Former President Donald Trump was shot in the ear during a campaign rally last week, and now there are wild theories that the attack might have been part of a larger conspiracy involving the deep state. Despite initial confusion and claims of Secret Service failure, some speculate that the attack was more than just the work of a lone gunman. Critics are pointing to the possibility that powerful forces within the U.S. government could have orchestrated or allowed the attempt to disrupt Trump’s campaign. As investigations unfold, questions grow about whether this was a politically motivated assassination attempt or an elaborate inside job.

At a campaign rally last week, a 20-year-old would-be assassin who scaled a nearby roof less than 180 meters from the stage fired former US President Donald Trump in the ear. Some views suggest there was more at play than just a lone gunman as a result of the Secret Service’s astounding failure reports Sputnik.

In separate interviews with Sputnik, former US Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, speculated that former US President and Republican nominee for president Donald Trump might not make it to the election.

“My question is whether they (the deep state) will take another shot at Trump,” McGovern said on Friday. “I’m serious here. There’s so much at stake. So damn much at stake. And I just wonder if he’s going to make it and, call me a conspiracy theorist, but these people, they don’t have much conscience if they tolerate genocide in Gaza, if they tolerate half a million Ukrainian youths being killed for their whims.”

On Sunday, Roberts voiced similar opinions. “The real question is: will the deep state get away with its assassination attempt and will it attempt another?” Roberts said. “I expect that there will be more attempts on Trump’s life.”

Before resorting to the assassination, Roberts said that they had used several strategies to remove Trump, including “Russia-gate, two impeachments, porn star-gate, documents-gate, insurrection-gate, and then 4 criminal indictments and several civil indictments.”

“The Democrats acting for the deep state believed they could get rid of Trump in these ways,” Roberts said. “When these attempts failed, they turned to assassination. Acoustic evidence of the shootings makes it completely clear that there were more than one shooter. [Thomas Matthew] Crooks was the patsy. Trump survived the assassination because he turned his head.”

With a laser rangefinder in hand, the alleged deceased gunman, Crooks, allegedly slipped past security and climbed a nearby building while passersby futilely tried to alert police officers and Secret Service personnel. Authorities have also given conflicting information; while early reports claimed Crooks had his rifle with him, other reports claimed the gun had been planted before the incident.

Many eyewitnesses claimed to have heard two shooters during the live broadcast of the incident on US media. At least one of them mentioned a nearby water tower, which has since sparked internet rumors.

There have also been several justifications given for why the building was not insured. State officials have refuted Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s original claim that the structure was under the jurisdiction of the local police. She later stated that it was unsafe to put an agent on the roof due to its steepness.

Additionally, reports state that the Secret Service was notified of Crooks anywhere from ten to thirty minutes before Trump’s shooting.

On Monday, Cheatle is supposed to speak before Congress. She has refused to step down from her position despite repeated requests from public officials.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has been served with a subpoena by the US House Committee on Homeland Security, which requests information pertaining to the event’s security strategy. According to the letter, Mayorkas did not adequately respond to our requests for information and records about the security measures taken in connection with the attempted assassination.

“Incompetence on the part of the federal agencies is the default position, you’ve got to know that first,” explained McGovern. “There’s so much ample evidence of that. But this one, [there’s] too much evidence. It doesn’t parse.”

“In order to keep the public’s focus off the attempted assassination, the Secret Service is being blamed for withholding sufficient resources necessary to protect Trump,” argued Roberts. “This focuses attention away from a plot to kill Trump and places it on the sufficiency of the Secret Service’s budget and the appropriateness of its ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ personnel policy.”

However, Roberts does not believe that even under Republican direction, the inquiry will zealously pursue the truth.

“The Republicans are likely to agree to sweep the intent issue under the rug in order to ‘protect America’s reputation,’” Roberts said, referring to the intentions of the deep state. “It wouldn’t do to showcase the US as a country where presidents and would-be presidents are shot down by the opposition.”

According to McGovern, the deep state had the chance, means, and motivation to take down Trump.

“There are a lot of guys in the deep state, a lot of guys Trump knows did him in for four years and tried to prevent him from being elected and then successfully deprived him from being elected in 2020. And he has a book on these guys. If he throws this book at the guys, they have a lot to lose, so incentive, motive, I think the motive is there,” McGovern explained.

“What better opportunity than a day or two right before the Republican National Committee nominates Trump? You get him before he’s nominated. They’re thrown into chaos and disarray… call me a conspiracy theorist if you will,” he added.

One contributing element, according to McGovern, is the opponents of Trump’s increasing desperation.

“That’s why, in my view, one should look for another shot. One should look for desperate means to prevent Trump from becoming president.”

US media said on Tuesday that US intelligence officials were worried about a Trump attack that might have been funded by Iran, possibly on election eve. However, they did not provide any supporting information, and the sources mentioned remained nameless. The accusation was sharply refuted by Iran, who described it as “unsubstantiated and malicious.”

Dr. Mohammad Marandi, an experienced Iranian-American scholar and international affairs watcher living in Tehran, told Sputnik he is skeptical of the assertion and acknowledged the possibility that US government agents could be involved. He declared, “We know that US intelligence always lies.”

“The [attempted] assassination of Trump was obviously either an inside job carried out by the Biden regime, or elements within the Biden regime, or the US Secret Service was extremely incompetent because the shooter was very close and it should not have happened,” Marandi said. “If this was Russia or Iran or any other country with a competent government, there would have been no chance for such a thing to happen.”

US leaders have universally denounced the attack, including US President Joe Biden and other Democrats. But since 2016, Democrats and left-wing media have wrongly claimed that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy and that he is under the influence of the Kremlin.

A few days before the attempted assassination, an advertisement was produced by the Biden campaign, which charged Trump with being the “lapdog” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“This is who Donald Trump is, a lapdog for a dictator who blames America first,” the ad, which was pulled after the shooting, said dramatically. “The United States must never be like Putin’s Russia; we don’t empower dictators, we don’t undermine freedom.”

“When he said he intended to normalize relations with Russia, Trump threatened the budget and power of the military and security complex, which needs Russia as an enemy,” Roberts explained. “The director of the CIA, John Brennan, declared Trump to be a ‘traitor to America.’ This set the ruling establishment working against Trump.”

Prime Minister Robert Fico was the target of five gunshots during an attempted assassination in May. Fico’s killer, like Trump, was resolved to act alone. Fico, like Trump, voiced his opposition to certain NATO policies, especially those that affected Ukraine.

“It is a carbon copy scenario,” Fico said of Trump’s and his assassination attempts. “Political opponents of Donald Trump are trying to imprison him, and when they don’t succeed, they enrage the public so much that some poor bugger picks up a gun.”