It’s impossible to deny the existence of “the deep state” at this point.
There has clearly been a concerted effort to bring down Donald Trump by delegitimizing his presidency at every turn.
Now a former FBI agent has given further credence to the “deep state” claim with chilling analysis.
Former agent John Ligato detailed an extensive list of actions against Trump and his administration. Below are some of the highlights.
From Lifezette:
Fifteen years ago, I would have suggested a tinfoil hat for anyone who believed in the deep state. But recent events have made me rethink my diagnosis. The term “deep state” intimates a conspiracy somewhere in the woodshed. But it’s basically two or more people who get together and agree on something bad.
In the case of a shadow government, that something is to impede or overthrow the legitimate government. The current political environment offers convincing evidence that individuals are attempting to do just that. They utilize legal and illegal means in an effort to annul the will of the people. Their ultimate goal is to end the presidency of Donald Trump
As an FBI agent, I was careful to separate facts from fiction when investigating cases. The public can make wild conjectures and cite gossip as gospel, but law enforcement officers must deal in facts. So, does a deep state currently exist in American today?
Fact/Known: James Comey reduced his alleged obstruction of justice meeting with President Trump to a memo. James Comey intentionally leaked that memo with the stated intent to trigger the special counsel statute. James Comey met with his friend, special counsel Robert Mueller, prior to Comey’s testifying before a congressional committee.
As an investigator, I would not consider the leaked memo to be direct evidence since it is basically written hearsay and depends on Comey’s memory and veracity. The memo is no different from two drivers providing contradicting observations of the same traffic accident.
Victim — The Trump presidency.
Analysis: In my experience, if someone admits to a specific wrongdoing once, leaking, it’s a good bet that it wasn’t his first time. A burglar never strikes once. There are dozens of unsolved leaks, and Director Comey was in the position to have access to the information contained in those leaks.
Fact: Susan Rice admitted on MSNBC that she sometimes sought the identities of Trump associates who communicated with foreigners, a request known as “unmasking” in the intelligence community.
Victim — The Trump presidency.
Rice’s admission came after she initially told PBS’ Judy Woodruff that she “knew nothing” about the unmasking of Trump associates. Inconsistent statements are called clues in law enforcement. The fact that Rice has furnished other inconsistencies is called a pattern, or MO. There was the Benghazi video and the Bowe Bergdahl fib.
So if unmasking was relevant to the Russia investigation, the FBI, CIA or NSA would have done it. There would have been no need for Susan Rice to ask for identities to be unmasked. The national security adviser is not an investigator. The president’s staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it.
Analysis: If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests: It was to fulfill a political desire based on Democratic Party interests. If it was critical to know the identities of Americans caught up in other foreign intelligence efforts, the agencies that collect the information and conduct investigations would have unmasked them.
Victim: The Trump Presidency.
The key points here are the fact Comey leaked a document with the admitted intent of triggering an investigation (unlikely his first time leaking), and Susan Rice unmasked the identities of Trump associates, seemingly for political purposes.
These actions are indefensible.
The article continued:
Fact: Our media have become part of the deep state. Some are active players, and others are unwitting surrogates based on their ideology. In the not too distant past both the FBI and the media were fact-finders. We shared the standard of burden of proof by relying on multiple and reliable sources. My actions as a law enforcement officer could have a profound effect on citizens ranging from destroying their reputation to taking their freedom. I could not sit on the witness stand and cite gossip, rumors or anonymous sources to convict someone.
Fact: Conflict of interest charges are routinely ignored and downplayed when perpetrated by Democrats.
A few examples include John Podesta’s financial interest in the Joule Company, a Russia-based energy company partially owned by the Russian government. The allegation is that the Clinton family and Russia both benefited from an alleged “pay-for-play” scheme while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, involving the transfer of U.S. uranium reserves to the Russian owners of a mining operation in exchange for $145 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation.
The $500,000 for a speech by Bill Clinton, paid for by a Russian investment bank, bolsters the circumstantial evidence of an inappropriate relationship between Russia and the Clintons. The specific charges of extortion, public corruption, and bribery are difficult to prove. The investigation is tedious, but there seems to be an abundance of facts and circumstantial evidence.
The FBI would certainly conduct a preliminary inquiry into these allegations and forward the results to the Justice Department. Due to the amount of public interest in the case, one would surmise that Justice would pronounce the matter either closed or indict someone. But that would require the highly political office of the attorney general under Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch to admit a “scintilla” of Democratic wrongdoing.
Speaking of Lynch and conflicts of interest, we have the attorney general’s tarmac meeting with our former president while his wife was under investigation. These facts and circumstances would be considered probable cause to believe that a crime had occurred, yet we are left with unsubstantiated rumors that the FBI has yet to open an investigation.
Victim — The Trump presidency.
If Trump had just a fraction of the connections to Russia that Clinton and her campaign had, the Democrats would be planning a coup d’etat.
Instead, all the Democrats have are incidental meetings with Russian diplomats andfake dossiers that linked Trump to Russian hookers.
And the appearance of impropriety alone regarding Lynch and Bill Clinton should be alarming. Instead, it was underplayed by a complicit media.
Ligato continued:
Fact: Selective non-prosecution of Democrats, or — “Nobody goes to jail anymore!”
As a retired law enforcement officer, I am astonished by the continuing criminal activities by members of the Democratic Party. Examples include: perjury under oath by Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, James Clapper, and Huma Abedin; refusal to answer questions under oath by Lois Lerner, Loretta Lynch, and a significant memory lapse by Cheryl Mills; and obstruction of justice by Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton, and several tech guys who destroyed evidence.
A flagrant example of selective prosecution is Eric Holder. He testified under oath that he had no knowledge of the James Rosen affidavit. Our attorney general was permitted a perjury reboot and allowed to admit to a memory lapse — only after the committee produced a copy of the affidavit with his signature. Any other individual would be eating off metal trays. Just ask Martha Stewart, who went to prison for lying to FBI agents.
Victim: The Republicans/All Americans.
Further proof of the bureau’s politicization is Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
The wife of the No. 2 man in the FBI received $943,000 in campaign contributions from democratic PACs, $650,500 of which came from the former chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and now Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. McCabe failed to report the contribution because technically, he wasn’t required to do so under IRS regulations.
The campaign contributions came during the period McCabe was investigating Hillary Clinton. If we connect the dots in this Greek tragedy, we see Mueller, Comey, McCabe, Lynch, the Clintons — and another round of Comey and Mueller, which culminated in the special counsel.
Victim — The Trump presidency.
Obama’s administration and Hillary’s campaign were rife with scandal that went nowhere legally.
Yet Trump’s six months in office have produced countless irrational calls for impeachment and prosecution, and he hasn’t done anything nearly as scandalous as “fast and furious” or the IRS targeting.
The Deep State is real. George W. Bush had a similar– in comparative minor–problem with leaks in his administration, but he was vigilant about finding leakers and filling positions with people loyal to him, not the previous administration.
Trump needs to shed a lot of the ideologues held over from the Obama administration that look to bring him down at all costs.
The Deep State shouldn’t get to decide who is in the White House. The American people already did that.