Vivek Goes Full 9/11 Truther

In the Obama – Biden era the conspiracy theory to truth cycle has become so compressed that it seems like it takes only days for something labeled a “conspiracy theory” to turn out to be true, or at least technically possible.

So, we are open to all possibilities in matters where the government and Wall Street – Washington – Silicon Valley Axis try to twist the facts and obscure the truth by labeling something a conspiracy theory.

However, we must draw the line at the suggestion, made by GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, that federal agents on the planes that hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and crashed at Shanksville, Pennsylvania had anything to do with the 9/11 hijackings.

Mr. Ramaswamy first cast doubt on the outcome of U.S. government investigations into the 9/11 attacks in a BlazeTV interview earlier this month.

“I don’t believe everything the government has told us about 9/11,” he said, when asked whether 9/11 was an “inside job.”

In an interview with The Atlantic, Mr. Ramaswamy said, "I think it is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers… Maybe the answer is zero. It probably is zero for all I know, right?"

"I have no reason to think it was anything other than zero. But if we're doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened on 9/11, we have a 9/11 commission, absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to," he continued. "Well, if we're doing a January 6 commission, absolutely, those should be questions that we should get to the bottom of."

He later insisted that he didn't think the two events "belong in the same conversation" and that it's "ridiculous" to compare them — but continued to insist that he wants the "truth" about that day.

"I am not questioning what we — this is not something I'm staking anything out on," he said. "But I want the truth about 9/11."

When we first heard about this and found the article in The Atlantic, we though perhaps Vivek had simply drawn an inapt comparison between the known involvement of various government agents in the January 6, 2021, disturbance at the U.S. Capitol and the Muslim terrorist attack on 9/11.

But Ramaswamy has cast doubt on the official conclusions about the 9/11 attacks in two separate interviews over the last month. In the most recent he suggested that federal agents could have been on the planes taken over by Islamic terrorists Sept. 11, 2001, and implied that they were somehow involved.

And it gets worse. In a contentious CNN interview Monday, Ramaswamy claimed that The Atlantic misquoted him and denied that he said the quote. The Atlantic reporter later released his recording of the interview, confirming that Ramaswamy did actually say it, reported Nick Robertson of The Hill.

We don’t believe everything the government has told us about 9/11 either, but not because there is any evidence that it was an inside job by government agents.

The evidence about 9/11 points not to government agents facilitating the attack, but government incompetence allowing it to happen, and then failing to take the correct lessons about the threat Islamism presents to Western Civilization and constitutional liberty.

There are plenty of still-unplumbed questions about 9/11 and its aftermath, among which are: How and who was responsible for the failure of the immigration system to flag the visa overstayers among the hijackers, why were some persons of interest allowed to return to the Middle East in the aftermath, how and by whom were the hijackers funded, and why weren’t these financial transactions flagged, and most of all why was the known threat of bin Laden, al Qaeda and their allies inside the United States ignored and allowed to metastasize for so long?

There’s plenty to criticize about the 9/11 Commission report, not the least of which is that it failed to name names and hold anyone responsible for the disaster. However, Vivek Ramaswamy’s apparent embrace of one of the crazier post-9/11 conspiracy theories is destructive on a lot of levels, not the least of which is that it distracts Americans from focusing on the real threat – the war Islamists have declared on the West – and our own government’s lassitude and incompetence in dealing with the threat.

George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com and is a veteran of over 300 political campaigns. A member of American MENSA, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for former Congressman Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for retired Rep. Mac Thornberry, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He was in his office in the U.S. Capitol complex on September 11, 2001.

• Donald Trump

• Tucker Carlson interview

• Milwaukee GOP debate

• Vivek Ramaswamy 9/11

• federal agents

• 9/11 Commission

• January 6 commission

• Islamism