Trump-Backed Senate Candidate Suggested Jan. 6 Was a False Flag Operation Set Up By the FBI

Blake Masters, the Trump-backed Republican candidate running for U.S. Senate in Arizona, continued to make headlines Wednesday – for all the wrong reasons.

Masters has been under increased scrutiny since Trump endorsed him last month to be the GOP candidate to try and unseat Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).

Masters, like Ohio’s GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance, has been backed by one-time Silicon Valley insider, Peter Thiel, who has contributed some $13 million to the race.

Earlier in the week a radio interview Masters gave in April resurfaced, in which he blamed “Black people” for gun violence in the country.

Now, CNN has uncovered a conversation Masters had in March while meeting with conservative activists at a Phoenix IHOP.  In the conversation, Masters parroted the far-right conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a false flag attack, set up by the FBI.

Masters “was asked whether he would support investigating US intelligence operations to uncover the federal government’s ‘nefarious activities,’” reported CNN.

Masters then responded, “Absolutely.”

The former venture capitalist went on to suggest “the conspiracy theory that the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol actually may have been a false-flag operation set up by the FBI, according to a recording of the March 30 meeting obtained by CNN.”

“Don’t we suspect that like one-third of the people outside of the Capitol complex on January 6 were actual FBI agents hanging out,” he added.

“What did people know and when did they know it? We got to get to the bottom of this,” argued Masters, addressing the GrassRoots Tea Party Activists of Arizona.

Masters is becoming known for his controversial past statements, which have already made their way into attacks ads against him by other Republicans in the race.

Masters’s main GOP opponent, Jim Lamon, released an attack ad over the weekend suggesting Masters is anti-semitic.

According to The Washington Examiner, the ad “largely draws upon an anti-war article Masters wrote as an undergraduate at Stanford University.”

“You think you know Blake Masters?” the ad begins.

“Did you know Blake Masters called World War II unjust and extensively quoted an antisemite who believes Jews and Zionists are bent on world domination? Did you know Blake Masters shared an article calling Israel ‘the North Korea of the Middle East’? Blake Masters even praised the Unabomber and unironically quoted a Nazi war criminal,” the ads narrator ads.

The Examiner notes that the ad is based on an “investigative piece written by Jewish Insider in April that details an article Masters wrote for a libertarian website back in 2006.”

Masters slammed the ad over the weekend, saying, “We knew they were going to try to call me a racist and a sexist and a terrorist. Well, it turns out, loser Republicans will do that too.”