In the waning days of her short-lived presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has repeated a toxic charge: former President Donald Trump has threatened to use the military against his domestic enemies.

“Donald Trump intends to use the United States military against American citizens who simply disagree with him, people he calls, quote, ‘the enemy from within,’” Harris told a crowd of enthusiastic supporters during her “closing argument” at the Ellipse Tuesday night. Her anti-Trump summation was far from the first time she had made the allegation.

Listening to Kamala Harris deliver the line left me with one question: Is Kamala Harris a QAnon conspiracy theorist? Her oft-repeated statement — among the easiest assertions in all political discourse to disprove — has received little rebuke from the fact-checkers of the legacy media (except for Al Jazeera, which presented her claims as accurate).

The genesis of the story came when President Joe Biden questioned whether the 2024 election would be “peaceful,” saying he’s “concerned” about violence from Trump supporters.

Asked about the possibility that “outside agitators” — especially foreign terrorist networks — would cause a disruption during next Tuesday’s election, Trump said there would be little difficulty handling rioting mobs from any side. “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen,” Trump told “Fox News Sunday” on October 13. But Trump said the real penchant for riots would come less from foreigners than American leftists. “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” Trump said. “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical Left lunatics.”

There is one simple fact that clearly refutes Harris’s incendiary construction that Donald Trump said he would use the military on U.S. citizens who disagree with him: Donald Trump is clearly discussing potential upheavals on Election Day: November 5, 2024.

Donald Trump will not be commander-in-chief of the U.S. military on Election Day.

President Joe Biden retains that role until his departure from office, whatever the election’s outcome, next January 20.

That’s where QAnon comes in. QAnon conspiracy believers believe that Donald Trump is still president of the United States and has supreme command of the U.S. military. One Telegram user wrote, “I think the real answer is Trump is still POTUS. The military is in control due to Trump’s [executive order]. They need to impeach Trump to invalidate his EO and take control back from the Military.”

Accusing Trump supporters of believing the QAnon conspiracy has become one of the legacy media’s prime smears against the MAGA movement. A Google search reveals 1,690 results on MSNBC and 7,440 results on CNN. Yet none dared contradict Kamala Harris for spinning her own variant of the theory for political gain.

It’s almost enough to make one believe in a conspiracy theory of a different kind.