The following appeared originally as an introduction to The New American’s special report on the Deep State.

Until recently, “the Deep State,” the subject of this special report from The New American, would not have been a common topic for discussion among either the talking heads on network television or everyday Americans around family dinner tables or office water coolers. But all that changed with the 2016 presidential race and the election of Donald Trump to the White House. And a subject that many Americans were once only dimly aware of, if they were aware of it at all, has become a popular topic.

But what is the Deep State? Does it even exist? How does it operate? What are its goals? Is it something to be feared? What can be done about it? The articles that follow shed much-needed light on these important questions.

In a nutshell, the Deep State is a state within a state — a shadow government that manipulates and shapes the policies of the visible government, without regard to the best interests of the country, the U.S. Constitution, the laws enacted by Congress, and the public policies of the president, who heads the executive branch. The evidence assembled in this special report shows that the Deep State does exist within the shadows of power and that it is working to submerge the United States in an emerging new world order (global governance), in contravention of President Trump’s stated policy of “America First.” The leaks from the intelligence community, which are intended to delegitimize and even topple the duly elected president, are just part of the evidence exposing the existence, machinations, and clout of the Deep State.

The first article in this special report is a brief introduction to the existence of powers behind the throne, not just in America today but in world history. This is followed by articles exposing the shadowy swamp creatures inhabiting the underbelly of the entrenched unelected bureaucracy within the U.S. government in general, and within the so-called intelligence community in particular.

But there is more to it than that — there is also the “Deep State Behind the Deep State.” As explained in our article bearing that title, the power elites manipulating the levers of political power are outside as well as inside government. One example is the establishment powerhouse known as the Council on Foreign Relations, a globalist-minded private entity.

The articles referenced above and two others, constituting almost all of this special report, were written by Alex Newman, this magazine’s foreign correspondent and a knowledgeable researcher of Deep State machinations. Completing the report is a short piece by Arthur R. Thompson, the chief executive officer of The John Birch Society, who explains that the Deep State’s powerful grip on our government (and on other aspects of American life) can be broken through the organized efforts of everyday citizens — simply by shining the light of day on it. In fact, not only can this be done, but it must be done, since the survival and restoration of  our great country depends on it.

We encourage all readers to read this report, to place it in the hands of others, and (in general) to become involved.

To order the “Deep State” special report, click here.

Photo at top: P_Wei/iStock /Getty Images Plus

Even a mere few years ago, many Americans would have scoffed at the idea of privately organized individuals controlling the levers of government. Now most people see it.

In 1770, William Pitt famously told the U.K. House of Lords that “there is something behind the throne greater than the king himself.” Today, in the face of what appears to be a broad and highly coordinated effort to destroy President Donald Trump, Americans are waking up in huge numbers to the fact that there is a hidden “power behind the throne” in America, too. Trump himself has helped to bring about this awakening. For instance, among other concerns, candidate and later President Trump warned his followers about the “swamp,” about a “cabal” seeking “global government,” and of course, about the “Deep State” seeking to sabotage the United States and especially his America First agenda. This view is now becoming mainstream, the evidence suggests.

In fact, an ABC News/Washington Post poll from April of 2017 shows that about half of Americans now believe there is indeed a “Deep State” operating from the shadows to manipulate government policy. A third of respondents say that’s just a theory, while one in six do not know. And remember, the establishment media’s polls are typically skewed in the direction favored by the establishment, as the polls predicting a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton revealed most recently. That means it is likely that significantly more than half of Americans agree that there is a “Deep State.” Younger people and independents are even more likely to believe in the Deep State.

In the ABC/WaPo poll, the “Deep State” was defined as “military, intelligence and government officials who try to secretly manipulate government policy.” However, while at least half of Americans now recognize the existence of this Deep State, and more than a few establishment media organs have even acknowledged its existence, a deep understanding of the phenomenon is hardly widespread. That is a problem, and it must be remedied lest Americans become vulnerable to false (and noxious) conspiracy theories purporting to implicate “the Jews,” the Catholic Church, “white males,” or other groups unfairly targeted. The true nature of the Deep State must be exposed if it is to be stopped.

In this special report exposing different elements of the “Deep State,” The New Americanmagazine plans to shine a light into the darkness of ignorance by connecting the dots. This series will expose the “intelligence community” and the bureaucratic machine, both of which now operate outside of constitutional strictures and seem determined to bring down Trump. But more importantly, the facts themselves will expose the existence of a “Deep State Behind the Deep State” — the secret societies, the semi-secret organizations that are so influential in policy, and the “moneymen” who help make it all possible.

For certain die-hard skeptics, even the idea of a “Deep State” secretly dictating policy and orchestrating events from behind a curtain of secrecy sounds implausible. But the fact that it exists, and has for generations, is easy to prove. More than a few members and supporters of this Deep State have acknowledged it.

