Busted: GOP-endorsed judicial candidate hyped Pizzagate and other conspiracy theories

A GOP-endorsed candidate for district judge has promoted numerous fringe conspiracy theories, including the Pizzagate child sex trafficking hoax.

Nathan Hansen, a practicing lawyer and longtime fixture on Minnesota’s conservative social media scene, has also called an attempted 2009 airline bombing a “false flag attack”; claimed “Satanic people run our government”; said that “all property taxes are illegal under the Minnesota State Constitution”; called for the abolition of the Federal Reserve and the Central Intelligence Agency; and once said he found himself “consistently agreeing” with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Hansen deleted roughly 100,000 of his Twitter posts prior to announcing his candidacy, according to social media analytics service Social Blade. But a number of those posts have been preserved on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, and other posts on Facebook and YouTube remain public.

Hansen, who declined to comment for this story, is running for a judicial seat in District 10, which includes Anoka, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Pine, Sherburne, Washington and Wright counties. His opponent is incumbent judge Helen Brosnahan, who was appointed by Gov. Tim Walz two years ago.

Hansen says he has the endorsement of the Minnesota Republican Party, which could be an advantage given the Republican lean of the district.

His candidacy underscores the emerging influence of conspiracy theories in American politics, which have ebbed and flowed since the country’s founding, but are resurgent in a social media age when everyone can be a publisher.

A history of conspiracy theorizing

In 2016 and 2017, Hansen posted repeatedly on Twitter about the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which posited that powerful figures in the Democratic Party were running a child sex trafficking ring out of a DC pizzeria, according to screenshots obtained by the Reformer.

Screenshots of Nathan Hansen’s Tweets using the #pizzagate hashtag in 2016 and 2017

In November 2016, Hansen lamented “all of the dumb stuff ‘authorities’ charge out with little evidence while #pizzagate is not investigated.” He mused that a “shadow government” would make the owner of the pizza restaurant “take the fall like Sandusky,” and shared a podcast by people endorsing the conspiracy theory who he said “agree with me.”

Hansen continued posting about the conspiracy theory even after a gunman entered the restaurant in early December and opened fire in an effort to “self-investigate” it.

After that incident brought widespread media attention, Hansen tweeted that “The Wurlitzer rose as one today to try to crush #pizzagate. People must be scared.” (“The Wurlitzer” is a reference to supposed CIA propaganda efforts within the United States.)

He dismissed a subsequent New York Times investigation of the theory’s origins as “a few strawmen,” and suggested a senior advisor to Hillary Clinton was a pedophile.

All told, Hansen used the #pizzagate hashtag on at least 13 different occasions between November 2016 and March 2017.

Pizzagate is far from the only conspiracy theory Hansen has espoused. Years ago on Facebook, he frequently offered fringe opinions on politics and world events.

In 2009 he called the attempted “underwear bomber” attack on Northwest Airlines flight 253 a “false flag,” suggesting it was orchestrated by the U.S. government and saying “Black ops has been caught red-handed on this one, and this is a cover-up.”

In 2011 he shared an Infowars blog post about Hillary Clinton, adding the commentary that “Satanic people run our government.” That year he also claimed that “if Obama wanted to grill children on the White House lawn, he could do that.”

He also said he found himself “consistently agreeing with Louis Farrakhan,” sharing a link to an article about Farrakhan’s criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy. Farrakhan is an antisemite and longtime leader of the Nation of Islam, designated by the Southern Policy Law Center as an anti-white, antisemitic hate group.

On his Facebook post, Hansen commented that he “would take Louis Farrakhan as President over Obama any day.”

In 2015 he posted a photo of himself with Judith Vary Baker, who claimed to be Lee Harvey Oswald’s girlfriend, and recommended people check out the work of Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist Mae Brussel.

More recently he has cast doubt on the idea that there are “clean and fair elections” in the United States. In 2023 he retweeted a Twitter post claiming the Oklahoma City bombing was “a huge false flag” intended to prevent Pat Buchanan or Ross Perot from winning the presidency in 1996.

Conservative activism

Judicial races are nominally nonpartisan affairs, and to maintain the appearance of neutrality candidates rarely seek the endorsement of political parties.

Hansen, by contrast, has embraced the Republican Party’s support, appearing at local party events and obtaining endorsements from Republican state lawmakers. That could be an advantage in a district that has recently leaned conservative in state and federal elections.

He has long been professionally active in conservative causes. He represented a Lynd restaurant owner who fought ( unsuccessfully) against COVID restrictions, as well as the owner of a conservative Twitter account who sued a right-wing think tank (also unsuccessfully) for embedding the account’s tweets.

Hansen also successfully defended Michael Brodkorb, former deputy chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, against defamation charges filed by fringe judicial candidate Michelle MacDonald.

But Hansen has personally advocated for conservative causes as well. A 2021 video posted to a YouTube account bearing his name shows Hansen berating members of the Mahtomedi School Board over mask requirements, claiming they were violating a law that supposedly prohibits public masking. He cited, among various other things, the 1947 Nuremberg Code prohibiting scientific experimentation on people without their knowledge.

That same account also posted a recording of a 2021 phone call Hansen made to the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, arguing that people wearing masks are “committing a crime” and asking for them to be issued a citation and made to plead their case before a judge.

Hansen also has an unusually partisan social media history. Before most of it was deleted, his Twitter feed was often a mashup of retweets of far-right influencers, harsh criticisms of DFL lawmakers, and various conspiracy theories as noted above.

In 2023 he shared a video of a transgender woman testifying in favor of Minnesota’s trans refuge bill, saying that it “should be used to support a civil commitment to a mental hospital for this poor man.” He also mocked transgender female lawmaker Leigh Finke as “gross.”

More recently, Hansen denigrated DFL lawmakers as “ Bolsheviks.”

On a judicial candidate questionnaire, Hansen told the Minnesota State Bar Association that he was the best person for the judicial position because he always treats people “with the same care and dignity no matter who they are,” and that he believed “all litigants should be treated with respect,” and that “a judge should demonstrate neutrality, including in demeanor.”

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and X.