A spokesperson for Donald Trump blamed “Deep State Trump-haters and bad faith actors” for a bombshell report on Friday about a secret criminal investigation into whether Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the authoritarian ruler of Egypt, sought to give the former president $10m during his victorious 2016 White House run.
“The investigation referenced found no wrongdoing and was closed,” Steven Cheung told the Washington Post, which published the report on Friday.
“None of the allegations or insinuations being reported on have any basis in fact. The Washington Post is consistently played for suckers by Deep State Trump-haters and bad faith actors peddling hoaxes and shams.”
The deep state conspiracy theory holds that a permanent, shadow government of agents, operatives and bureaucrats exists to thwart Trump. One of the theory’s chief propagators, Steve Bannon, has said it is “for nut cases”. Nonetheless, it remains popular on the US right and among Trump’s aides.
Bannon was Trump’s campaign chair in 2016. According to the Post, five days before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, an organisation linked to Egyptian intelligence services withdrew $10m from a Cairo bank.
The Uncommitted National Movement has announced a number of demands in the run-up to the Democratic...
