Unjustified incidents of political violence almost always give rise to unfounded conspiracy theories and speculation that spring up out of nowhere. Saturday’s unprecedented attack on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, has now been described as “the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or a presidential campaign since the shooting of Ronald Reagan in 1981.”
Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump is helped off the stage by U.S. Secret Service agents during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday, July 13, 2024. (Associated Press) {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}}
The incident left one attendee dead and two seriously injured, and the shooter, identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was reportedly neutralized and killed. Despite a swarm of Secret Service agents surrounding the Republican presidential candidate, Trump was shot in the upper right ear. Photos from the event went viral, showing blood streaming down Trump’s face.
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Social media has unabashedly lit up with speculative debate claiming that the incident was “staged” and specifically designed to garner sympathy for Trump and propel him towards reelection in the months ahead of the 2024 general election.
Trump assassination attempt: conspiracy theories sweep social media
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Despite its ultimately tragic impact, many believed the entire incident was “staged,” and internet users seemed completely unable to comprehend the fact that after being shot in the ear by an AR-15 bullet, Trump immediately stood up and pumped his fist in the air in what could only have been an assassination attempt.
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One user protested on social media, insisting that it was an “inside job” because if the presidential candidate had really been shot in the ear, “it would have been pretty ripped off, not just scratched,” while another person seemed to point out that he “went behind the podium and popped out and there was blood flowing.” Several others claimed he’d been hit by “glass shards from the teleprompter.”
What makes the whole incident even more suspicious is that witnesses reported seeing a suspicious man with a rifle on the roof minutes before the shooting, the BBC reported.
Suspect Greg Smith reportedly called police to report a shooter on the roof of a building just outside the Butler County event.
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“I was thinking, ‘Why is Trump still talking, why aren’t they taking him off the stage?’ and the next thing you know, five shots ring out,” Mr Smith told the BBC, who also claimed to have witnessed a Secret Service agent shoot a man.
“Why aren’t there any Secret Service on the roof here? This isn’t a very big place.”[It’s a] “It’s a security failure, a 100% security failure,” Smith added.
Others, on the contrary, could not accept that others were also being made to suffer by the events of that day. “It’s odd to say this was staged, given the fact that one attendee was confirmed dead and the shooter is also dead,” one netizen wrote on X/Twitter.
Former U.S. Marine Brian Barletic agreed, noting that security lapses ultimately led to questions about the nature of the assassination attempt on Trump.
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Taking cues from photos available online, Burletic raised a number of red flags, leaving many people “unbelievable that the U.S. Secret Service could be so organizationally incompetent.”
One photo shared by the former Marine showed a giant American flag flying above the former president’s head, which he said would have worked perfectly as “an ideal wind flag to indicate wind speed and direction to potential assassins,” and warned netizens that “such signs should have been banned by security authorities.”
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The former U.S. Marine’s analysis found that authorities were “almost certain” to have guessed the assassin’s location, and video evidence showed that guards “had snipers pointed in their direction but were apparently unprotected from approaching them.” He added that “if spectators saw the assassin clearly move into position to fire, a trained sniper with a scope would surely have seen it.”
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In a subsequent tweet, Berletic pointed to how “unprofessional” the would-be assassin had acted, saying “taking a firing position in the open made his mission a sure one-way ticket.”
He also acknowledged that the fact that he was able to shoot Trump meant that he had previous experience firing a rifle but probably had “little or no tactical training.”
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“If the security lapses were intentional, I would not be surprised if someone like the FBI approached him, ran him through the entire process like so many of the poor ‘terrorism suspects’ they have trained, provided him with weapons and explosives, and often arrested him at the last minute, sometimes ‘by accident’ failing to do so before the actual attack,” Berletic concluded.
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Ohio Congressman Haraz N. Ghanbari also joined the conversation, presenting visual evidence that shots were fired.
“A great photo taken by my former White House press colleague Doug Mills. Zoom in just above President Trump’s shoulder and you can see the bullet whizzing past the right side of his head after the assassination attempt,” he posted along with the photo on X/Twitter.
In contrast, investigative journalist Laura Loomer also spoke out in her own words, questioning how someone could have “entered an unidentified building with a rifle and reached the roof.”
The fact that the FBI identified the 20-year-old shooter as a Republican, according to state voter records, has further inflamed the debate, leaving more questions than answers in people’s minds.
Loomer echoed similar sentiments in a tweet, adding, “@SecretService needs to be investigated. Smells like an inside job.”
The Director of the Secret Service must resign.
This was not an isolated incident.
You can’t just walk into a Trump rally with a rifle and climb onto the roof.
Joining other sickening conspiracy theories and suggesting “Biden has blood on his hands,” online personality Nick Soutter reported on the social media platform that a source from Trump’s Secret Service told The Federalist that there had been repeated requests for increased security and resources over the course of weeks, but Biden had not acted.
The Department of Homeland Security, which manages the Secret Service’s security forces, “did not respond to requests” for more resources, the sources said.
Regardless of which side of the conspiracy theory you lean towards, the assassination attempt on Trump has thrown the political debate surrounding the upcoming presidential election into a state of uncertainty. With just months to go until the November runoff and one day until the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, the political climate in the United States has never been more turbulent.
News / World News / US News / Was the attempted assassination of President Trump the result of “the worst mistake in history” or an “insider job”? Conspiracy theories abound
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