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Home » “Thank God for the Deep State!” says a denizen of the deep

“Thank God for the Deep State!” says a denizen of the deep

The New Neo Posted on by

A lot of people have opined about this comment by former acting director of the CIA John McLaughlin:

McLaughlin embraced the term when asked during an event with other former intelligence officials whether a CIA whistleblower complaint that sparked an impeachment inquiry feeds into Trump’s complaints that the “deep state” is out to get him.

“There is something unique you have to agree that now the impeachment inquiry is underway, sparked by a complaint from someone within the intelligence community, it feeds the president’s concern, an often used term about a ‘deep state’ being there to take him out,” Margaret Brennan, the moderator for the event, asked McLaughlin.

“Thank God for the ‘deep state,’” replied the former spook, who served as acting director at the CIA in 2004.

You can find some commentary on this here as well as here.

My own opinion is that it demonstrates what we already know about the self-satisfied arrogance and the assumption of entitlement to great power by individuals who have risen to the highest positions in government entities such as the CIA. They have become unused to answering to anyone who might disagree with them and don’t feel they should have to. If Louis XIV of France famously said “L’etat c’est moi,” then these un-elected and preening Pooh-Bahs (without the humor of the original Pooh Bah) say “L’etat profond, c’est moi.”

And they are not the least bit ashamed of it; they are proud.

Do they believe that Trump is guilty and that they, the keepers of the flame, are saving us from him and from ourselves? Some probably do, but many have a more cynical cast of mind. For that first group, who sincerely feel that they are heroes and that Trump is some sort of danger not just to Deep State power but to America and the world, they have never learned (or don’t care) that they are following in the path of tyranny by ignoring the proper process to follow, because they believe that they know best.

And they don’t have to prove it. They just know, because their judgment is infallible. So, since they know that Trump is guilty of terrible crimes and awful intent, all they have to do is find one of those crimes – or manufacture one if they can’t locate the ones they know must be there if only they could find them.

It’s a pernicious way of thinking and acting, but even worse are those Deep Staters who don’t believe Trump to be guilty of anything but undermining their power and disagreeing with policies they would advocate if they were president, and that this justifies their attempt to take him down using all the considerable power at their disposal. Their entire lives have been an exercise in growing career success (climbing up the job ladder) and increasing power, and they believe that rules are for the little people.

In addition, there is no lack of people to cheer them on. So their arrogance has been rewarded, and so far there have been no significant negative consequences for them. Will there ever be?

Comments

“Thank God for the Deep State!” says a denizen of the deep — 26 Comments

  2. Until recently, the very idea of a “Deep State” was nothing more than a right-wing “conspiracy theory”, but now it represents “deeply patriotic” members of the permanent bureaucracy who are members of The Resistance to the evil Orange Man. Not so long ago, many leftists were suspicious of the power of the “alphabet agencies”; now that the upper echelons of the CIA and the FBI (to say nothing of the State Department, the DOJ, and the Pentagon) largely lean left, all such skepticism has evaporated.

  3. “So, since they know that Trump is guilty of terrible crimes and awful intent, all they have to do is find one of those crimes – or manufacture one if they can’t locate the ones they know must be there if only they could find them.”

    Didn’t another “Intelligence” Chief say that once to Stalin?
    “Show me the man…..”

  4. And here’s a more typical poem from Robinson Jeffers:
    __________________________________________________

    Be Angry at the Sun

    That public men publish falsehoods
    Is nothing new. That America must accept
    Like the historical republics corruption and empire
    Has been known for years.

    Be angry at the sun for setting
    If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
    They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
    This republic, Europe, Asia.

    Observe them gesticulating,
    Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
    Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
    Hunts in no pack.

    You are not Catullus, you know,
    To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
    From Dante’s feet, but even farther from his dirty
    Political hatreds.

    Let boys want pleasure, and men
    Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
    And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
    Yours is not theirs.

    –Robinson Jeffers

  5. So far as I’m aware McLaughlin isn’t personally implicated in the soft coup, so though a pigman, he won’t be liable in action. Still, he isn’t so out of touch as not to know that his stage-mates — one and all — are themselves in great jeopardy for their misdeeds, is he? And that this display is a pure admission against interest: of himself, of his “team”, “pals”, “tribe”, whathaveyou.

    That this jaggoff sat atop an “intelligence” agency is an elemental American shame.

  6. The Power of the President is actualized by people acting. Taking actions and making decisions in accordance with the Presidents plans, and directives.

