What to make of conspiracy theories?  There are a plethora of them out there.  Some of the more prominent ones that come to mind are on the JFK assassination, Flight 800, and the 9-11 terrorist attack.  Of more recent vintage is the Syria chemical weapons attack of 2013 as a possible false flag operation.  The common thread running through all of them is not the ubiquitous Russians or even extraterrestrials.  It's that U.S. government insiders were involved in perpetrating the acts themselves or in covering them up afterward.

In the past, I found the conspiracy theories interesting to read about but not all that believable.  Much of my assessment was based on a belief that the official investigators were trustworthy people.  How naïve of me.  What has been revealed in the past three years is basically how high-level government officials in the intelligence community and law enforcement literally plotted a soft coup to bring down a duly elected president.  In doing so, said parties lied, cheated, and blatantly broke numerous law to advance their agenda, with each covering up for the other.

This conspiracy was the work of not one or two men, but a large number of people in various government agencies acting in unison.  All checks and balances failed.  There were no doubt many in government who saw what was afoot, but none blew the whistle.  And the media, which are supposed to be the people's watchdog on government abuses, was not just asleep at the switch, but themselves participants in the attempted coup.

With this before us, what can a rational person do but reassess the validity of conspiracy theories, past, present, and future?  For example, who can now believe the official finding that Jeffery Epstein committed suicide in his jail cell?  Do you?

This is not to say that all the conspiracy theories are true.  What it does mean, however, is that they should be scrutinized much more than in the past, and the officials issuing reports on them must be looked at from all angles — specifically, cui bono? 

This is a shame, because the functioning of our system of government relies on citizens trusting the officials in charge.  Once trust is gone, the end of our form of government — a constitutional republic — is in sight.

Attorney General William Barr and prosecutor John Durham had better realize this.  If they think merely serving up a few scapegoats getting wrist-slap punishments will smooth the troubled waters, they are wrong.  Even big fish like the Clintons, former president Obama, and others cannot be allowed to swim away if evidence points to them for any crime.  A full and thorough accounting must be had, or Barr's and Durham's investigations will be consider another Deep State cover-up in many quarters of this country, and cynicism will spread.