Following BP’s oil disaster, Republican lawmakers lined up to attack President Obama’s response to the spill, particularly efforts to rein in dangerous oil drilling and to create an escrow account to help expedite payments for BP’s victims. After a wave of Republicans attacked the escrow account as a “shakedown,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) went as far as formally apologizing to BP executives for how the Obama administration had treated them.

However, after rushing to the defense of a criminal multinational corporation like BP, now GOP lawmakers are ginning up conspiracy theories that Obama actually wants the oil disaster to be destructive. At a town hall yesterday in Athens, Georgia, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) said “maybe” Obama is “purposeful[ly]” giving a “poor response to this oil spill” so he “could promote his energy tax”:

BROUN: Our President he is utilizing this crisis of this oil spill to try to promote this energy tax. And I’ve had numerous people, all over the district, question whether his poor response to this oil spill was purposeful so that he could promote his energy tax. I don’t know, maybe.

Watch it:

Despite the absurdity of Broun’s comments, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) managed to concoct a far crazier conspiracy theory with radio host Alex Jones during an interview on July 1st.

Jones floated the idea that BP had planned the spill by giving “orders they knew would cause a problem,” BP “funded the carbon tax,” that BP actually wants the U.S. government to nationalize their assets, and the entire clean energy bill is a secret plot to establish a global government. He also noted that the Obama administration wants the spill to worsen to provoke “forced evacuations.” Paul did not dispute any of Jones’ ideas. Rather, he confirmed that he also is “very suspicious of BP and our government and even the Obama administration.” The Texas congressman then said Jones “forgot” that Obama used “executive orders” to dictate policy, giving the example of the escrow account, and that because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drained necessary National Guard troops that could have been used in the Gulf. Listen here:

Of course, literally nothing either Jones or Paul said was true or is substantiated by evidence. Obama negotiated the $20 billion escrow account; he did not create it by executive order, as Paul contends. Also, Obama has deployed thousands of National Guard reserves — however in many cases, they are not being used because Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) and others have not formulated plans to put them to work.

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