Sen. Justine Wadsack thinks 9/11 is an inside job? Just don't dare ask her why

It likely comes as no shock that the Arizona Republican Party’s freshman senator of the year apparently believes that 9/11 was a government conspiracy.

The fact that this is not a shock is, well, shocking.

Rep. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson, is one of the Legislature’s loudest culture warriors, part of a bumper crop of far-right freshmen dispatched to the state Capitol this year to wage war on drag queens and teachers and elections officials and such.

In her zeal to protect children from drag queens, she actually introduced a bill that would have criminalized parents who let their kids watch like “Mulan.” (She insisted the bill didn't do what it did, then quietly amended it to keep parents out of the pokey.)

Another of her bills, seeking to ban books about transgenderism and sexuality, was so poorly worded it opened the door to banning any book that included the words “he” or “she.”

So, Wadsack thinks 9/11 is a conspiracy

This week, Wadsack again put her keen intellect on display, liking multiple social media posts claiming that the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on America was a put-up job.

The Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reported on Wednesday that Wadsack put her stamp of approval on this post to X, formerly known as Twitter: “It was an inside job, a false flag, to steal Middle East oil.”

 She also liked this one: “It was an inside job. Millions of victims.”

And this one about United Flight 93, claiming the plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field not because passengers fought for control but because it was shot down.

“I made the decision to NOT trust my government THAT day!” Wadsack wrote, replying to another poster who suggested the government was involved in 9/11. “It never added up. Still doesn’t, and now look at the state of thing.”

OK, so add 9/11 to Wadsack’s ever-lengthening list of government conspiracies. That hardly seems surprising.

Heaven forbid someone ask her to explain

What is surprising — alarming, actually — is her reaction to anyone who dares question her actions or beliefs, or even to point them out as MacDonald-Evoy did in his report.

The word “tirade” comes to mind.

She called the reporter a liar on social media, though not, apparently, before first unliking two of the conspiratorial posts highlighted in his story.

When he asked her to point out the lies, she blocked him.

Then she blocked other people when they asked what the reporter had lied about.

And went on the attack.

“Defund the Arizona Media ‘Thought Police’!” Wadsack declared. “Apparently, whenever we think for ourselves, we get smeared in their rag publications … .”

Wadsack blocked anyone with questions

I get that Wadsack is a tad sensitive. 

She just survived a recall attempt and rather than showing grace or perhaps even a little humility, she’s been on the attack against those who dared to exercise their constitutional right to give voters a chance to reconsider their representation.

But there is something disturbing about an elected official — someone who makes laws for the rest of us to follow — who believes herself above being questioned.

Who goes ballistic when challenged.

It’s not out of line for a reporter to raise questions when a legislator appears to believe something so utterly ridiculous as a government conspiracy to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and to shoot down a commercial airliner that failed in its mission to slam into the Capitol or the White House.

Cue the conspiracy:GOP rejects mask mandate that doesn't exist

She could have responded to MacDonald-Evoy’s questions before he published his story. She could have defended her beliefs once his report went public.

Instead, she arrogantly proclaimed it a lie and blocked anyone who dared to question her on social media.

Who, after all, do they think they are?

'I don't owe you anything,' she once said

Naturally, Wadsack didn’t respond to my inquiry about why she blocked people rather than simply explaining her point of view.

Her reaction to MacDonald-Evoy reminds me of a hearing earlier this year on her bill to eviscerate the State Bar of Arizona because she claimed it threatened to disbar any attorney who took on a COVID-19 complaint. Specifically, in one particular instance she cited, she was asked for evidence to back up her claim.

“Sen. Wadsack, do you have evidence that the Bar told the attorney not to take the case vs. maybe the attorney just made that decision based off their own experience and knowing what is good to take to the bench and what is not good to take to the bench?” Rep. Analise Ortiz, D-Tempe, asked, in response to Wadsack’s story of one case. “Do you have ...”

Wadsack interrupted, “Rep. Ortiz, I don’t owe you anything in the way of proof. The fact that I am an elected state senator, I come before you after having spoken with hundreds of people that went through this.”

Actually, senator, you sit in the Legislature, not on a throne.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts.

Support local journalism: Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

.