White House aides are growing paranoid about an unproven Deep State conspiracy theory


Members of the Trump administration are growing increasingly paranoid about an alleged, unproven theory that the FBI planted "evidence" of the 2016 campaign's ties to Russia as a fail-safe in case Hillary Clinton lost the election, Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman reports. "The guy who will end up burning in all this is [former CIA director] John Brennan," said President Trump's close ally, Roger Stone. "If I were him I'd break the capsule and swallow it now. That psychopath is going down."
Trump has demanded that the Justice Department look into whether Obama administration officials coordinated surveillance of his campaign for political reasons, although reports on the matter said there was no evidence that an informant was ever embedded in the campaign, as Trump has repeatedly suggested. On Wednesday, Trump stoked the rumors, tweeting: "Look how things have turned around on the Criminal Deep State. They go after Phony Collusion with Russia, a made up Scam, and end up getting caught in a major SPY scandal the likes of which this country may never have seen before!"
One West Wing insider told Vanity Fair, "There's a paranoia about who else" might be an FBI informant. Read more about the rumors bubbling up in the White House here.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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