On May 23, 2018, after news reports outed Stefan Halper, the Cambridge professor with major ties to U.S. and British intelligence agencies, as having been sent to strike up relationships with a Trump campaign advisors Cater Page, George Papadopoulos, and Sam Clovis in order to obtain information for the FBI, President Trump tweeted “SPYGATE could be one of the biggest political scandals in history!”
The Mockingbird Media immediately converged on two sets of talking points, in an attempt to control the narrative: 1) An operative sent by the FBI to covertly obtain information from a a person or persons within a presidential campaign of the opposing party cannot be called a ‘spy,” they must be called a “Human Source,” or an “informant,” or an “intelligence gatherer; 2) Since the media declared Halper couldn’t be called a spy, therefore, using the term SpyGate meant that the President was “pulling conspiracy theories from the fringe,” which is part of the actual headline from NYT.
Last week, President Trump promoted new, unconfirmed accusations to suit his political narrative: that a “criminal deep state” element within Mr. Obama’s government planted a spy deep inside his presidential campaign to help his rival, Hillary Clinton, win — a scheme he branded “Spygate.” It was the latest indication that a president who has for decades trafficked in conspiracy theories has brought them from the fringes of public discourse to the Oval Office.
Now that he is president, Mr. Trump’s baseless stories of secret plots by powerful interests are having a distinct effect, eroding public trust in institutions, undermining the idea of objective truth and sowing widespread suspicions about the government and news media that mirror his own.
Politico called it a “claim,” while Rolling Stones declared SpyGate a hoax, and the New Yorker called it “propaganda,” with the others using some reiteration of the same.