When there is no clear enemy to blame for hobbling their agenda, Donald Trump and his allies fall back on their pet scapegoat: the Deep State, that conspiratorial collective of unnamed government employees with orders from an unknown god. Trumpworld’s worst fears were confirmed earlier this month when such a collective mobilized against Mick Mulvaney, the Trump-appointed acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And it has taken the anti-Trump text messages exchanged between two F.B.I. officials as a sign that Robert Mueller’s Russia probe is similarly tainted.

Donald Trump Jr., a son so devoted that he may have jeopardized his dad’s entire campaign, expressed this fear on Tuesday night, implying to a group of young conservatives that the conspiracy goes to the very top. “There is, and there are, people at the highest levels of government that don’t want to let America be America,” he said during his remarks before the Turning Point U.S.A. Student Action Summit, shortly after reports emerged suggesting that Mueller’s investigation would not, in fact, conclude at the end of 2017, as Trump and his lawyers have repeatedly insisted. The president’s largest adult son went on to slam the media’s coverage of the probe: “My father talked about a rigged system throughout the campaign, and people were like, ‘Oh, what are you talking about?’” he said. “But it is. And you're seeing it.”

As news of the text conversations between F.B.I. Counsel Lisa Page and agent Peter Strzok has made the rounds, Trump’s camp has transitioned from attacking the credibility of the special counsel to insisting that his entire investigation is biased against the president, and therefore invalid. Republicans on Capitol Hill have called for an investigation into the probe, and as recently as Tuesday night, two G.O.P. congressmen requested that Page, as well as F.B.I. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Chief of Staff James Rybicki, submit to congressional interviews. Don Jr., however, has neither the patience of a congressman, nor the restraint to keep his theories of shadowy G-men to himself. As CNN reported:

Trump Jr. asked those before him to “imagine what would happen if we rolled back the clock to 2008” and a politically compromised group of F.B.I. officials sought to undermine a potential Obama presidency.

”What do you think would happen?” Trump Jr. asked. “Do you think the media would cover that? Yeah. Do you think it would be brushed under the rug like, ‘Oh, it’s nothing. It doesn’t mean anything.’ There’d be revolution in the streets. So I’m glad that this is coming out now, because it is good, because real people have to see this.”

The eldest Trump son seems to have developed an affinity for political conspiracy theories, speculating at various intervals from his Twitter feed that Hillary Clinton colluded with Saudis and that she was on death’s door, and once calling for Pizzagate theorist Mike Cernovich to be awarded a Pulitzer. But as the son of a man who mainstreamed the birther movement, and whose talent for spinning surrealities is driving the ethos of his presidency, in hindsight it’s inevitable that, one day, he would strike out on his own.