David Gilbert at Wired:

Tom Homan, the man president-elect Donald Trump has selected to serve as “border czar,” defended his family separation policy at an extremist festival last month surrounded by QAnon promoters, election conspiracists, and church leaders wearing crowns of bullets.

“Trump comes back, I come back, And I will run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen,” Homan told a cheering crowd at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival, a three-day celebration in Greeley, Pennsylvania, organized by the Rod of Iron Ministries, a far-right gun sect that worships AR-15s.

Homan, who was officially appointed as “border czar” by Trump this week, was one of the main architects of the “zero tolerance” policy during Trump’s first term, forcibly separating more than 5,000 children from their parents between 2017 and 2018.

Homan was introduced on stage by Justin Moon, a firearms manufacturer and the son of Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, a global religious cult whose adoring followers were known as Moonies. Homan shared the stage with far-right figures that included Pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec and Ivan Raiklin, the self-styled “secretary of retribution” who created a “deep state target list” of Trump’s enemies who he wants rounded up and arrested. Also speaking at the event were prominent QAnon promoter Mel K, disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and Craig Sawyer, a former Navy Seal who has promoted various conspiracy theories including human trafficking and pedophilia rings.

At the festival, Homan also pushed the baseless claim that the immigrants were being allowed into the country to help Vice President Kamala Harris win the election. This was a conspiracy theory that was promoted heavily by pro-Trump election denial groups in the months leading up to the election.

All the best people.