Now That We Have a New Trump Controlled Deep State, Was There an Old One?

 

Now That We Have a New Trump Controlled Deep State, Was There an Old One?

Most anyone who opposes anything Trump wants to do – mostly, for the big stuff, to amend the Constitution and replace the legislative process with executive orders, which are prime examples – are his enemies. He cannot fathom how his Federalist Society somehow recommended appointments to the federal bench – trial courts, appellate courts and the US Supreme Court – could ever rule against him. The US Court of International Trade ruled Trump was usurping Congressional power without proper constitutional or statutory justification, with both Reagan and Trump appointees ruling against him as part of a unanimous decision. He was outraged, even though an appellate court stayed the ruling pending a full appellate review.

Trump’s appointments to senior positions have been uniformly horrible – unqualified and willing to ignore statutes, courts and the Constitution – to do his bidding… even misstating the law when testifying before Congressional committees. Like HSI Secretary Kristi Noem explaining that “habeas corpus” gave the President the unilateral right to deport his “undesirables” directly and without a “due process” hearing. In fact, under the 5th Amendment, a writ of “habeas corpus” is allowing someone held by the government to ask “where’s the body and why?”… in short, “due process.” This allows courts to require the government to explain detention without true due process, which includes an unfair adjudication.

A sizeable number MAGA conspiracy theorists voted for Trump because he promised to reveal and purge the existing cabal of leftist radicals who, over the years, had permeated every level of federal government, hence the “deep state.” Now that Trump is President and has access to every level of federal documentation, his followers are asking for that proof of the “deep state.” Trump’s not doing a good job of that great reveal, as Ali Swenson, writing for the May 30th Associated Press, explains: “Trump has long promised to dismantle the “deep state” — a supposed secret network of powerful people manipulating government decisions behind the scenes — to build his base of support, said Yotam Ophir, a communications professor at the University at Buffalo… ‘He built part of this universe, which at the end of the day is a fictional universe,’ he said.

“Now that Trump is in power and has stocked loyalists throughout his administration, his supporters expect all to be revealed. Delivering on that is difficult when many of the conspiracies he alleged aren’t real, said Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist who studies conspiracy theories at the University of Miami.

“To be sure, the president has prioritized retribution in his second administration. He has fired federal workers and targeted law firms he disfavors in executive orders. He has ordered the revocation of government security clearances for political rivals and former employees who dissented during his first term. His Justice Department has fired prosecutors who investigated him and scrutinized career FBI agents who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol…

“Tensions erupted this month [May] when FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, dismissed two of the unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that have animated Trump’s base the most — that financier and sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein was murdered in a cover-up, and that Trump’s attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a government plot… ‘You know a suicide when you see one, and that’s what that was,’ Patel said about Epstein's death in a Fox News interview.”

Trump has also opened all the relevant federal documentation about the assassination of President John F Kennedy to find evidence of a “deep state” involvement in that killing. So far, there hasn’t been much in the way of finding that “deep state,” but given that loyalty to Trump is now a mandate for every federal employee (where remotely possible), we unequivocally have a deep state now. Add to the political state, note there’s an economic one too. Trump’s personal quest for new mega-cash deals for himself, notably evidenced in his cryptocurrency meme-coin, generating huge investments in his crypto venture, making Trump mega-wealthy so far beyond his pre-election as President. That loyalty mandate permeates every facet of the federal government… and enables Trump to grift to billions and billions of dollars.

As leader of the new deep state, he looks to blame others for anything gone wrong or to foster new conspiracy theories (or pretend to be investigating them): “Ophir, the University at Buffalo professor, said it's a tactic that distracts Trump's base and helps inoculate him from criticism… ‘When something good happens, it’s because Trump is great and his agenda is brilliant,’ Ophir said. ‘When something bad happens, it's because of the Obamas or the Clintons or whatever forces are undermining him from within Washington.’

“Trump this week [late May] fueled newer theories, without sharing evidence, that Biden’s use of a mechanical device called an autopen during his presidency meant he didn’t sign his executive orders willingly or that aides profited from controlling it. He has called for people who operated it to be charged with ‘TREASON.’” AP.

So, instead of my usual signoff, today, I will provide a letter from an institution in which I am a member, which has historically vetted potential federal judicial appointees for experience, integrity and education: the American Bar Association. The ABA prides is recommendation lists as politically neutral, looking for qualities in candidates, not political leanings. Because it is unbiased – i.e., not completely pro-Trump – its recommendations are no longer welcome by the Trump administration as this letter for uber-Trump loyalist and Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to the ABA confirms: