Melanie Smith, head of analysis at the research firm Graphika, told members of the committee that she now considers QAnon to be “the most pressing threat to trusting government, public institutions and democratic processes.” “I believe QAnon poses a threat to the election in two main ways,” Smith told Yahoo News. “The first lies in its ability to fit any event in the news cycle into an overarching conspiracy framework. The sheer size of this community and its capacity to shape the political conversation, particularly on the right wing of the political spectrum, cannot be underestimated.”