    The Deep State has long been able to guide the Presidents into making plans that are conducive to the CYA – brown nosers who are most successful bureaucrats.

    One of the things about a huge protest is “they arrest us all”. The Deep State top & near top guys are sure they can’t “all” be arrested.

    They’re probably right. Even if Trump gets re-elected. Tho I think Trump might find more actual supporters to fill more top spots. And he’s got to keep firing those he can, like the FBI bozo Wray, who fail to get their agencies to cooperate with his plans.

    Once hired, never fired, should NOT be part of a gov’t job. More criminal / rule-breaking deep staters need to be fired, and to lose benefits.

    I would rather have 1000 fired and none in jail, rather than 10 in jail and only 50 fired. More getting rid of more bodies, rather than just (& deserved) punishment for the crimes.

    You say about the worst of them:
    who don’t believe Trump to be guilty of anything but undermining their power and disagreeing with policies they would advocate if they were president, and that this justifies their attempt to take him down

    If they know what is the best policy, and Trump disagrees, they are right, and he is wrong. Simple as that. Them being right certainly justifies any process they use, including lies and other crimes, so as for America to “do the right thing”.

    It’s like a Trolley ethics problem: either America will be destroyed, or Trump must go. Ethically, Trump must go.

    The problem is the underlying demonization of Trump, and most Reps, which make so many Deep Staters, and other college indoctrinated true believers, really think that Trump is destroying America.

    Who will they believe – their SJW pseudo-religion, or their own eyes? Those that believe, their eyes will be doubted more than their secular, morally superior, pseudo faith.

  7. That this jaggoff sat atop an “intelligence” agency is an elemental American shame.

    sdferr: I’m still boggled that John Brennan, a man who voted Communist in 1976, could be accepted into the CIA and a few decades later reach the top spot. Of course, it was Obama who made the latter happen.

  8. Yeah, it’s not a very serious country for quite awhile now huxley. Dumb luck attacks haven’t been worse I think. Which makes me wonder what’s in store when an adversary figures it out.

  9. sdferr: In a way it seems like the collapse of the USSR was a disaster for the US as well. After that we, or at least the Democrats, stopped being serious and decided it was “Utopia, ho!” Time to fulfill all the items in the bucket list.

  10. So a couple of things: 1) John posted a link to The RightScoop in the “No wonder they don’t want us . . .” thread which goes to a RS article on a LTC (R) Jim Hickman twitter thread I’ll link here. Hickman knew then Major Vindman in service and has something noteworthy to say about him —
    LTC (R) Jim Hickman @Jim_Hickman13

    and 2) American Greatness blog reports: Dems May Call Vindman’s Identical Twin to Testify in Impeachment Inquiry

    Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman is an NSC lawyer who handles ethics issues and worked in the West Wing with his brother under Fiona Hill, a former official who testified earlier in the impeachment probe. Yevgeny Vindman allegedly witnessed the decision to move the call’s transcript to a top secret server, and would be expected to corroborate his brother’s version of events, if called.

  11. Maybe this is just stupid but regardless I’m curious to know what y’all think about this question, namely, why hasn’t some Senate committee of jurisdiction subpoenaed Eric Ciaramella to testify on his complaint? Say Foreign Affairs Committee, since Burr’s Intel Committee is so corruptly lame? Or Judiciary, if it happens to fit an inquiry?

  12. https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/01/the-impeachment-dog-bites-orange-man-scam/

    The Impeachment Dog Bites Orange Man Scam
    We are asked to believe that the nation is being saved. In fact, some very dirty dogs are biting American voters.

    Angelo Codevilla – November 1st, 2019

    Usually, there is no more reason to pay attention to establishment bureaucrats opposing a president elected to oppose them than there is to dwell on dogs biting whomever frightens them. But now the Democratic Party is using what little remains of the intelligence agencies’ credibility as the sword with which to strike Trump and the claims to secrecy of those agencies as the shield from behind which to do it. In other words, it is doing just what it did during the Russian-collusion scam. That is why the scam itself is the story.

    Specifically, the Democrats and their kept media use the apparatus and reputation of what it calls “intelligence” to veil the fact that the canines who are biting Trump are not run-of-the-kennel bureaucrats acting on their own account and motivated merely by policy views different from his. The secret—the news that the Democrats and the media are hiding in plain sight—is that the attackers are a special breed that attacks as a coordinated pack.