In the modern era, these Deep State conspirators have become so bold that they literally brag about conspiring with a secret cabal against the interests of their own nations to form a one-world system. “Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world if you will,” wrote David Rockefeller, the ultimate Deep State insider, in his own autobiography. (Emphasis added.) “If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”

That there are conspirators, and even a hidden “power behind the throne” that exercises influence from the shadows, should not be a surprise, either. In fact, conspiracies and shadowy ruling classes have been a crucial part of history. Who could forget historical conspiracies such as the Roman conspiracy to assassinate Julius Caesar? Even America’s first president, George Washington, having read the book Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies, recognized the threat posed to his young nation and its liberties by the Illuminati, a historical secret society founded in Bavaria in 1776 that aimed to overthrow all the governments and religions of Europe. The barbarous French Revolution was its handiwork.

In the Bible, Christians and Jews have documentation of myriad conspiracies. In 2 Samuel 15:12, for example, the scriptures record a conspiracy by Absalom to overthrow King David. In Acts 23:12-13, a conspiracy to kill the Apostle Paul is recounted. And in Psalm 2:2, the Bible even says that the kings of the Earth are conspiring against the Lord and His anointed. In Ephesians 6:12, Paul’s Epistle warns the faithful of the spiritual struggle “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Clearly, while He urges His people not to fear them, the God of the Bible recognizes that conspiracies can and do exist.

Whatever one may think about Trump and his policies, there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that the 45th president is under attack by the Deep State as well. Longtime establishment loyalist Newt Gingrich hinted at it on Fox News before the election. Commenting on why Trump had the establishment in a panic, Gingrich said he is “an outsider; he’s not part of the club; he’s uncontrollable; he hasn’t been through the initiation rites; he didn’t belong to the secret society.”

That there is a Deep State behind the scenes has become clear. Now, it must be fully exposed and stopped.

Unelected federal bureaucrats make reams of rules and regulations for Americans, despite the fact that such lawmaking is unconstitutional, and for the most part the bureaucrats are following a detrimental path.

Burrowed deep within the bowels of the U.S. government are legions of Big Government bureaucrats with views that are radically at odds with those of everyday, mainstream Americans — and the implications for freedom are enormous. Elections may be useful in removing politicians, but the career bureaucrats who toil away in obscurity, often in blatant defiance of the Constitution, never go anywhere. Instead, they protect their turf as they dump an unfathomable number of regulations and decrees on the very taxpaying Americans who pay their salaries — tens of thousands of pages worth every year. And when there is a perceived threat to their power and agenda — say, for example, a president who promises to “drain the swamp” and rein in the bureaucracy — they react with fury. Meet the infamous “Deep State,” or at least one crucial component of it.

On paper, at least, President Donald Trump is the chief executive officer of the federal government. He sits atop a vast and incredibly powerful machine that includes nearly three million civilian federal employees, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. That does not include the more than two million in the armed services or the over 20 million government employees at the state and local level, many of whom see their role, primarily, as implementing federal decrees. The millions of bureaucrats employed directly by the feds are spread out across hundreds — nobody has the exact number, apparently — of bureaucracies, agencies, departments, sub-agencies, and more. Official estimates on the number of agencies range as high as 430, or even higher. And regardless of which agency they work at, among those federal employees who gave to a political campaign in the last presidential election, almost all of them gave to Hillary Clinton. That is a fact.

In a memo produced by Rich Higgins while he was serving as U.S. national security council director for strategic planning in the Trump administration, the “Deep State” is referred to multiple times. Under “The Deep State,” the document outlines the general idea: “The successful outcome of cultural Marxism is a bureaucratic state beholden to no one, certainly not the American people. [Emphasis added.] With no rule of law considerations outside those that further deep state power, the deep state truly becomes, as Hegel advocated, god bestriding the earth.” Throughout the memo, there are more than half a dozen references to this “Deep State,” including the idea that Democratic leadership “protects cultural Marxist programs of action and facilitates the relentless expansion of the deep state.” Even the Republican leadership, in cooperation with “globalists, corporatists, and the international financial interests,” is willing to “service the deep state,” Higgins explained.

The explosive document Higgins wrote, which outlines the coalition of interests that he said are working to destroy President Trump and America itself, highlights a seemingly bizarre alliance bringing together the hard Left, Islamist organizations, globalists, mega-corporations, the bureaucracy, and more. “Recognizing in candidate Trump an existential threat to cultural Marxist memes that dominate the prevailing cultural narrative, those that benefit recognize the threat he poses and seek his destruction,” Higgins observed, describing an incredibly fierce Maoist-style insurgency being waged against the current administration. “For this cabal, Trump must be destroyed. Far from politics as usual, this is a political warfare effort that seeks the destruction of a sitting president. Since Trump took office, the situation has intensified to crisis level proportions. For those engaged in the effort, especially those from within the ‘deep state’ or permanent government apparatus, this raises clear Title 18 (legal) concerns.”

