Trump is privately pushing the theory the attack on an Ohio FBI office by a Trump supporter was a false flag, report says

Trump has quietly suggested that the attack on an FBI office was faked, Rolling Stone reported.

Trump has said little publicly about Ricky Shiffer, who was killed attempting to breach the office.

Baseless claims that Shiffer's attack was a ruse have been spreading on social media too.

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Former President Donald Trump is suggesting to those around him that one of his supporters who was shot dead attempting to breach an FBI building was actually part of a false flag operation, Rolling Stone reported.

Trump has been publicly silent about the armed man who, on August 11, tried to enter the FBI office near Cincinnati, Ohio, prompting a standoff with police in which he was killed.

Ricky Shiffer had been on the agency's radar for months over potential involvement in the Capitol riot, The New York Times reported.

Posts from a Truth Social account in his name expressed fury at the agency after it raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, and described his attention to attack the FBI.

According to two unnamed people cited by Rolling Stone, Trump expressed concern about the man's mental health, describing him as "crazy."

He also, the sources said, has been telling people close to him that Shiffer might actually have been someone acting to discredit Trump supporters, per Rolling Stone. The sources described this as a "false-flag theory."

The idea, for which there is no evidence, is reminiscent of "false flag" claims from Trump's most fervent online supporters.

Those spread across far-right corners of the internet after the news broke, as Insider's Kieran Press-Reynolds and Katie Anthony reported. (There is no indication Trump's conversations were influenced by this.)

A screenshot from Reddit-style site Patriots.win discussing the attack on FBI's Cincinnati office as a "false flag." Patriots.win

Multiple posts on Patriots.win — a common gathering place for people who used to frequent the banned subreddit r/The_Donald — show the idea gaining traction in the immediate aftermath of Shiffer's attack.

Similar claims were made across Twitter and Truth Social, Insider reported.