Mediaboss Marketing

A Republican state lawmaker in Idaho refused to back away Monday from claims that the deadly violence following a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month might have been staged with the help of former President Barack Obama.

RepresentativeBryan Zollinger shared an article last week that suggested the Unite the Right marchwas orchestrated by Obama along with other leading Democrats, such as Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer and billionaire donor George Soros.

Related: Donald Trump's Charlottesville response will continue to haunt him, says Watergate veteran

Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now

After his sharing of the article from a conservative site calledAmerican Thinker began to receive significant backlash on his Facebook page, Zollinger wrote that he thought the unsubstantiated piece was interesting and thought provoking and that some of the theories were plausible.

Despite the criticism from across Idaho and the country, Zollinger saidhe was not backing away from his belief that there was at least a kernel of truth in the article.

At first, I felt genuinely bad that maybe I had offended somebody, he said in an interview Monday with Idahos Post Register. Since then, the amazing amount of hate and the despicable things that have been said about myself, my wife, my kids, Ive doubled down.

American Thinker regularly posts articles with misleading claims. Its piece on Charlottesville questions whether the rallywas a set up to smear President Donald Trump as a racist.

What if Signer and McAuliffe, in conjunction with Antifa and other Soros-funded groups like Black Lives Matter, planned and orchestrated what happened in Charlottesville and meant for events to unfold roughly as they did? the article read.

White nationalist demonstrators hold shields as they clash with a group of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12. Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Zollinger gave no suggestion of wanting to back away from sharing such unfounded speculation, even raising the possibility of direct involvement by Trumps predecessor.

[Obama] was a community organizer before he was the president of the United States, Zollinger said. Istill do think its plausible.

In Charlottesville, one woman died when a car, reportedlydriven by an individual with links to white supremacists, drove through a crowd of counterprotesters. In the aftermath, Trump received strong criticism, even from members of his own party, for blaming both sides for the violence. The president also said that there were very fine people on both sides, referring to the white nationalists and counterprotesters.

Original post:
Idaho Republican Insists It's 'Plausible' Barack Obama Staged Charlottesville White Nationalist Rally Violence - Newsweek