Ironically, after the memo was brought to the attention of Deep State bigwigs in the federal Leviathan, Higgins was reportedly removed from his post by the Deep State. Former Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka referred to it as the “permanent state.” No matter the term used to describe this unaccountable, unelected, and highly destructive machine operating out of Washington, D.C., at this point it is impossible to deny that there is a sort of permanent governing class that, at least in part, is composed of unaccountable federal officials burrowed into the bowels of the bureaucracy. When the establishment press acknowledges the existence of the “Deep State,” this is what they are referring to — even if many Big Government supporters with little regard for constitutional limits on government view the apparatus as largely benign.

However, for patriots, the existence of this bureaucratic Deep State should be cause for serious alarm, for at least several key reasons. For one, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this permanent government, much of it self-evidently unconstitutional, is hostile to the essential values that long underpinned the United States — limited government, rule of law, inalienable rights endowed on individuals by God, traditional morality, and more. Of course, the first and most obvious piece of evidence can be found by simply examining the actions of this permanent governing class. The obvious fruits of the bureaucracy’s labors include constantly diminishing individual freedom, perpetually expanding government power, surging government spending and a national debt now reaching $20 trillion (and as much as $100 trillion to $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities), increased militarization of the bureaucracies, destroyed lives, reduced prosperity, and other ills.

Bureaucratic Deep State Is Totally in the Tank for Clinton

The politicization of this Deep State is now impossible to deny. Consider, for instance, the fact that some 95 percent of the money donated by federal employees who gave in the 2016 presidential election went to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The massive imbalance held true across every agency analyzed by The Hill as part of an eye-opening investigation published in the days before the election. Among employees at the U.S. State Department, for example, more than 99 percent of all donations went to Clinton. That incredible ratio helps explain seemingly bizarre occurrences such as, for instance, the recently exposed plot by top State Department officials to install Joseph Macmanus, Clinton’s top aide amid the Benghazi fiasco, as U.S. ambassador to Colombia — and all that amid a Deep State-backed scheme to empower communist forces in that nation that was facilitated by Obama and Castro. It also helps explain why foreign policies started under previous administrations — using U.S. tax money to promote homosexuality abroad, as one example — continue to emerge from the State Department despite the ostensible change in the political leadership.

Some bureaucracies were even worse than the State Department. At the U.S. Department of Education, which has usurped virtually all authority over what gets taught in government schools across America today, 99.7 percent of donations went to Clinton. Virtually every bureaucrat in this department who donated supported Clinton. Three donated $220 to Trump, while 724 workers gave more $74,000 to Clinton. And remember, Clinton famously supported the politically toxic Common Core standards to nationalize and globalize education. And she infamously claimed that it takes a (government) “village” to raise a child. That is why, despite the ostensible change in leadership, very little has actually changed in terms of policy at the department. In fact, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ false claims notwithstanding, the department continues its scheming to force government schools across America to teach the Obama-backed, dumbed-down Common Core standards — a radical program that Trump promised to crush, that is overwhelmingly rejected by Americans in polls, and that serves to further nationalize and destroy education.

Other federal departments — including many that can literally destroy the lives of Americans on a whim — are almost as radically skewed in favor of Clinton and her anti-constitutional, Big Government agenda. Consider the Department of Justice as a representative example. According to The Hill’s analysis of election spending data, 97 percent of DOJ employees’ donations to a presidential campaign went to Clinton. Remember, those are the same bureaucrats who were in charge of investigating Clinton for a variety of serious crimes, including her use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. Still today, despite having Attorney General Jeff Sessions ostensibly in charge, the DOJ remains dominated by a permanent class of bureaucrats and attorneys who loathe their bosses and especially the average Trump voters responsible for defeating their favored candidate.

At the U.S. Department of Agriculture, despite the fact that American farmers are overwhelmingly conservative, 99.4 percent of donations went to Clinton. The numbers were the same at the U.S. Department of Labor, with just 0.6 percent of donations going to Trump. At the U.S. Commerce Department, more than 98 percent of the cash went to Clinton. At the Department of Energy, it was 95 percent. Among Health and Human Services (HHS) bureaucrats, 96 percent of their donations were for Clinton. At the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 96 percent of donations went to Clinton, too. At the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which has been under fire for years for targeting conservatives, almost 95 percent of donations were for Hillary. At the Treasury Department, 95 percent went to Clinton. At the EPA, where former bureaucrats got caught circulating a guide teaching current bureaucrats how to resist the Trump policies voters supported, it was 96 percent.

In other words, the federal bureaucrats in charge of foreign policy, “justice,” education, agriculture, health, tax audits, housing, commerce, and more are virtually all opponents of their boss — the man elected by the American people to rein in those very bureaucracies and bureaucrats. Those bureaucrats, who make up a key component of the “Deep State,” are still giving overwhelmingly to Democrats ahead of the 2018 congressional elections, according to an analysis by the online Washington Free Beacon released in mid-October. Those trends are not likely to change anytime soon, with many of those bureaucrats having “job security” unimaginable in the private sector, which includes a practical ban on being fired, even when criminal activity is involved. Consider the implications of this hard-left Deep State, and the unfathomable power it wields over the lives of Americans. It is not a pretty picture.

