Milbank: Conspiracy fringe front and center of Trump campaign

“At this time I am reaching out to Miss Lewinsky, Monica Lewinsky,” Williams went on, looking to Gilbert for instruction and holding up a letter. “I’m asking that Miss Lewinsky allow me to borrow her blue dress in order to obtain a DNA sample of my father’s, former president Bill Clinton, in order to finally prove that he is my father.”

In fact, Williams’ DNA was tested, 17 years ago, when his mother sold it and her story to a tabloid, which compared the boy’s genetic material to Clinton’s DNA markers and concluded that Clinton wasn’t his father.

That essentially ended the intrigue — until late last year, when longtime Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone declared: “I will get justice for Danney Williams — stay tuned.” The Trump confidant had decided the original DNA work was wrong, and he teamed up to make that case with conspiracy-minded radio host Alex Jones, an avid Trump backer who lent his InfoWars news outlet to the cause.

Gilbert, who was hired by Stone’s pro-Trump super PAC to design a “Super Trump” billboard for Times Square, made a film about Williams. The pro-Trump outlet Breitbart News, whose former chief Stephen Bannon now runs Trump’s campaign, and the Drudge Report began to trumpet the debunked love-child story.

If past is prologue, Trump will, in this final week of the campaign, find a way to mention the story of Bill Clinton’s love child. Stone to Jones to Bannon to Trump: This is how Trump legitimizes the fringe.

As the website Right Wing Watch has documented, Jones has boasted that he gives Trump off-air advice, and he took credit for Trump voicing the theory that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in John F. Kennedy’s assassination. He has been pleased to see Trump repeating him “word-for-word” on the campaign trail. Most ominously, Trump has echoed the “globalist” conspiracy theories embraced by Stone, Jones and Bannon, full of anti-Semitic tropes.

Unscrupulous exploitation

Now comes the Bill Clinton love-child conspiracy, even if it collides with another popular conspiracy theory: That Chelsea Clinton wasn’t fathered by Bill Clinton because he’s sterile.

Williams seems unclear on his motives. He said Tuesday that he was seeking the former president’s DNA because “I want to know my dad.” But moments later he was calling Clinton a “deadbeat” and a “big felon.” Williams wants to raise $100,000 for his campaign but said he had only $2,800; Gilbert booked the room and said he funded the film.

Gilbert quickly lost control of the event. One woman declared she was going to baptize Williams and then, failing to find oil in her handbag, performed the ritual with bottled water. There were prayers and laying on of hands and shouts from the participants that the press is “racist” and “bought off.” Conservative activist Cliff Kincaid told the gathering I was there “to write a story making fun of” Williams.

But I wouldn’t make fun of Williams. The ones worthy of ridicule are the powerful and unscrupulous men exploiting him.