to monitor Carter Page, an advisor to the Trump campaign; the story was later corrected to show the warrant was obtained in October 2016, after Page had left the Trump campaign. The warrant was granted as part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. Although Mensch claimed that and similar reports vindicated her own report on purported FISA warrants, the FISA warrants on Page did not entail the surveillance of the two Russian banks Mensch claimed in her story, and Mensch's report, in turn, mentioned nothing at all about Carter Page. Conspiracy theories regarding Donald Trump and Russia During and after the 2016 US presidential election, Mensch's political commentary and social media accounts promoted numerous various conspiracy theories about the Russian government, Donald Trump and various individuals in Trump's circle. Mensch claims that she has seen evidence that Vladimir Putin had Andrew Breitbart murdered to make room for Steve Bannon at Breitbart. She has stated that the 2017 Istanbul nightclub shooting was a Russian false flag operation, with Russian intelligence operatives posing as ISIL terrorists; that onetime Trump chief political strategist Steve "Bannon and his team" were behind bomb threats to Jewish community centres; and that Russian intelligence operatives planted Hillary Clinton's emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop just before the 2016 presidential election. Mensch has also accused numerous people and organizations of being Russian "shills", "moles" and "agents of influence", including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and elements of Mossad (Israel's intelligence service). In April 2017, Mensch claimed that "sources with links to the intelligence community" told her that it "is believed that Carter Page," [the former campaign aide and foreign policy adviser, to President Trump] went to Moscow in early July carrying with him a pre-recorded tape of Donald Trump offering to change American policy if he were to be elected, to make it more favorable to Putin. In exchange, Page was authorised directly by Trump to request the help of the Russian government in hacking the election." No evidence has ever surfaced or been published to corroborate any of these allegations either. When others have questioned her claims, she has often attacked them on social media as being witting or unwitting agents of Russia. In May 2017, Mensch wrote that then-Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, who was named as "the ‘Designated Survivor’ at the inauguration of