Some analysts have tried to explain away the incredibly lopsided donation numbers by citing self-preservation. In essence, the argument goes like this: Trump said he would consider cutting back some of the sprawling federal bureaucracy, so bureaucrats were anxious about potentially losing their jobs or their power or both. On the surface, that sounds like a plausible theory. However, even among the agencies ostensibly dealing with “defense” and “security,” where Trump vowed to allocate even more resources, Trump still did poorly in terms of donations relative to Clinton. At the Defense Department, for example, some 84 percent of donations went to Clinton. At Homeland Security, 90 percent of the donations went to Hillary. And at Veterans Affairs, Clinton received almost 90 percent. Could it be a mere coincidence? Almost certainly not.

Draining the Bureaucratic Deep State Swamp?

Unfortunately, despite the rhetoric, President Donald Trump has been unable or unwilling to drain the Deep State bureaucracy swamp. Indeed, beyond the bureaucracy, many of Obama’s political appointees remain in their posts. At the State Department, for example, out of six undersecretary of state positions, only one has been filled so far. That single post was actually filled by an Obama-era official, Thomas Shannon, who has been working overtime to have Deep State operatives put into key posts that will advance Obama’s agenda while ensuring that the “dirty laundry” never gets aired. Of the 23 assistant secretary of state positions, just three are filled so far, and two of those have been filled by officials from the Obama administration. A State Department official quoted in media reports said the agency had a “deep bench” of career (Deep State) bureaucrats working to “advance U.S. interests.” Neocons such as John Bolton, former UN ambassador, too, have warned that the State Department is still pursuing Obama’s policies despite the election, such as promoting the LGBT agenda at U.S. missions around the world.

When asked about the huge number of appointments that have not been made, Trump suggested he might not make them. “We are not looking to fill all of those positions,” Trump explained on Twitter. “Don’t need many of them — reduce size of government.” In an interview earlier this year with Forbes, Trump echoed those comments, saying he would not be making many of the appointments that would normally be made, because “you don’t need them.” “I mean, you look at some of these agencies, how massive they are, and it’s totally unnecessary,” he said. “They have hundreds of thousands of people.” Trump is right, of course. In reality, it is even worse — many of those jobs and the agencies the appointees would lead are not just unnecessary, but completely unconstitutional. But by not filling those key posts while leaving the bureaucracy under them intact, Trump is allowing Obama holdovers and swarms of Deep State bureaucrats across the federal government to run wild and undermine the agenda he promised voters. He may very well be getting bad advice from “Deep State” operatives.

In fact, some of the Deep State’s leading luminaries — such as fanatical “New World Order” advocate and population-control zealot Henry Kissinger, who has served as secretary of state and in other top posts — have even been embraced by Trump in recent months. On October 10, Kissinger visited the Oval Office and was showered with praise by the president. “Henry Kissinger has been a friend of mine. I’ve liked him, I’ve respected him,” Trump said of a man who practically embodies the Deep State swamp. “He’s a man I have great, great respect for.” Beyond that, as highlighted by The New American, Trump has troubling connections to the globalist establishment and the Council on Foreign Relations — another key component of the “Deep State” — even among some of his Cabinet appointments. Some of his top officials have even attended the annual Bilderberg meeting, another gathering of Deep State operatives.

Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Joe Biden have realized how important it is for bureaucratic Deep State operatives to remain in place as they try to sabotage any semblance of the “America First” policies promised to voters by Trump. Biden, for example, said the bureaucrats “call me all the time.” The former VP said he responds by telling them: “Please stay, please stay. There has to be some competence and normalcy.” Clinton made similar remarks in September, urging federal employees to “stick it out, stick it out, because the tide has to turn.” “If [Democrats] can take back one or both houses of Congress in 2018, you will have people you can talk to again,” Clinton declared while promoting her book, implying that they could not talk to their own boss elected by Americans. At least 78 of Obama’s political appointees have also “burrowed” into top-level civil service jobs where they essentially cannot be removed, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

Bureaucratic Deep State Has Tools to Bring Down Enemies   

Adding another twist to the saga is that the swarms of “Deep State” bureaucrats and bureaucracies have many ways to take down their enemies. Consider, for example, that these out-of-control, pro-Clinton agencies produce more decrees and regulations with criminal penalties attached than the government itself can count — literally. Estimates suggest there are close to half a million federal regulations with criminal penalties. But nobody knows the true number. When lawmakers asked the Congressional Research Service to calculate the number of statutes and regulations with criminal penalties, its response was that it lacked the “manpower and resources to accomplish this task.” Seriously. Despite the Constitution delegating all legislative powers to Congress, the reality is that most legislative powers (and even many judicial powers) have today been usurped by the administrative arm of “Deep State” and its never-ending deluge of regulations and decrees. Almost none of those decrees include mens rea protections requiring the feds to prove intent in order to convict.

