Donald Trump's claims about the media covering up terror attacks come from InfoWars 'conspiracy theory' website

Donald Trump’s claims that the media is covering up terrorist attacks committed by Muslim fundamentalists were previously promoted by a right-wing conspiracy theory website with which the US President has links.

The InfoWars site frequently publishes seemingly fake news, including an array of outlandish claims about allegedly unreported terror attacks, which now appear to have been repeated by the US President.

Speaking to military leaders, Mr Trump said: “It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported.

“And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that."

The Republican made the comments just hours after his adviser and former campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was widely ridiculed after claiming Mr Trump’s immigration travel ban could have helped prevent the “Bowling Green massacre” – a terrorist attack that never happened.

Two Iraqi refugees were arrested on terrorism charges in the Kentucky town of Bowling Green in 2011, but no attack ever took place.

Ms Conway later admitted making a mistake but her boss took a more aggressive approach, claiming there were indeed a number of attacks being intentionally unreported by the media.

The White House also released a list of attacks they felt “did not receive adequate attention from Western media sources”.

Mr Trump’s accusations are almost identical to a number of stories published on InfoWars, a website founded by Alex Jones, an ally of Mr Trump, which has been making claims about covers-ups of terrorist attacks for many months.

Headlines published on the site include: “Scandal: mass media covers up terrorism to protect Islam”, “Germany covering up Islamic ties in Muslim attack” and “Fake news: mainstream media whitewashes Islamic terror in Berlin”.

Other theories promoted by Mr Jones via InfoWars include claims the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job” carried out by the US government, a number of other terrorist attacks on US soil were also the responsibility of the government, and that Osama in Laden was a CIA asset.

He has also argued vaccines are part of a “soft kill” and “covert sterilisation” programme intended to murder “massive numbers” of children, that the government is trying to “encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don’t have children”, and that Michelle Obama is a man.

Speaking last August, the website host suggested Mr Trump was supportive of his ideas. He said: "It is surreal to talk about issues here on air, and then word-for-word hear Trump say it two days later.”

Mr Trump has a good relationship with Mr Jones and even appeared on his online TV show in December 2015. He said: "Your reputation's amazing. I will not let you down. You will be very, very impressed, I hope, and we'll be speaking a lot.”

Mr Jones also claimed the Republican was quick to call him after pulling off his shock election victory last November.

The website host said: “Donald Trump gave me a call and I told him, 'Mr. President-elect, you're too busy, we don't need to talk,' but we still spent over five minutes.

“[He said]: ‘Listen Alex, I just talked to the kings and the queens of the world. I want to talk to you to thank your audience, and I’ll be on in the next few weeks to thank them. We know what you did early on and throughout this campaign - stand up for what's right. It shows.'"

Mr Trump’s Director of Social Media, Dan Scavino, has also frequently shared InfoWars’ content on his Twitter page.