Republican promotes theory that Obama plotted Charlottesville neo-Nazi rally

'I'm not saying it is true, but I am suggesting that it is completely plausible', the legislator wrote on Facebook

Former US president Barack Obama waves at reporters as he walks with Indonesian President Joko Widodo (AFP/Getty Images)

A Republican state legislator from Idaho is being slammed for sharing a conspiracy theory that accuses former President Barack Obama of helping to organise the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville as part of a plot to sabotage Donald Trump.

Idaho Representative Bryan Zollinger posted a story on Facebook that suggested that other top Democrats including billionaire George Soros and Terry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia, may have also helped orchestrate the violent rally that led to the death of a young woman earlier this month.

“I'm not saying it is true, but I am suggesting that it is completely plausible,” Mr Zollinger wrote on Facebook.

Mr Trump has received widespread bipartisan backlash for his comments appearing to equate white supremacists and new-Nazis with the left-wing demonstrators who opposed them at the rally. One Democrat even launched an effort to impeach the President over his response to the violence.

Patricia McCarthy, the author of the conspiracy theory, begins her post by asserting that “the ridiculous campaign by virtually every media outlet, every Democrat and far too many squishy Republicans to label Trump some kind of racist and Nazi sympathizer is beginning to have the stink of an orchestrated smear.”

She goes on to recite a widely debunked claim that Mr Obama “set up a war room in his DC home to plan and execute resistance to the Trump administration.”

“So were the events of Saturday the result of a despicable plan to further undermine Trump?” Ms McCarthy concludes after attempting to make the case that the Charlottesville rally could have been staged.

“There was plenty of time and Charlottesville is the ‘capital of resistance.’ If it was, it was evil and deadly and the people involved need to be prosecuted. Or is this a wild conspiracy theory? Perhaps. But the pieces fit.”

Mr Zollinger told the Post Register, a daily newspaper in Idaho Falls, that he hadn’t meant to offend anyone by posting Ms McCarthy’s theory on Facebook.

On further reflection, its claims are “probably wrong,” Mr Zollinger said, but he continued to describe the claims as “plausible”, the newspaper said.

“In hindsight, maybe it was a mistake to post it,” Mr Zollinger said. “I didn’t mean for it to ruffle any feathers.