By Will Keys
There are moments in public life when the simplest explanation is so outrageous that ordinary people instinctively reject it. They look instead for a hidden hand — a conspiracy, a mastermind, some coordinating intelligence behind events that defy common sense. But there are times when the unbelievable truth is not conspiracy at all, but plain institutional rot. The Butler assassination attempt on Donald J. Trump sits squarely in that category.
The official conclusion — after reviews, panels, testimony, intelligence sweeps and classified briefings — is stark: Trump was not nearly killed by a world-class conspiracy but by a combination of a hapless young man and a security apparatus that forgot how to do its job.
That is how close America came to losing a former President: not through malice, but through decay.
It is deeply unsatisfying, but deeply true. A conspiracy requires competence. Planning. Discipline. Secrecy. Precision. Not one of those features was present at Butler. What was present was complacency. The only elevated sniper platform at the rally was left unsecured. Drone support was declined. Reports of a suspicious young man were ignored. Counter-sniper teams were mispositioned. Communications failed. And the shooter himself — a solitary, unstable amateur — was allowed to roam into a textbook kill position.
If this had been a coordinated plot, Trump would be dead. That he isn’t is a testament not to the brilliance of the agencies charged with protecting him, but to the incompetence of the assassin.
It is the classic old rule: cock-up over conspiracy.
And it is far more frightening than any conspiracy.
The Butler failure has its parallel in another scandal that still haunts modern political memory: the death of Jeffrey Epstein. The cameras failed. The guards slept. Logs were falsified. Procedures evaporated. A man whose testimony threatened the powerful simply vanished from the living because the institution surrounding him collapsed under the weight of its own neglect. Again, the public turned instinctively to conspiracy because the alternative — that the government could be this incompetent — was too offensive to reason.
But that is the lesson.
The most dangerous conspiracy is no conspiracy at all — merely a system that no longer functions.
And now, as an Australian, I bring this home.
For twelve long years, Gerard Baden-Clay has sat in a Queensland prison, convicted of murdering his wife. Whether he is innocent or guilty is not the point of this Op-Ed. The point is the level of incompetence that infected the investigation — incompetence so profound that it would be laughed out of any serious judicial system, were it not tragic in its consequences.
A witness of impeccable credentials reported seeing a woman — alive — running at the precise time, date and location relevant to the case. The police never disclosed it to the defence.
A man confessed to the murder. The police “investigated”, but again never told the defence.
The victim’s phone activated the morning after the alleged killing. That too was suppressed from disclosure.
Any one of these would be enough to shatter confidence in the integrity of the prosecution. All three together paint a picture of investigative failure so complete it becomes indistinguishable from misconduct.
And then came something even more egregious: the Queensland Misconduct Commission — now amalgamated into the Crime and Corruption Commission — summoned the Baden-Clay family before a secret star-chamber, compelling evidence under threat of punishment if they disclosed the proceedings. This was done despite having no legislative jurisdiction over an ordinary domestic homicide. Their remit is terrorism, organised crime, and police corruption — not intimidating citizens in a high-profile murder case.
Twelve years have passed. Twelve years of a man’s life consumed while key exculpatory evidence lay buried. Twelve years during which the “wheels of justice” have turned so slowly they resemble the rusted cogs of a forgotten machine. If the phrase “snail’s pace” seems too mild, it is because the true pace — the pace of bureaucratic self-protection — is slower still.
What unites Butler, Epstein, and Baden-Clay is not conspiracy. It is institutional incompetence so vast that the ordinary citizen simply cannot believe it. A conspiracy at least implies intelligence. Incompetence implies something far worse: a system indifferent to its own failures, indifferent to the truth, and indifferent to the human cost of its mistakes.
And that is why I say it plainly:
The most dangerous conspiracy is no conspiracy at all.
It is a system that fails — and keeps failing — because there is no mechanism left within it capable of telling the truth, correcting the record, or protecting the innocent.
Until that changes, none of us — in America or Australia — can afford the luxury of complacency.
By Will Keys
Author of ‘Perfidious Albion’ and ‘Rhodesia Road to Redemption’.
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Very good Will. I concur. I read somewhere that the CIA invented and popularised the words “conspiracy theory” and associating it with those in society who were not very bright and had nothing better to offer, thus bringing about the situation where conspiracy theorists are dubbed idiots and ridiculed by the general public, but I see quite a few internet searches say this is a conspiracy theory!!! Anyway, I personally think there is some truth in it as what a clever way to throw people off the trail when there is a real conspiracy in progress.
Hi Alistair, I would not discount your theory at all.
In authoritarian countries; ie China, North Korea, Zimbabwe etc. If you speak out against the leaders or governments you are likely to be imprisoned, or worse. In Western countries you can say what you like without recourse, including and especially the USA. However if there is any negative mention of Israel, it all turns blue, with the anti Semitic slurs. So, who is in charge? Who has a hold over the world, including Trump. I’m all for Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson.
Hi Steve, I completely agree that free speech is fundamentally important. I am not opposed to Candace or Tucker but I’m less a fan. They have both caused raised eye-brows. As the Zen Master said, “We’ll see”. I wish both well. I remain pro DJT & MAGA & Israel.
