For those that think there isn’t a deep state, I understand. It sounds preposterous, right out of a Tom Clancy novel. The term sounds ominous, kind of like the dark web, as if hit men will come and knock on your door. But all it really means is that there are employees within the government who have their own opinions and agendas independent of the government in which they serve. This by itself is not unusual. However the deep state exists when they use their government positions to carry out those agendas in opposition to the national interests an/or in an illegal manner. They can take it a step further when they act in concert with each other to plan and execute outcomes that further those agendas. This process may or may not be called a conspiracy which may or may not be illegal. The deep state can exist that cover either or both political parties. They can be either benign or destructive.
US history is full of well known political conspiracies but deep states are more like long term bureaucratic machines with political purpose. Indeed the term suggests they are far more insidious and covert than anyone could believe. Famed investigative journalist Jack Anderson once addressed this phenomenon even back in the 80s. During a speech at Rutgers he poured on the details of the US bureaucracy, calling it “far worse than you could ever imagine”. He proceeded to describe the an immovable object, which we now call the swamp, which is self perpetuating, self protecting and able to fend off would be attackers that try to reduce its size and power. You can’t identify it, it is too widespread. You can try to cut off the money, but they will find ways to strangle you. It is like a parasite than cannot be extracted without ruining the host.
But to deny its existence because it sounds creepy is kind of ignoring the signs.What are the signs? There are many. For example a torrential flow of leaks to the media from unnamed sources from the intelligence community – all aimed at disposing of a President whose campaign promise was to drain the swamp. Well it appears the swamp called and wants Hillary back.
I suppose this should be expected since the intelligence community includes thousand of government and private entities and a third of 1% of the US population holds top secret clearances. Apparently, despite the credentials, there just ain’t that much that is top secret. Just ask the New York Times or the Washington Post. Moreover, the deep state includes thousands of Obama holdovers and the Trump administration has been slow to replace them.
Why should holdovers matter, after all they are good red-blooded Americans, aren’t they? Well, the deep state matters because it there were ever a coup, it would be the swamp that is able to pull it off. These days overthrowing the government (aka impeachment) is not a military affair it is a congressional one. The congress, as we all know, is impotent at doing everything and it requires assistance to impeach a sitting President. For one thing the opposition party needs to control it which, in Trump’s case, hasn’t happened yet.
But that hasn’t stopped the deep state from trying – and their methods aren’t nearly as obvious. In fact they really try to appear random. The mere initiation of a bizarre special counsel investigation is one example of the deep state in operation. Rod Rosenstein, with support from a particularly rabid anti-Trump media and a recused Jeff Sessions could easily muster enough popular support to start one. But it is anyone’s guess what the purpose really was. The mandate was so open ended that Mueller could indict Trump’s entire ancestral line posthumously. Well it could have been obstruction of justice with the Comey. But that could not stand on its own, it is way too lame. It could have been to get Flynn, but oh, they already had Flynn with illegal wiretaps and unmasking of historical proportions. Wiretaps, unmasking? There’s that deep state again.
Let’s turn to Russian collusion by the Trump Campaign. Now, we aren’t sure whether there is even a no-no here let alone a crime. What has become clear along the way is that nearly everyone is colluding with Russia. But not necessarily to influence an election. Despite having its well covered roots in the Obama administration, the idea of following that path probably started with Manafort who clearly was making money from his activities and didn’t appear to even hide it. And yes Carter Page was being followed around for rather dubious reasons relating back to the “dossier” (geez that deep state again).
It is pretty clear the deep state was in action before Trump was elected and if you put any stock in the recently released FBI texts you realize that there was clearly an undercurrent of bureaucrats who were so utterly paranoid they wanted to thwart the Trump presidency and were willing to take action to do it. So here you have motive, opportunity, intent. Fast forward through many investigations and you find that Hillary Clinton’s name keeps popping up: for selling US uranium stockpiles to the Russians(collusion much?), for creating the “dossier”, for self dealing with the Clinton Foundation, for email crimes,
So the Russian collusion angle seems to be going in the wrong direction, mainly because Trump won. But Hillary has just as many or more footprints in Russia. Now we have to remember the “influence the election” part because this is the aspect of the special counsel’s job that seems to make the most sense, if only he would stick to it. The whole “influence the election” angle departs from reality if you start grabbing Manafort dollars and indict people for being liars. It is so easy to take a “wait and see” attitude because what else can you do? You are going to wait years for the end result if there even is one. The investigation will may drag into oblivion so that it becomes irrelevant. Or there may be indictments along the way and even Trump may get into trouble. But no more trouble than he’s in right now. All of the media and a third of the country wants to impeach him this minute for offenses against the sensibilities.
The bottom line is it was never really clear why we needed a special counsel. The mandate was too broad and the evidence of impropriety too scant. The conspiracy theory was that the real motive for the investigation had more to do with degrading the presidential win and trying to handcuff his agenda. But a more centrist theory would be that we have never had a president who is anything like this one and he sure acts like a con man, so he must be doing something wrong. He lies, his business career is rough and tumble and he may well have violated the rules, ergo let’s investigate. So be it, but let’s have some idea of what we are investigating.
I don’t think I am taking a leap here by stating that Russians influencing the election is a systemic problem that probably touches on all aspects of our political system and has for decades every since Putin grabbed power. Even Obama finally realized this along about 2/3 through his presidency. I think we now got the idea. Ruskies can advertise anywhere, anytime and for any candidate they want. They can do lots of things that are perfectly legal to influence our election. Legal or illegal, the Russians are everywhere in our media, and, other than pulling the voting levers, there is every reason to believe they will have an effect. So what? You can Clinton spending billions and Trump on every TV channel, how bad can it be? If Mueller wants to tackle this deal, he won’t get to the end of it by focusing on Trump. Even if Trump called up his BFF Putin and had him run ads everywhere and then had him turn Assange loose, it is the tip of the iceberg and Mueller knows it.
Back to the deep state. It’s there, it isn’t going away and it never will. But it does leave clues as to its intentions and biases. It does break the law, though it is there to uphold it. It does have political opinions. It isn’t perfect, because it is made up of average humans like you and me. Every time you hear about an unnamed source, a leak, a person with knowledge, a source close to matter, you are hearing about the deep state. Every time you hear that Congress can’t get information from the DOJ or FBI, it’s the deep state. Many of these folks you hear about every day. McCabe, Comey, Rosenstein. Watch their testimony in congress. Watch Mueller being asked questions. You would think he joined the FBI yesterday. These people are not cooperating with the American people, they are arrogant, defiant and smug.
Are they traitors? It depends on who is doing the accusing. It used to be we were all Americans. Now we are on one side or the other. This may be what the Trump presidency has wrought — a contentious national battle. Some would call it a civil war. It is not unlike the McCarthy era when fingers were pointed everywhere and careers and lives were destroyed. At the very least it exposes the worst political biases in the media and in ourselves. My god, our families and friendships can’t even survive our differences in this environment. But we are much better off for this purge. It is like having an enormous mirror, looking into it close up and not liking what you see. I now know what we are really facing, it will take another whole post to deal with it but we should take a step back and realize that there may be reasons why autocracies often survive.