Top Admin Officials — and Trump Himself — Are Clinging Hard To Insane Conspiracy Theories

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

In some ways, we’re still living in the world that emerged in the month or so that led up to January 6. 

It was a period in which truly insane conspiracy theories arose from the fever swamps of internet forums to be turned over by the Department of Justice and other federal agencies, as Trump and his closest allies tried to pull any lever they could get their hands on in their desperate quest to overturn the election. 

Among those conspiracy theories was ItalyGate, which Josh Kovensky revisits for TPM this week. It’s a theory close to TPM’s heart — in part because it was perhaps the most deranged of all. It held that Obama secretly took cash he obtained from Iran as a payoff for the 2015 nuclear deal and transferred it to Italian operatives. In return, conspiracy theorists maintained, an Italian defense contractor named Leonardo (of course) used military satellites to zap U.S. voting machines, turning ballots from Trump and to Biden.

Trump’s then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows urged the DOJ to look into this. Then-Department of Defense official Kash Patel tried to get the Pentagon to do the same. 

Five years later, ItalyGate is not forgotten. In fact, Trump was posting about it on Truth Social Wednesday, as the FBI raided Fulton County, Georgia’s, election office, prompting “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theorists to go out of their mind with glee. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who is spearheading a government-wide effort to reinvestigate the 2020 election, was on the scene, upping the surrealism quotient. 

Fulton County was, of course, ground zero for 2020 election misinformation, as Nicole LaFond and Khaya Himmelman recalled for us in the hours after the raid. It was, in the universe of ItalyGate, one of the locales that had its voting machines zapped, naturally. There were also bountiful wild claims about suitcases of fraudulent ballots, ballot harvesting, mysterious ballot dumps, etc. Now, with Fulton County in the news again, we’re forced to refamiliarize ourselves with these theories as some of them resurface at the top levels of government.

—John Light

Trump’s Fed Chair Pick Has Thoughts on Fed Reserve Independence

President Donald Trump’s nominee for Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh is an outspoken critic of the U.S. central bank who served as a Federal Reserve governor during the global financial crisis.

In an April 2025 speech before a group of international central bankers and economists at the International Monetary Fund, Warsh addressed the most pressing issue facing the bank today: Federal Reserve independence. Highlighted in the final section before the speech’s conclusion, Warsh separated the idea of Federal Reserve independence related to monetary policy setting from central bank independence in its other, more expansive responsibilities. For the record, Warsh has said he thinks the Fed has gotten too big and too far from what he described as its primary roles to control price inflation and support maximum employment. And hasn’t done a particularly good job at either.

“Independence is not a policy goal unto itself,” Warsh said.

More:

I strongly believe in the operational independence of monetary policy as a wise political economy decision. And I believe that Fed independence is chiefly up to the Fed.

That does not mean central bankers should [be] treated as pampered princes. When the monetary outcomes are poor, the Fed should be subjected to serious questioning, strong oversight, and, when they err, opprobrium.

A narrow central bank has more going for it than mere tradition. Our constitutional republic is accepting of an independent central bank, only if it sticks closely to its congressionally directed duty and successfully performs its tasks. Ours is, after all, our third experiment with a central bank…not because of the success of its predecessors, but their failure. We should remember that the revealed preference of the body politic is a deep distaste for inflation—and also, for bailouts and power grabs.

The governance objective is clear: it’s to make the central bank safe for democracy, not to make democracy safe for the central bank.

— Layla A. Jones

Mike Lindell Is Still Mike Lindell 

The MyPillow Founder and a major public face of the “Stop the Steal” movement is running for governor of Minnesota. I interviewed Lindell on his gubernatorial race and the state of our election system.

Just as a reminder, Lindell is infamous for spreading wildly unhinged lies about the 2020 election. One of my favorites was the conspiracy theory that a foreign, unnamed, entity had (somehow??) systematically flipped votes from Trump to Biden right under our noses. (See ItalyGate above.) 

Lindell is still convinced the 2020 election was stolen and that voting machines are bad. I asked him how he could possibly trust the results of his own race if, as he claims, the system is so unsafe. 

I never got a clear answer, but I did get whatever this is: 

“I would never trust any election ever done with voting machines. That’s why 132 countries have banned them. It’s very simple. Argentina being the last one in 2022 that banned, and they freed their country,” he said. 

And when I asked him if he is still set on proving that the 2020 election was stolen, he simply told me that the “mathematics” of that election are “impossible.”

— Khaya Himmelman

Trump Admin Continues Investing In Architecture Of Immigrant Detention

Even as public sentiment turns sharply against ICE, the Trump administration is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the architecture of immigration detention. Twin reports out in Bloomberg and the Washington Post this week describe how the federal government is moving ahead with its plan to purchase up to 23 massive warehouses — many of which were built as e-commerce distribution facilities — to house a total of 80,000 people.

From Hagerstown, Md. to Kansas City, Mo., residents and local officials are pushing back, citing the potential human rights violations; the strain that these facilities would have on the water and sewer supply; and the proximity of some of the warehouses to homes and schools. 

The Trump administration’s frenetic effort to detain and deport immigrants has already proven deadly. Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025, according to the Guardian, “making it the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades.” Another eight people have died in dealings with ICE in the first month of 2026 alone.

People held in ICE detention facilities have experienced medical neglect, inadequate food and water, and cramped, uncomfortable conditions. Last weekend, immigrant families at the detention center in Dilley, Texas held a protest demanding the release of immigrant children, including 5-year-old Liam Ramos, who was detained in Minneapolis after returning home from preschool. 
Though more Americans now support abolishing ICE than oppose doing so, the Trump administration is trying to entrench the agency’s presence in our communities.

— Allegra Kirkland