Is ‘Paid Protester’ a Valid Vocation for IRS 1040?

Jun 23, 2025 11:57 PM EDT, Mon

Is the Justice Department seriously pursuing Trump’s ‘paid protesters’ conspiracy theory?

That Trump is leaning into his “paid protesters” conspiracy theory is a problem. If officials are investigating the claims, that makes it worse.

June 12, 2025, 11:45 AM EDT By Steve Benen

For nearly a decade, Donald Trump has tried to reject the legitimacy of those who protest against him, falsely accusing them of being “paid protesters.” It’s a pitch rooted in an ugly assumption: Americans who disagree with the president can only be explained by corrupt schemes and illicit payments.

Those who side with Republicans are real, the argument goes, while Americans who disagree must be seen as inauthentic.

As aggressive tactics from Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents spark a public backlash, the president has leaned into the “paid protesters” line with increased vigor and enthusiasm and enthusiasm. Trump pushed the line during his remarks to U.S. troops at Fort Bragg this week — he claimed that an unnamed, nefarious person is secretly “financing” the protests in Los Angeles, for example — and echoed the evidence-free claim to reporters at Andrews Air Force base soon after. He repeated the line again at the Kennedy Center a day later.

When a reporter asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt who, exactly, the president believes is paying the protesters, instead of answering the question, she claimed that Trump has “a lot of common sense” — despite the fact that his conspiracy theory is neither common nor sensible.

But even more interesting were the comments from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard during her recent Faux News appearance.

“This is something that the Department of Justice and the FBI are looking into. Who is funding these protestors?” the DNI asked rhetorically. Gabbard added that she believes that protesters are “obviously” being “orchestrated.”

For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that it’s not at all “obvious” that a secret rascal is putting up enormous amounts of money to pay people to protest against the president and his agenda. Given the scope of the public outrage, the idea that the protesters — in L.A. and in cities across the country — are being paid is plainly silly.

But I’m wondering if Gabbard is correct about what federal law enforcement is “looking into.”

Just because the DNI claimed that Trump’s conspiracy theory is generating Justice Department and FBI scrutiny doesn’t mean that it’s actually happening. Gabbard says all sorts of things that have little bearing on reality, so it’s best not to make any assumptions.

But if she’s correct, it’s unsettling to think federal law enforcement resources have been diverted in such a ridiculous way.

What’s more, there’s a larger pattern to consider. The New York Times reported this week that top officials at the DOJ and the FBI are scrambling to keep up with Trump priorities that are “rooted in misinformation and conspiracy theories.” The article added that Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino are now “running what amounts to a conspiracy theory fulfillment center with unstocked shelves, critics say.”

With this in mind, Gabbard’s claims might’ve sounded outlandish, but they might very well have been right.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

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