    As RealClear Investigations has shown, these bureaucrats were part and parcel of the Obama Administration. Some of them were key players in the Russia hoax starting in 2016. They include the Intelligence Community’s inspector general, career employees of CIA, and Democrats on staff with the House Intelligence Committee, as well as White House personnel. Some even have personal connections with the Biden family and with Ukraine.
    …
    The real ground of the unending attacks on Trump is the ruling class’s decision to resist the 2016 election’s outcome. It is a revolution from which the Republic is unlikely ever to recover.

    The role of the intelligence agencies in that resistance is one of that revolution’s principal parts. Indeed, only the vestiges of these agencies’ mystique, plus their legal claims to secrecy, have enabled the Democrats and the media to pretend the American people should regard partisan bureaucrats as wise and expert stewards of national security. They are no such thing.

    The bureaucrats who have launched their attacks on Trump from behind the intelligence agencies’ shield of secrecy, and through the Democrat-controlled House Intelligence Committee’s hearings are part and parcel of the Democrat-led ruling class. We are asked to believe that the nation is being saved. In fact, some very dirty dogs are biting American voters.

    More on his thoughts about the Deep State in this interview:
    https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/culture-news/292763/angelo-codevilla

  13. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/11/a_stunning_confession_from_a_deep_state_member_subverting_the_constitutional_republic.html

    Consider for a moment the implications of his term “higher call.” Rather than obey the Constitution’s grant of power over the executive branch to the president, a subordinate official claims the right to subvert lawfully ordered policies because he disagrees with them, and to conspire to engineer his ouster from office. In essence, he is claiming that his former agency, the CIA, has the right to make and carry out policy regardless of what the elected officials chosen by voters want. This is not the constitutional republic, but rather a dictatorship of unaccountable bureaucrats.

    This is precisely the attitude taken by McLaughlin’s counterparts in the FBI, Comey, McCabe, and Strzok among others. It is sedition.

    It’s okay to be those people “doing their duty and responding to a higher call” because they are fighting Hitler — and anything goes if you are fighting Hitler, right?

    (Why doesn’t anyone ever claim that they are fighting Stalin??)

    Sure. Everything is (maybe) okay IF you are fighting Hitler.

    But Donald Trump is NOT Hitler, and the GOP is NOT the Nazis, but the CIA/FBI/DOJ of the Left is doing a pretty good imitation of the Gestapo.

    “If Trump really was Hitler, all of you would be in jail or dead by now. But you aren’t. So he isn’t.”

    QED

  15. Roger Kimball writing at American Greatness adds his thoughts to the gathering commentary on the Democrat choice to light a fuse last Thursday to an explosive beneath the American polity: Doing the Impeachment Math

    It’s a long fuse so it can be extinguished before it burns down to ignite a blast at the foundation of our country, but this fuse is no less dangerous for all that. Dangerous to the whole country, obviously, but also highly dangerous to lesser discrete parts of the country, not least among those parts the Democrat Party on the one hand, and even possibly the structure of the administrative state, on the other.

    Mr. Kimball cites Andrew McCarthy’s multifold observations on impeachment repeatedly and to useful effect, among which, this: impeachment is “a political, not a legal remedy”.

    Which is why impeachment cannot, as a practical matter, be a wholly partisan tool. The public just wouldn’t stand for it.

    Here, I think, we confront justice simply taken, as itself to itself in contradistinction to lawful or legal justice done (or not done). For as we are aware, there may be unjust laws made and enforced; injustices committed under color of law; injustices done in the name of national defense [Japanese citizens’ internment], etc.

    People keep this distinction “justice is not equivalent to law” within themselves, finally appealing to their “highest”, to their “most sacred”, or to their “I wot not what” — always to end shouting: “That cannot be! That is not right!”

    This choice, this “fuse lighting”, is a terrible mistake. While the fuse can be put out, the mistaken choice cannot be erased: it’s done. A price will be paid.

  17. This combination of Deep State bureaucrats and wealthy elites have become a new aristocracy in America and they feel very threatened by Trump.

  18. The Seven Deadly Sins (in decreasing order of severity): Pride. Envy. Anger. Sloth. Greed. Gluttony. Lust.
    The deep state bureaucrats are certainly full of pride.

  19. “They can’t arrest us all” — but so many deep state criminals should be arrested.

    Pride leads those who have it, plus a belief that their goal is good, to accept any means to achieve their good goal. Their prideful ends justify their rule-breaking and illegal means.