Will: Is this not the very issue/problem, that Donald Trump and his NEW GOP, wish to clean up, or correct, at the very least. Strange is it not that most of this type of behaviour and inaction occurs when there are Left Leaning people in charge of our daily lives. Simply look at what took place under Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Bidet, and TWO Bushes, for factual evidence of what you have stated in this posting.
Hi Doug, I tend to agree with what I interpret to be your general sentiments. The ‘bastardry’ (my word) is founded on a questionable mindset and a thought process inculcated in falsity. I’m sorry to say that left-wing feminine-psychology coupled with misinformned Saul Alinsky Mauxist/Socialism is at root. It is a mindset that is out of control and cannot be reasoned with. The long term outcome may be horrible.
It’s a bit like love and hate.
“Complete indifference” to is held by many to much more difficult to deal with!
Michael
Hi Michael, could you expand on the theme.
If you want an unfolding story about political conspiracy, you need look no further than what I detail below.
In the UK there is a conspiracy of silence surrounding the industrial-scale gang-raping of young white girls (children) by gangs of Pakistani Muslim men. These organised gangs have operated with impunity across the North of England for almost three decades and have been found operating in over 50 towns and cities. The police pretended it was not happening. Social Services ignored the evidence, and elected officials ignored the cries of victims and parents. The reason…no section of “authority” was prepared to take action because they knew they would be accused of racism. Whistleblowers were silenced, even arrested for the “hate crime” of accusing Muslims of doing anything wrong. The Muslim is untouchable. As guilty as sin, but treated as a protected specimen. Persistent rumours circulated, and some fainthearted attempts at prosecution began. Some gangs were gaoled. Groups of up to 10 Muslim (Pakistani) men were convicted of the gang-raping of thirteen to sixteen-year-old white girls. Sentences range from a slap on the wrist 2 months to a “hefty” sentence of seven years. All know they would be released after serving a maximum of 50%% of the sentence. Six gangs out of over 50, as the gang-raping continues unchecked. The only person who believes this was confined to the North of England is the Muslim mayor of London. He declares that there is no problem on his patch!
To his fury, Scotland Yard has just opened the previously sealed files of complaints going back at least a decade and are now investigating at least 9,000 allegations of rape by gangs of Muslim men in our capital city alone. Gangs are being uncovered in the East, West and South of the UK. The Scottish National Party (until recently with a Muslim leader) declared that Scotland had no rape gangs. With that Muslim leader no longer in power, the lid has been lifted on dozens of gangs operating in Scotland. Wales is no different. Yet the mayor of Lonson, a devout Muslim, says “Move on, nothing to see here.”
Our Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, was head of the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) during the time the reported rapes were first reported.
He decided there was no substance to the allegations. The files were closed. Take no further action. The cover-up was in place.
The Muslim vote is vital to many Labour politicians; without it they would lose their seats at an election. This was proven to be true when, at the elections of July 2024, at least seven safe Labour seats were won by Muslim candidates… they were elected by the concentrated Muslim votes in formerly strong Labour seats. Why did the Muslims decide to ditch Labour candidates? Simply because the heat was being turned up under the Muslim rape gangs and some Labour politicians were getting reluctant to continue protecting Muslim rapists. …they have been warned by the Muslim Council of Britain that they will be opposed by Muslim candidates at the next general election. In other words, get in line and ignore the Muslim rape gangs, or you will be ousted from parliament.
Racism is the worst thing you can be accused of in the UK.
The non-white population throws the accusation at anyone that crosses their path, and the leftie media in print, radio and TV latch onto the accusations and join in the vilification of whoever has upset a minority, no matter how unjustified the accusation. Careers are ruined and livelihoods destroyed by the slightest suggestion a person is “racist”.
We have a unique category of misdemeanour in the UK, all centred around spurious accusations of racism.
Officially called a “Non-crime hate incident.”
A hate incident can be as serious as a facial expression… roll your eyes at something ludicrous, and the cops are knocking on your door because someone was offended by your reaction to their stupidity. It does not even have to be the stupid one. Anybody that thinks or believes they saw or overheard your comment can make the accusation and lodge a report with the police. Does that not sound like East Germany?
Yes, a non-crime is recorded as a crime, and the report of such appears on the accused person’s criminal record.
So, in the lunacy now gripping the UK, you have a criminal record for a non-crime. You cannot make it up.
Conspiracy? None greater than the conspiracy about race that is destroying the UK,
Hi Errol, you live in the UK and I accept your reportage as accurate and tested over time. My book ‘Perfidious Albion’ tries to explain the deterioratiion of ‘perfidy’ that has inculcated the UK and the western world. Unless and until the West pushes back stoically, as you are doing, against the jaundiced feminist Marxist/Socialism perfidy we will deteriorate as a civilization. The BBC and Aussie ABC must be made to account commercially and not rely on the tax-payers.
The greater the mistake and the result of which will affect people higher up the ladder of those who made the mistake will inevitably be covered up or denied.
Hi A. Kynoch, In Queensland Australia the zeiteigst of public opinion against Gerard Baden-Clay means that the judicial system will face an intractable public mindset. I hope that the Queensland Court of Appeals; the Crime and Corruption Commission (because of their own misconduct in this case) and/or the Queensland Governor has the intestinal fortitude to resist the zeitgeist and test the exculpatory evidence that the Queensland Police Force failed to disclose.