Tag: deep state

Trump’s latest rally rant is much more alarming and dangerous than usual

The following commentary by Greg Sargent was posted on the Washington Post website August 31, 2018:

President Trump said Aug. 30 that the media is the “greatest obstacle” to the Republican Party, and the “greatest ally” of the Democratic Party. (The Washington Post)

At his rally on Thursday night in Indiana, President Trump unleashed his usual attacks on the news media, but he also added a refrain that should set off loud, clanging alarm bells. Trump didn’t simply castigate “fake news.” He also suggested the media is allied with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe — an alliance, he claimed, that is conspiring not just against Trump but also against his supporters.

“Today’s Democrat Party is held hostage by left-wing haters, angry mobs, deep-state radicals, establishment cronies and their fake-news allies,” Trump railed. “Our biggest obstacle and their greatest ally actually is the media.”

In case there is any doubt about what Trump meant by the “deep state” that is supposedly allied with the news media, Trump also lashed out at the FBI and the Justice Department, claiming that “people are angry” and threatening to personally “get involved.”

The ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Is How Fascists Discredit Democracy

The following article by Glenn Carle was posted on the Daily Beast website February 6, 2018:

The efforts to call into question the motivations of top officials at the FBI are creating a constitutional crisis.

Credit: Sarah Rogers, the Daily Beast

The memorandum put together by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), alleging partisan behavior by the FBI and the Department of Justice in a “Deep State” conspiracy against Donald Trump is, what we would call in the CIA, “disinformation.”

Tougher words could be used. But let’s put it simply at this: It is a deliberate diversion from the hard facts that the FBI and CIA have been amassing of Russian espionage activity with members of Donald Trump’s entourage.

And it presents FBI and CIA officers with a progressively grave constitutional crisis. The Nunes memo makes it difficult for those officers to serve an executive who—evidence increasingly indicates—has betrayed his oath to the Constitution. It also makes it hard for them to serve a legislative oversight committee that is distorting its functions so as to protect that executive. Continue reading “The ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Is How Fascists Discredit Democracy”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders Says Trump ‘Obviously Doesn’t Mean Every Word in His Tweets

The following article by Matt Kutner was posted on the Newsweek website January 2, 2018:

President Donald Trump does not believe that the “entire” Department of Justice is part of the “deep state,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Tuesday, hours after the president suggested he did.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump had tweeted, “Crooked Hillary Clinton’s top aid, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailors pictures on submarine? Jail! Deep State Justice Dept must finally act? Also on Comey & others.” Continue reading “Sarah Huckabee Sanders Says Trump ‘Obviously Doesn’t Mean Every Word in His Tweets”

Trump and Republicans see a ‘deep state’ foe: Barack Obama

The following article by David Weigel was posted on the Washington Post website March 7, 2017:

President Trump’s weekend allegations of a “Nixon/Watergate” plot to wiretap his 2016 campaign confused intelligence analysts, befuddled members of Congress and created fresh work for fact-checkers. Within 24 hours of his allegations, made on Twitter, the administration conceded that the president was basing his claim not on closely held information, but on a Breitbart News story quoting the conservative radio host and author Mark Levin.

But in conservative media, where the claim originated, Trump has gotten credit for cracking open a plot by a “deep state” of critics and conspirators to bring down his presidency. And the perpetrator is former president Barack Obama. Continue reading “Trump and Republicans see a ‘deep state’ foe: Barack Obama”

The Real Deep State

The following article by Ishaan Tharoor was sen in the March 7, 2017, Washington Post Today’s Worldview e-newsletter:

Key figures in the White House see themselves locked in a battle with the “deep state” — a term they’re using, as my colleagues explained, to describe “a group of Obama-aligned critics, federal bureaucrats and intelligence figures” as well as the media. Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist who once ran far-right publication Breitbart, has reportedly spoken “at length” with President Trump about his view that the “deep state” is undermining Trump’s presidency.

The consequences of such paranoia can be seen in Trump’s Twitter outburst over the weekend. He accused his predecessor of tapping his phones (without offering any evidence) and framed his administration as the victim of “witch hunts” and “McCarthyism.” On Monday, reports emerged that FBI Director James B. Comey was “incredulous” over Trump’s allegations. Continue reading “The Real Deep State”

A Professor’s Lesson: ‘American Democracy Is Now Confronting An Abyss’

The following article by Jefferson Morley was posted on the Alternet website February 16, 2017:

Michael Glennon on the dilemmas of Trump and the Deep State.

Ah, listen to that ominous phrase, the “Deep State.”

You hear the words hissing from the fur-lined rat hole of Breitbart. They ring from the pulpit of Greenwald. They sound in the silos of Salon and The Atlantic and Foreign Policy. And over on Twitter, the white nationalists are Jew-baiting the hapless Bill Kristol because he prefers the Deep State to the Trump State. Continue reading “A Professor’s Lesson: ‘American Democracy Is Now Confronting An Abyss’”