That means, among other things, that virtually every American commits multiple federal crimes each day without even knowing it, according to the book Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent by attorney Harvey Silverglate. In other words, any American who crossed the Deep State could, theoretically, be targeted for violating some criminal regulation that he or she never even heard of. That is one of the things that makes the ongoing “fishing expedition” against Trump and his associates by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a longtime Deep State operative, so dangerous. Experts such as prominent law professor emeritus John Baker say there is literally no American over 18 who could not be charged with some federal crime. Combined with the out-of-control “intelligence” apparatus — another crucial component of the Deep State — literally nobody is safe. The vicious takedown of Trump’s first national security advisor, Mike Flynn, appears to have been a clear-cut example of the “Deep State” getting revenge on one of its enemies. The malicious federal persecution of conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, who wrote books exposing Obama, appears to be another. In both cases, the men were taken down for minor pecadillos that, compared to what goes on in Washington, would be the equivalent of a parking ticket.

Of course, different people mean different things when they talk about the “Deep State.” In the series of articles on the Deep State contained in this special report, The New American magazine also explores the Deep State behind the Deep State — manifested in, among other organizations, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg network, as well as the secret societies. The “intelligence” apparatus, examined here, is also crucial. But as for the massive army of lawless U.S. government functionaries, it is clear that this cancerous bureaucracy has become a crucial element of what is today known in the popular imagination as the “Deep State.” It is not alone, of course. And it is not even ultimately in charge. But it is extremely powerful, and it has countless ways to destroy its enemies. If the American people hope to protect their Constitution and their liberties from the forces arrayed against it, defanging the administrative arm of the “Deep State” will be essential. And right now, Trump has the power to put that process in motion — if only he will take steps to do it. Among other actions, Trump could appoint constitutionalists to lead constitutional bureaucracies, order work at all unconstitutional bureaucracies stopped immediately, and continue his historic and ongoing rollback of regulations. The Constitution is literally the solution.

U.S. intelligence agencies operate without any meaningful congressional or other governmental oversight, yet they take actions that affect U.S. policies worldwide and override U.S. laws and American freedoms.

Amid a high-profile showdown with the “intelligence community” early in his term, President Donald Trump was repeatedly and viciously threatened — even with extreme threats such as dying in prison. What type of people can threaten the legally elected president of the United States and get away with it? Meet the “intelligence” and “security” tentacles of the “Deep State,” both of which now function largely as tools of the “Deep State Behind the Deep State.”

Since the presidential election, elements of what is often called the “intelligence community” have dropped the mask. For everyday Americans unaware of the out-of-control behavior of so many secretive government bureaucracies, it was shocking to hear lawmakers and bureaucrats acknowledge that the “intelligence” apparatus was taking on Trump — and to witness the Deep State’s war against the legitimately elected president, such as the incessant leaks from inside the intelligence community. Those leaks included, of course, the now-discredited dirty dossier on Trump. But the intelligence community’s employment of unsavory tactics, supposedly to safeguard national security, has been obvious to discerning Americans for many years.

That the sprawling network of secrecy-obsessed spy agencies do the dirty work for the Deep State behind the Deep State appears very clear. Indeed, many of the ostensible kingpins of the “Deep State” intelligence apparatus, as well as their key enablers, are members of the secret and semi-secret organizations exposed in this issue. For example, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) bosses routinely attend Bilderberg meetings. Virtually all of them have been members of the Council on Foreign Relations, and many have been involved with the Trilateral Commission. In addition, many of them have been involved with the secret societies such as Skull and Bones, as well as Bohemian Grove. George H.W. Bush, who ran the CIA before becoming president, was involved with every single one of them.

The examples are nearly endless. Disgraced General David Petraeus, who was put in charge of the CIA, is a regular Bilderberg attendee and a member of the globalist-minded Council on Foreign Relations, which has openly expressed its goal of undermining national sovereignty in favor of “global governance.” When he was done with his government “service,” as with many other supposed “public servants,” he was scooped up by Wall Street investment behemoth KKR. Now, he spends some of his time shilling for the end of America and the emergence of a European Union-style “North America.” His agenda and career trajectory are typical among loyal Deep State swamp creatures involved in “intelligence” and “security.” Similarly, Keith Alexander, who ran the NSA, attended Bilderberg before going on to the “private sector” to make big money with a crony cybersecurity company he founded. Another typical Deep State “intelligence” operative deeply intertwined with the Deep State behind the Deep State is Michael Hayden, who has led both the CIA and the NSA. Like Petraeus, Hayden is a member of the CFR and has attended the secretive annual Bilderberg gatherings on multiple occasions.

