Conservatives have concocted a conspiracy theory that claims President Joe Biden purposely delayed the news about the missing Titan submersible’s implosion to distract from allegations regarding his son Hunter Biden.
The conspiracy theory, just one of several invented by the far-right in recent days, began on Thursday after a debris field believed to belong to the missing vessel was discovered. It was later reported that a top-secret U.S. Navy acoustic detection system had recorded a sound “anomaly” days prior in the same area where the submersible had gone missing.
The U.S. Coast Guard was alerted to the anomaly, which was described as “consistent with an implosion or explosion,” but was told that the data was not definitive. Given that the sound was not confirmed to have originated from the vessel, the Coast Guard continued its search.
But the news of the U.S. Navy’s discovery was seen as suspicious by conspiracy theorists, who immediately claimed that the Biden administration withheld the information in order to keep the news cycle away from an IRS whistleblower who accused the father and son of corruption.
“The Navy knew the sub imploded days ago and held the news until today… It was a plan to distract from impeachment and Hunter,” conservative figure Tim Young wrote.
The conspiracy theory was also spread by prominent far-right figures such as Laura Loomer, who accused the world’s media of being involved in the so-called deception.
“So basically the 5 people on board died days ago, but Biden allowed for the story to dominate all news cycles as a way to distract from the news about Hunter Biden this week,” she wrote. “They knew days ago that the sub exploded but kept it going as a tool of distraction to cover for Biden’s crack head son. That is so sick and twisted when you think about how the media was doing an oxygen countdown and making the family members think there was still hope.”
Members of the Republican Party also latched on to the conspiracy theory. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) likewise suggested that the military purposely waited to break the news of the submersible’s fate to help Hunter Biden.
“If the U.S. Navy suspected that the Titan Submersible imploded just hours after it began its voyage, why did the Coast Guard wait until Thursday—the same day the IRS whistleblowers testified before Congress—to make their announcement to the public?” she asked.
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) even went as far as to demand that a congressional investigation be opened to determine whether the military, Biden administration, and media secretly colluded to protect the president’s son.
A Navy official noted that it would have been “irresponsible” to claim that the vessel’s five passengers were dead based only on its inconclusive data.
Conspiracy theorists often claim that world events are nothing more than planned distractions from whatever topic they are currently fixated on.
