'Deep, Dark Conspiracy Theories' Hound Some Civil Servants In Trump Era
Some pro-Trump news outlets are singling out federal employees and accusing them of trying to sabotage the president. The targets have often worked for decades in government outside of the spotlight.
After 43 years in the State Department, Anne Patterson got a plum job offer from the Pentagon and thought the opportunity would be an honorable way to cap her long career as a foreign service officer.
But then Patterson's nomination unleashed a torrent of articles in conservative media that painted her as a clandestine partisan or worse. And shortly after the headlines rocketed around the Internet, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis withdrew Patterson's nomination, and she eventually left government.
She was "trying to do her best to do her duty as she saw it, and in return just got these kind of nasty, baseless attacks," said Jerry Feierstein,