State Within a State

Generally, at least for several generations now, American presidents and their closest cohorts have been very close to the Deep State behind the Deep State, if not outright ranking members of it. And so, typically, the “intelligence community” and the White House are on the same page. But with Trump, that synergy between the head of the executive branch and the espionage bureaucracies he ostensibly oversees appears to have been shattered.

It is now widely known, for instance, that the intelligence agencies were spying on Trump’s team. In fact, it is now a documented fact that Trump’s first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, had his phone conversations monitored by the intelligence agencies. That is how they knew that he made a false statement to the FBI. (Obviously nothing improper or illegal was said during the monitored calls, or Flynn would not have gotten off by pleading guilty to the minor charge of making a false statement.)

On top of that, during the first year of Trump’s term in office, there was a non-stop deluge of leaks orchestrated by “Deep State” bureaucrats, averaging one per day. Each one was calculated to impede Trump and sabotage his presidency. Frustrated, Trump finally lashed out, suggesting — with good reason — that operatives of the “intelligence community” were trying to sabotage him and his administration, and that they would be caught and then prosecuted. Then came some shocking responses from the Deep State. “Now we go nuclear,” wrote former NSA analyst John Schindler on social media. “[Intelligence community] war going to new levels. Just got an [e-mail from] senior [intelligence community] friend, it began: ‘He [Trump] will die in jail.’” (Emphasis added.)

Anyone who could threaten the elected president of the United States with death in jail — and get away with it — clearly has power far beyond what everyday Americans realize. In Washington, D.C., though, this reality is well known and widely understood. Even top lawmakers openly talk about it, as if it were common knowledge on Capitol Hill. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate minority leader, for instance, offered chilling remarks that lifted the veil, at least partially, on how the Deep State intelligence “swamp” really works. “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told far-left activist Rachel Maddow, of MSNBC, in January of 2017. “So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.” Schumer, who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, did not elaborate on how unelected bureaucracies supposedly subject to the American people’s elected leaders would be “getting back” at Trump. But the threat was unmistakable.

Since Trump burst on to the national political stage in the latest election, most of the criticism about the Deep State’s intelligence network has come from conservatives and Republicans. Even some honest Democrats, though, have expressed concerns about the Deep State intelligence apparatus and its war on the president — and by extension those who elected him. “You have politicization of agencies that is resulting in leaks from anonymous, unknown people and the intention is to take down a president,” former Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “Now, this is very dangerous to America. It’s a threat to our republic, it constitutes a clear and present danger to our way of life. So we have to be asking, what is the motive of these people? Who’s putting these leaks out? Why doesn’t somebody come forward and make a charge and put their name and reputation behind it, instead of attacking through the media and not substantiating their position?”

After confirming that he believed President Trump was “under attack” by the “Deep State intelligence community,” Kucinich went even further, saying that it targets anyone who stands in its way and starts wars all on its own. “We’ve got to stand up for America, this isn’t about Democrat, Republican,” said the left-leaning Democrat. “This is about getting what’s going on in the moment and understanding that our country itself is under attack from within.”

Even Congress is not safe from the Deep State intelligence machine’s illegal snooping. In 2014, Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) exposed the CIA for spying on her committee’s staffers charged with oversight of the CIA. She also accused the agency of deleting files from the Senate committee’s computers. “It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function,” she said on the Senate floor, adding that several CIA officials had admitted the scheming. With the ability to spy on lawmakers (or Supreme Court justices or presidents) comes the ability to blackmail them, too. No wonder Schumer says the Deep State agencies have “six ways from Sunday” to get their enemies.

The bloated “intelligence community” bureaucracy, which is made up of some 16 (known) individual bureaucracies, includes the well-known CIA, the NSA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). It also includes many lesser-known bureaucracies burrowed into various Cabinet-level departments such as Defense, Homeland Security, Treasury, Energy, State, and Justice. Each branch of the U.S. Armed Services has an intelligence agency, too. According to an investigation by the Washington Post, there are more than 1,250 government organizations and almost 2,000 companies in 10,000 locations across America involved in the U.S. intelligence apparatus. In addition, there are reportedly almost a million “contractors,” bureaucrats, and military personnel with top-secret clearances.

Some functions of these bureaucracies, of course, are critical to national security. And many employees of the agencies are decent, patriotic Americans working hard to keep America safe. But there is a dark underbelly to the intelligence community. If left unchecked, it literally threatens liberty and self-government. And for some observers, it is the Deep State itself. Among the earliest individuals to use the term “Deep State” and apply it to the United States was Mike Lofgren, a congressional staffer with a top-secret security clearance for almost three decades, specializing in national security. The Deep State is “the state within a state,” wrote Lofgren in 2014. “The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies.”

