”. The Republicans, including in particular Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell, “aspire to the goals of Communism,” and the ringleaders are awaiting imminent arrest. In a string of fact-free January 2021 tweets, Wood predicted that Mike Pompeo would “save the election” and have Pence jailed for treason and face execution by firing squad; since Pence is a “coward”, he would quickly start to “sing like a bird”. Wood did not attempt to explain what, exactly, would make Pence guilty of treason.

 

It is worth mentioning that Wood is in some legal trouble himself, based on his behavior toward former colleagues, whom Wood would (allegedly) email at odd hours to assert that he was behaving according to God’s will and would therefore not pay them in incoherent texts laden with profanities because “God has given me permission to be profane in this email.” It’s worth reading some excerpts. Apparently Wood’s anger stemmed in part from fear that his colleagues would interfere with “his imminent receipt of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and appointment as Chief Justice of United States Supreme Court,” something he was ostensibly on track to achieving based on “1) a decade-plus old ‘prophecy’ [he] heard in a YouTube video, and (2) a conspiracy theory that Chief Justice Roberts would be revealed to be part of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring and was being blackmailed by liberals to rule in their favor.” In response to allegations, Wood stated that it “is my understanding and belief that the term conspiracy theorist was developed by the CIA in the 1950’s to demean individuals who were reviewing facts and reaching logical conclusions.” Or, in short, the idea that conspiracy theories exist is a CIA-instigated conspiracy.

 

Most recently, Wood has been pushing Covid-19 conspiracy theories and antivaccine misinformation. For instance, according to Wood, “Moderna is Gates vaccine [it isn’t remotely tied to Gates]. Gates urges depopulation theory (smaller servant class ruled by & service elites). 1+1=2. I will NEVER take Moderna or ANY Gates vaccine. I will rely on immune system created by God.” He has also gone full out, unfiltered Qanon, suggesting that the US is secretly run by a cabal of pedophile Democratic elites, including (again) Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, whom Wood accused of being “a member of any club or cabal requiring minor children as initiation fee” and of being behind former justice Scalia’s death; moreover, claimed Wood, Roberts may have been closely involved with Jeffrey Epstein, having “arranged an illegal adoption of two young children from Wales through Jeffrey Epstein,” and might have had him killed – Wood allegedly has this information “from a reliable source.”

 

Diagnosis: Complete and utter mindrot, unhinged conspiracy theories and paranoid, utterly fact-free allegations. It is accordingly not entirely unlikely that he will receive that Presidential Medal of Freedom from someone ready to believe anything he would like to be true and the people whose mouths it falls out of.

 

Hat-tip: MotherJones