Is Trump A Victim Of “The Deep State”?
by Niall Stanage, op-ed via The Hill,
ZeroHedge.com
Jun 5, 2017
Is President Trump being undermined by a “Deep State” eager to leak damaging information about him?
The president’s allies, both within the White House and in friendly media outlets, say the answer is yes. Trump himself has complained repeatedly that he is being victimized by underhanded leaks.
To Trump’s critics, the talk of a deep state amounts to a conspiracy theory that has been pushed toward the mainstream from the wildest corners of right-wing media.
In their telling, the leakers have done the nation a vital service, shining a light onto previously secret communications between Russia and close Trump associates such as Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner.
The nexus of Russia, leaks, the intelligence services and the deep state will come to the fore again this week, with fired FBI director James Comey scheduled to testify before Congress — unless he is blocked at the last minute by the White House invoking executive privilege.
Beyond the partisan arguments, the question of whether a deep state exists — and whether the leaks about Trump are justified — divides intelligence experts, including those who have served in leading agencies.
Gene Coyle, who worked for the CIA for 30 years before becoming a lecturer at Indiana University Bloomington, was skeptical of the concept of a deep state, in the sense of hordes of government officials working in concert in the shadows.
But he said that the Trump administration has legitimate grounds for complaint about the number of leaks.
“If you are that appalled at the actions of an administration, you should quit, hold a press conference and publicly state your objections,” said Coyle, a former field operations officer. “You can’t run an executive branch if more and more people think, ‘I don’t like the policies of this president, therefore I will leak information to make him look bad.’ ”
Coyle also suggested that leakers were working hand-in-hand with news organizations that are too credulous about any kind of anti-Trump information.
That idea finds wide currency in the president’s orbit.
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