The NSA, which was exposed by multiple whistleblowers as spying on virtually everyone without a warrant, is a “core component of the Deep State,” said Lofgren, author of the 2016 book The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government. The National Security Council, currently controlled by establishment globalist H.R. McMaster, coordinates the Deep State agencies, he said. Even parts of the judiciary belong to the Deep State, Lofgren added, pointing to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court. And Big Business giants in Silicon Valley have been “conscripted” by the Deep State into helping spy on everyone, said Lofgren. The power of this apparatus is beyond enormous. As the saying goes, knowledge is power — and the Deep State, spying on everyone all the time, has a lot of knowledge.

Dirty Dealings

The Deep State’s enormous spying powers are supposedly being used to protect the American people and their freedoms from the threat of terrorism. But American freedom is hardly protected when the target of the spying includes the American people as a whole, in contravention of the Fourth Amendment, which states that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”

Supposedly the intelligence apparatus is watching us for our own good. But who is watching the watchers? The intelligence community, after all, operates in secrecy, without even Congress, let along the public at large, being aware of many of their actions, which extend way beyond illegal spying to include torture in contravention of U.S. laws, assassinations without due process, and the toppling of foreign governments without a congressional declaration of war. Do such extra-constitutional actions by the Deep State-controlled intelligence apparatus really protect American security and liberty, or do they have the opposite effect? Please keep these questions in mind as we survey some examples of the Deep State’s intelligence arm in action:

• Deep State-backed jihadists — In the name of fighting communism, the “intelligence community” literally armed, funded, and trained Osama bin Laden and other jihadists in Afghanistan who later became enemies of the United States. And in the name of fighting terrorism, this practice of aiding and abetting jihadists has continued to the present day, and has even included support for terrorists led by al-Qaeda. Seriously. For example, an explosive 2012 document from the DIA exposed several stunning facts about what the Deep State was up to in Syria. For one, it shows the Deep State knew that the insurgency in Syria was being led by al-Qaeda — and that the administration was supporting that insurgency anyway. “The Salafist [extreme Islamist sect], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” admitted the report, dated August 12, 2012. It also admitted that “Western powers,” certainly including the Obama administration in power at the time, support that al-Qaeda-led opposition.

The memo goes on to outline a plan to create an Islamic State in Eastern Syria based on extreme fundamentalist Islamism. “There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist [fundamentalist Islam] principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor) and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime,” the document declares. That is also exactly what happened when ISIS declared the establishment of its “caliphate” in Eastern Syria and parts of Iraq. In short, the memo offers smoking-gun proof that creating a “Salafist principality” in Eastern Syria was a policy goal of the Deep State.

• Assassination and mass murder — Islamic terrorism has been the key justification for a development that first became public under the George W. Bush administration: the deliberate assassination of individuals declared to be “militants” or “terrorists.” Murder is the correct term, because the victims have usually never even been charged with a crime, much less convicted by a jury in a court of law. There are also no current wars legally declared by Congress that might be cited to justify the assassination spree.

So extreme have the developments become that a former senior intelligence official told the Washington Post that the CIA had been turned into “one hell of a killing machine.” A former leader of the CIA and NSA was caught on video in 2014 casually bragging and making jokes in public about how the “intelligence community” murders people without charges or convictions or a declaration of war. “We kill people based on metadata,” gloated former CIA and NSA boss Hayden at the 2014 Johns Hopkins University’s Foreign Affairs Symposium. Some of the victims include U.S.-born American-citizen children such as Nawar al-Awlaki, eight, and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, 16, who were killed in separate strikes.

It is today public knowledge that the CIA has murdered thousands of people around the world using missiles fired from drones. Between 2009 and 2015, the Obama White House estimated that 2,436 people were killed in drone strikes. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism recorded 2,753.

• Kidnapping and torture — Both are illegal under state and federal law, with no exemptions for Deep State intelligence functionaries. In 2009, an Italian court convicted (in absentia) 23 CIA agents for kidnapping Egyptian dissident Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off the streets of Milan in a 2003 incident. After grabbing him and stuffing him in a van, the CIA sent him to Egypt for interrogation and torture there. He reportedly endured electrical shock torture, emerging permanently disabled. And who could forget the horrifying pictures that have emerged from Iraq and the CIA’s sprawling network of secret prisons — pictures that have now been plastered across newspaper stands worldwide, making America look like a nation of savage barbarians running wild? Confirmed torture methods by the CIA, the DIA, and other Deep State agencies have included waterboarding and beatings, among other horrors.

• Overthrowing governments — The CIA has a long history of overthrowing foreign governments, without any semblance of a constitutional declaration of war from Congress. From Iran and Guatemala to Congo and the Dominican Republic, the CIA has played a key role in overthrowing more than a half-dozen governments where its involvement is publicly known  — and probably plenty more where the CIA’s role is still hidden. Foreign Policy estimates the number of governments overthrown by the CIA at seven. That does not include numerous other operations where the U.S. government — or at least the Deep State — used military intervention, assassination, or covert backing for insurgencies. That also does not take into account interventions where there was no regime change but where other goals were pursued.

