The FBI is behind it. Really? That’s like saying the butler did it.
Colorado State House Rep. Scott Bottoms should know better. No one — not even his own congregation — is going to waste time on such a simple story.
Better go with: The quiet lawyer, with a reputation as the honest confidant, is secretly a long lost and embittered family relation. He killed the heir in the vineyard while the victim’s vain and headstrong daughters conspired to rid themselves of their meddlesome father, and the third wife was with her lover, a corrupt government agent connected to cartels to whom the victim’s sons owed mounting gambling debts. Now that’s a page-turner!
This is the level of inane and improbable complexity that a conspiracy theorist should aim for after an unexpected event such as an assassination or attempt, a narrow election, a terrorist attack, or a pandemic. So when Bottoms told his congregation that the FBI and the people controlling the FBI and the State Department were behind the recent attempted assassination of Donald Trump, he could have done better as a purveyor of fiction … a lot better.
Bottoms has already blamed the FBI for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. His new conspiracy theory needs a fresh villain. And since he’s presented zero evidence of an FBI plot, he could choose anyone!
While unnamed Deep State operatives controlling both the State and Justice Departments provide an air of mystery, they desperately need an outsider connection. And it can’t be George Soros or the Koch Brothers; they’re busy animating other fictions. As long as Pastor Bottoms is going to take time away from the Gospel to preach Christian Nationalist politics, he should name names. Resurrect Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Toss in a connection to Monsanto, the Masons, the Comintern, and the Kardashians.
Bottoms told his congregants the FBI would have succeeded were it not for God’s intervention. Too bad Presidents JFK, Garfield, McKinley, and Lincoln weren’t on the divine presidential protection plan. Bottoms predicted that by Nov. 5, Trump would be dead or in jail or the election would be suspended. Can we get a scripture citation on that?
Colorado-based podcaster Joe Oltmann did one better.
He wrote on Facebook: “Shooter is a rabid antifa member … like Erik Maulbetsch of the Colorado Times Recorder or Sean Heidi Beedle of the same organization. Or Kyle Antifa Clark of 9news … These are evil, disgustingly vile people and they need to be held accountable. They are terrorists. They are unAmerican and their Soros-funded rhetoric needs to stop. They stole elections, stole our voice and it’s time to hold them accountable. They are terrorists.”
Terrorists?
Illuminati would have been better bait for his followers looking for something to dig into on Parler and Truth Social. Clark is too dapper for a suicide vest anyway. And with names like Maulbetsch and Beedle, Oltmann should have said the Times Recorder crew are part of the Bilderberg Group or the Trilateral Commission, undercover globalists sowing the subversive seeds of free trade on the Front Range. Also, Antifa has been overplayed. The American public needs more Russian collusion conspiracy theories. Oh, and chemtrails would be a nice touch.
On the left, “it-was-staged” conspiracy theories have found fertile ground. A Morning Consult poll found a third of those who supported President Joe Biden believed the attempted assassination was faked to improve Trump’s prospects. Support for that theory explains why Democrats didn’t immediately propose new gun laws in the wake of the shooting.
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In this faked-assassination-attempt conspiracy theory, Trump slashed his own ear or used a concealed fake blood capsule to create the illusion. How do believers explain the death of bystander Corey Comperatore? Must have been the COVID shot.
Aberdeen, Wash., mayor, Douglas Or, said he wants independent doctors to look at the injury to make sure it wasn’t faked. Admittedly, the oversized gauze bandage adorning Trump’s ear at the Republican Convention did seem suspect. However, a fake injury could be covered by fake doctors with fake lab coats and reported as fake news. That’s where things could get interesting. Let’s bring in Mossad, Haliburton, Hillary Clinton, Project 2025, and those behind the faked moon landing and really develop the derisory potential of this half-baked conspiracy theory.
After all, if we’re going to circulate things without a single shred of evidence, let’s go big.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on X: @kristakafer.
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