Top adviser to anti-Trump LinkedIn billionaire sorry for suggesting assassination bid was 'staged'

Former President Trump was shot in his right ear after turning toward his right amid the gunfire. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images / Getty Images)

A leading Democrat fundraiser and political strategist is apologizing after he emailed journalists Saturday night to suggest the attempted assassination of former President Trump may have been "staged."

Semafor reported that Dmitri Mehlhorn, the top political adviser to billionaire LinkedIn co-founder and Democrat mega-donor Reid Hoffman, sent an email Saturday night to a group of journalists after the incident and wrote that one "possibility – which feels horrific and alien and absurd in America, but is quite common globally – is that this 'shooting' was encouraged and maybe even staged so Trump could get the photos and benefit from the backlash."

Mehlhorn wrote that false flag attacks were "a classic Russian tactic" used by Vladimir Putin to win power in 1999 and that other examples of the "tactic of committing raw evil and then benefiting from the backlash include Hamas on October 7."

He went on to say that another possibility "is that some crazy anti-Trumper in this chaotic moment decided to assassinate the former President." Law enforcement authorities identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who was killed after firing shots that grazed Trump's right ear and killed one rallygoer while wounding two others. Authorities have not revealed his motive and the investigation into the assassination attempt is ongoing.