• False flags — In some cases, elements of the Deep State have even shown that they are not above using “false flags” to carry out their agenda. Documents from the U.S. Defense Department on Operation Northwoods, for example, outlined a proposed plot in the early 1960s to have the CIA or other Deep State agencies perpetrate terrorist attacks against American or Cuban civilians or military targets and to blame it on the Castro regime. One scenario involved shooting down an airliner. Another involved bombings in Miami. Yet another would have sunk a boat filled with refugees fleeing Castro’s tyranny. “The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere,” the document states. The plan was ultimately rejected by then-President John F. Kennedy, but the fact that it was developed at all is very revealing. Ironically, it was the U.S. government and the Deep State behind the Deep State who put Castro in power to begin with, according to the U.S. ambassador to Cuba at the time, Earl Smith, who even wrote a book about it.

• Mind control — Under the guise of keeping up with communist brainwashing techniques, the CIA also engaged in horrific experiments related to mind control. Among other tactics, federal officials used LSD and mind-altering chemicals, surviving files from the CIA’s Project MKUltra show. According to congressional investigations and testimony from victims, the experiments also included hypnosis, sexual abuse, and torture. Then-CIA boss Richard Helms reportedly tried to obstruct congressional investigations by ordering all MKUltra documents destroyed. Still, at least two congressional committees investigating MKUltra uncovered horrifying experiments often performed on unwitting victims — including individuals confined in mental institutions and even children.

• Drug trafficking — The CIA’s involvement in drug trafficking has long been an open secret. More than a few officials, drug lords, and analysts have even said the CIA and other secretive agencies actually run the global trade in narcotics. Former DEA chief Robert Bonner, during an explosive interview with CBS, revealed that his agency had caught the CIA unlawfully importing a ton of cocaine into the United States in cooperation with the Venezuelan government. More recently, a Mexican official accused the CIA of “managing” the global drug trade. “It is impossible to pass tons of drugs or cocaine to the U.S. without some grade of complicity of some American authorities,” observed Mexican President Felipe Calderón in a 2009 interview with the BBC. And an explosive 2014 investigation by the Mexican newspaper El Universal revealed that for over a decade, the U.S. government had a secret agreement with the ruthless Mexican Sinaloa cartel that allowed it to operate with impunity and ship drugs into America at will.

• Working with criminals —The “intelligence” and “national security” components of the Deep State have a long and troubling history with criminals and criminality — so much so that in many cases it is hard to tell where the criminal networks begin and the government ends. One recent example is the now-infamous “Operation Fast and Furious.” As part of the scheme, the Justice Department, the ATF, and other components of the Deep State were caught transferring American weapons to brutal Mexican drug cartels for the supposed purpose of catching the target of an investigation. Yet that target was already on the FBI’s payroll. NRA official Wayne LaPierre (among others) reasoned that the real purpose was to undermine the Second Amendment. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense,” LaPierre said in a 2011 interview with Newsmax TV. “Over a period of two or three years they were running thousands and thousands of guns to the most evil people on earth. At the same time they were yelling ‘90 per cent … of the guns the Mexican drug cartels are using come from the United States.’”

• Media manipulation — The intelligence component of the Deep State has also been caught using propaganda and manipulation of the media — against Americans. One stunning example revealed in declassified documents was the CIA’s Project Mockingbird (also known as Operation Mockingbird). According to official documents, the scheme, launched in the early 1950s, aimed to hijack the U.S. media to parrot CIA propaganda. Though many of the documents are heavily redacted, it is clear that the CIA program was wildly successful in recruiting globalist pseudo-journalists to do the Deep State’s bidding. Among the names mentioned in the documents are Joseph Harsch of the Christian Science Monitor; Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines; Walter Lippman of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate; and more. William F. Buckley, founder of the neocon journal National Review, was also a CIA lackey.

• Mass surveillance — Then there is the lawless spying on Americans revealed by whistleblowers. Among the most important insiders to expose the problem was William Binney, a senior NSA official who spent 30 years at the agency before resigning to expose the criminal surveillance of the American people. “I knew I could not stay because it was a direct violation of the constitutional rights of everybody in the country,” he explained, citing the “Stellar Wind” program. “[The NSA] can build up knowledge about everyone in the country, and having that knowledge then allows them the ability to concoct all kinds of charges if they want to target you,” he said. Basically, the NSA knows virtually everything about everyone, he suggested, adding that the agency has collected and stored most of the e-mails sent and received by Americans and at least 80 percent of phone calls.

In short, the “intelligence” apparatus, run by leading agents of the Deep State behind the Deep State, has been doing practically whatever it wishes to do, with no transparency or accountability. And it now seems to have its sights set on undermining both the elected president, and the Constitution.

Deep State Behind the Deep State: CFR, Trilaterals, Bilderbergs

Written by  Alex Newman