A wild conspiracy theory about a woman acting strangely behind Donald Trump when he was shot has been condemned.
The woman raised eyebrows for her oddly relaxed demeanor after not flinching and even pulling out her phone when shots rang out at a Pennsylvania protest last week.
Images of the moment sparked much speculation.
A bizarre conspiracy theory has since emerged claiming the woman was FBI Deputy Director Janeen DiGuiseppi, and that she directed the sniper who nearly killed Trump.
They also said the woman they claimed to be DiGuiseppi nodded before gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire.
But both conservatives and liberals have since condemned the theory.
“If you think the FBI deputy director sat front row at a Trump rally to ‘give instructions’ to the shooter, you’re a complete idiot. A next-level moron,” a Republican journalist known simply as Bonchie wrote on X.
A woman wearing a black hat who was sitting behind Donald Trump when he survived an assassination attempt has raised eyebrows among many who say her behavior was strange.
Several X users pointed to a perceived resemblance to FBI Deputy Director Janeen DiGuiseppi as evidence of the false claim.
Footage showing an unidentified woman, wearing sunglasses, a white shirt and a black hat, pulling out her phone as gunshots rang out at a Pennsylvania protest on Saturday has gone viral.
He did this while everyone else, including Trump, cowered to the ground in fear for their lives.
BBC disinformation specialist Shayan Sardarizadeh also took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to debunk the claims.
“A new conspiracy theory, currently racking up millions of views, baselessly claims that a supporter seen standing behind Trump when he was shot is the FBI’s Deputy Director of Domestic Threats, Janeen DiGuiseppi, who was assisting the shooter,” he said. “These are two different women.”
Others also argued that the woman’s calm demeanor was due to mass shootings being so common in the United States.
The attempted assassination of the former president has generated a vast sea of claims, some wild, that reflect the terrifying uncertainties surrounding the attack as well as the febrile and polarized political climate in the United States.
Footage of her pulling out her phone to record sparked unfounded speculation that she was an FBI agent coordinating the shooting.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures as he is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is led off the stage.
Mentions of Trump on social media were up to 17 times higher than average in the hours after the shooting, according to PeakMetrics, a cyber firm that tracks online narratives.
Many of those mentions were expressions of sympathy for Trump or calls for unity, but many others made unsubstantiated and fantastical claims.
Many of the most misleading claims sought to blame Trump or his Democratic opponent, President Joe Biden, for the attack.
Some voices on the left quickly proclaimed that the shooting was a “false flag operation” fabricated by Trump, while some Trump supporters suggested that the Secret Service intentionally failed to protect Trump on orders from the White House.
The Secret Service on Sunday denied claims circulating on social media that the Trump campaign had asked for extra security ahead of Saturday’s rally and was told no.
Following the shooting that killed a bystander on Saturday, investigators were searching for clues about what may have driven 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to carry out the shocking attack.
The FBI said it was investigating it as a possible act of domestic terrorism, but the lack of a clear ideological motive on the part of the man shot dead by the Secret Service has led to conspiracy theories flourishing.
The FBI said it believes Crooks, who had bomb-making materials in the car he drove to the rally, acted alone.
FBI identifies Thomas Matthew Crooks as the shooter during the attempted assassination of Donald Trump
Investigators have found no threatening comments on social media accounts or ideological positions that could help explain what led him to attack Trump before the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was whisked off the stage by the Secret Service, his face smeared with blood.
Trump said on social media that the top of his right ear was pierced in the shooting, but aides said he was “in very good spirits” ahead of his arrival Sunday in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention.
Two bystanders were seriously injured, while a former fire chief in the area, Corey Comperatore, died. Pennsylvania’s governor said Comperatore, 50, died a hero after throwing himself over his family to protect them.
DailyMail.com has contacted the FBI for comment.
