Some Republicans Embrace Conspiracy Theories on Trump Assassination

Representative Eli Crane, an Arizona Republican and former Navy SEAL, says he is no conspiracy theorist. But in the weeks since the attempted assassination of Donald J. Trump, he has made the baseless suggestion that the shooting was part of a coordinated campaign by Democrats or shadowy government actors to try to stop the former president from reclaiming the White House.

“Not only did they try and bankrupt him, but they tried to put him in prison,” Mr. Crane told Jeff Oravits, a right-wing radio personality in Arizona, last week. “When that didn’t work, they tried to put him in prison for 750 years. And many of us said the next step in this escalation is for them to try and kill him because they can’t — they know they can’t beat him fair and square.”

In an appearance on The Glenn Beck Program, Mr. Crane, who traveled to the Pennsylvania rally site where Mr. Trump was shot to conduct his own investigation, said, “I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist, but at the same time, I don’t want to, you know, rule anything out because I don’t put it past some of the people in our government to do anything necessary to hold on to power.”

No evidence has emerged that anyone other than a lone gunman, Thomas Crooks, tried to kill the president this month. Mr. Crooks, 20, was a registered Republican who was killed at the scene and left few clues about his beliefs or what motivated him to open fire at a Trump rally on July 13.

But in the telling of Mr. Crane and several of his right-wing Republican colleagues in Congress, as well as G.O.P. candidates seeking election this fall, there is far more to the story. They are trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories that insinuate that Democrats and government forces played a role in trying