A top Democratic strategist to LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic tycoon Reid Hoffman floated the possibility the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump may have been a false-flag operation, according to an email to journalists obtained by Semafor.
Dmitri Mehlhorn said in the Saturday evening email that one possibility for the attack—“which feels horrific and alien and absurd in America, but is quite common globally”—is that it was both encouraged and potentially staged by Trump to secure a political advantage.
“This is a classic Russian tactic, such as when Putin killed 300 civilians in 1999 and blamed it on terrorists to ride the backlash to winning power,” Mehlhorn wrote, according to Semafor. “Others who have embraced this tactic of committing raw evil and then benefitting from the backlash include Hamas on October 7. If any Trump officials encouraged or knew of this attack, that is morally horrific, and Republicans of decency must demand that Trump step down as unfit.”
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Mehlhorn acknowledged the other possibility that “some crazy anti-Trumper in this chaotic moment decided to assassinate the former President.” Law enforcement officials have confirmed the identity of the shooter as Thomas Crooks, 20, and have not publicly identified any ties to the Trump campaign or larger apparatus.
While Mehlhorn acknowledged the line of questioning was conspiratorial, he maintained that it was still a reasonable question to ask. “This is a classic Putin play and given the facts seems more plausible. Look at the actual shot. Look at the staging. Look at how ready Trump is to rally; this pampered baby shit his pants when an eagle lunged at his food,” he wrote. “Look at how quickly Trump protects himself at the expense of others, but showed few of those lifelong instincts in this moment. And consider how often Putin and his allies run this play.”
Mehlhorn eventually acknowledged that his statements were not public remarks. In a statement provided after this story ran, Mehlhorn apologized for making the comments at all, particularly for the attention they took away from the person killed at the Trump rally.
“We must unite in condemnation of such violence in every instance, without reservation,” Mehlhorn said. “Any other topic is a distraction.”
But his comments came days after Hoffman sarcastically—and controversially—told GOP mega-donor Peter Thiel that he wished he had made Trump “an actual martyr” through the funding of lawsuits like E. Jean Carroll’s against Trump and Smartmatic’s against Fox News and Newsmax.
This is the second time Mehlhorn has stoked controversy this month, telling Democratic donors earlier in July that a “dead” or “comatose” Joe Biden stood a better chance at defeating Trump than Vice President Kamala Harris, according to Semafor. He later tried to walk back his remarks, saying Harris would still be a “competitive” candidate against Trump.
