Joe Biden Accused of Covering Up Fate of Titanic Sub in Conspiracy Theory

Several right-wing commentators have accused Joe Biden of withholding news of the Titan submersible's demise to distract from recent developments with his son, Hunter, after it was revealed the U.S. Navy likely detected the vessel's implosion on Sunday.

Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the U.S. Coast Guard, announced on Thursday that one of the deep-sea robots drafted to look for the submersible—which had been travelling to view the Titanic shipwreck in the Atlantic, with five members aboard—had found a debris field "consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber" near where communications had been lost.

This confirmed the worst-case scenario, that Titan had imploded under the estimated 400 bar of pressure from the sea around it.

The same evening, The Wall Street Journal first reported that a U.S. Navy top secret detection system for spotting enemy submarines had detected an "anomaly" around the time the submersible was thought to have imploded, information which it said it later shared with the search and rescue team.

A Navy official told the newspaper that it had only spotted the anomaly in the acoustic data after the submersible was reported missing, and it had been treated as "not definitive," prompting the Coast Guard to continue the search.

However, some have espoused a conspiracy theory that the government knew Titan had likely imploded but chose not to disclose this to the public so the story would distract from the release of whistleblower testimony on Thursday about Hunter Biden.

"The WSJ is reporting the U.S. Navy detected the Titan implosion on Sunday but Biden held the news until today's whistleblower testimony on Hunter," Jack Posobiec, a conservative activist and commentator, wrote in a tweet on Thursday evening, which as of 4 a.m. ET Friday had been viewed 5.9 million times. "The entire thing was a distraction op."

Twitter users later added context to the tweet, noting that while The Wall Street Journal had revealed the U.S. Navy had heard the implosion, it made no claims about Biden supposedly holding the news.

"BIDEN KNEW the U.S. Navy detected the Titan implosion on Sunday, but he held the news until today's whistleblower testimony on his crackhead son Hunter?!" Graham Allen, host of the Dear America podcast and a Turning Point U.S.A. contributor, exclaimed. "The whole thing was to distract us?!"

"The Biden regime knew the submarine [sic] imploded Sunday—but used their media propagandists to push the 'they're running out of oxygen' story all week to deflect from Hunter's [alleged] crimes?" another popular right-wing Twitter account wrote in a tweet that had since been seen 2.2 million times.

Newsweek approached the White House via email for comment on Friday.

While some on the social media platform appeared to align with the theory, others were more skeptical and noted that the search and rescue operation had been working under the assumption those on board were alive until they had conclusive proof to the contrary.

The company said Titan carried a 96-hour oxygen supply, which the U.S. Coast Guard estimated that, if the submersible had still been intact, would have run out on Thursday morning.

While the search team scrambled to find the missing sub before that supply was expected to run out, the U.S. Navy told The Wall Street Journal that it had "detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost."

The Titan had stopped responding around an hour and 45 minutes into its descent on Sunday morning, which started around 8 a.m. ET. On Thursday, a debris field was found around 1,600 feet from the Titanic wreck.

The Navy added that "while not definitive," the acoustic anomaly "was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission."

In a press conference on Thursday, Mauger said that it had been a "complex" case in a remote part of the ocean, adding: "I know there are also a lot of questions about how, why, and when did this happen. Those are questions we will collect as much information as we can about now."

The same day, a May 26 testimony by IRS agent turned whistleblower Gary Shapley to the House Ways and Means Committee by Gary Shapley was released. In the deposition, Shapley alleged that Hunter Biden had used his father's political stature to pressure a Chinese official. Neither Biden has publicly commented on the testimony.

It came after top House Republicans vowed to investigate the overseas business dealings of Hunter and the Biden family, including allegations that his father used his public role as then-vice president to influence them.

Earlier in the week, the Department of Justice charged Hunter Biden with failure to pay income tax and the illegal possession of a weapon. In an agreement reached with his lawyers, prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor tax offense while avoiding another charge, provided he adheres to conditions set by a court.