    Colleges have successfully indoctrinated most grads into an ability to rationalize their usual prideful desires to “do good” – to use “good intentions” to justify any crime.

  20. This is a very deep dive into the documents, but stick with it for the conclusion.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/11/02/house-dems-request-for-grand-jury-materials-sure-looks-like-they-knew-right-away-about-the-july-phone-call/

    House Dems’ request for grand jury materials sure looks like they knew right away about the July phone call
    By J.E. Dyer November 2, 2019

    In retrospect, it is eye-catching in the extreme that the House Judiciary Committee’s request to have grand jury materials cited in the Mueller Report released to it was forwarded to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on 26 July 2019.

    The date, of course, is one day after the Trump-Zelensky phone call of 25 July 2019.
    …
    In retrospect, given the timing, it can’t help looking like the 143 reference on 26 July was in the nature of a bait and switch, without a specific, focused justification, so that it could be developed later.

    The issue is not whether that is proper procedure. The issue is that it looks awful darn particular. P. 143 is in fact the only reference included in the request for grand jury materials for which there is no mention of its relevant content in that original filing. Even the undeveloped reference to the Erik Prince activities contains identifying information about what it is. The p. 143 reference is inserted in such a way that, arguably, its inclusion in the summary list is not just uncommunicative but deceptive.

    That can’t help suggesting consciousness by the Democrats who wrote the request of a need to know what’s in the grand jury materials on that specific topic, for a reason they weren’t willing to elaborate on at the time they filed the request. Such an appearance the day after the 25 July phone call is a flashing red light, requiring inquiry and resolution at the very least.
    …
    Regarding the Erik Prince activities (pp. 153-55 of the Mueller Report), which are also included without a prior argument for why they’re important to an impeachment inquiry, this looks like another classic ploy.

    Prince’s meetings in the Seychelles occurred while Obama was still in office, in the last few days before the Trump inauguration in January 2017. Besides the grand jury references, the Mueller Report’s footnotes show that the special counsel investigation was relying on redacted “investigative techniques” to know the contents of communications about those meetings. What we can read into that is that the same thing we know about the Obama administration and Michael Flynn’s phone conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. The same justification would have been used for any monitoring; i.e., the blanket hand-wave of national security for the Russian side of the equation.

    Any such data package on the Russians involved is still accessible to some of the people who would have known it was being gathered at the time. But what the Democrats in the House don’t have is the grand jury testimony of Erik Prince. If they can get that, they’ll be in a position to look for discrepancies between Prince’s testimony and whatever was gathered on the Russians.

    It’s been clear all along that the HJC request for grand jury materials is a fishing expedition. But it’s not just an open-ended quest for potentially useful information. It’s partly – and perhaps foremost – a targeted request for what Democrats have to fear Barr and Durham know about their activities.

  21. I highly recommend the new book by Lee Smith, The Plot Against the President. In addition to laying out all the facts very clearly, it provides the exciting story of the investigation by Devin Nunes and his team — what they learned, how they learned it, and what they did about it. It also details the role of the press, with some really good insights about how the changes in the media business have created terrible incentives for reporters, editors, and publishers.

    I think there will be some accountability. There is just too much evidence now about what really happened, and we now have Barr heading up the Justice department — someone who cares deeply about the rule of law and has the guts to defend it.

  23. Om, ask Ymar what he knows about the Deep State.

    I would rather have 1000 fired and none in jail, rather than 10 in jail and only 50 fired. More getting rid of more bodies, rather than just (& deserved) punishment for the crimes.

    Well Tom, the problem is that Trum tried to fire them and it didn’t work. Look at the Federal Reserve Act.

  26. Matt Wolking (Text TRUMP to 88022) @MattWolking, three part twitter thread:

    BREAKING: FOIA’d email shows Burisma’s lobbyists used Hunter Biden’s position on the board of the corrupt Ukrainian gas company to request a meeting with Obama/Kerry State Department officials while Joe Biden was Vice President.

    This is the evidence the media said didn’t exist.

    [Screencap document image, see link]

    Another FOIA’d email shows that Hunter Biden’s business partner and fellow Burisma board member Devon Archer was set to meet with Secretary of State John Kerry on March 2, 2016, a week after the email mentioning Hunter. [Screencap document image, see link]

    Email shows Hunter Biden started following Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, a longtime national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, just as Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin announced a raid on the home of Burisma’s founder [Screencap document image, see link]

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