The Walls Are Closing In on The ‘Deep State’

John H. Durham, U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut since February 2018. (United States Department of Justice)

Commentary

U.S. Attorney General William Barr recently tapped John H. Durham, a U.S. attorney from Connecticut, to investigate the origins of the spying on the campaign of President Donald Trump before and after the 2016 election.

Barr said in April that he believes that spying did occur, but was unsure if that spying was “adequately predicated” or not.

Durham’s appointment represents the third investigation into alleged wrongdoing by senior-level officials at the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) during the tenure of former President Barack Obama.

This development suggests that allegations of criminal actions that were intended to undermine Trump’s presidency aren’t merely a conspiracy theory, and that the walls are closing in on those within the “deep state” who set out to unseat a duly elected U.S. president.

The American ‘Deep State’

The “deep state” is a colloquialism for an unofficial group of people—an entrenched bureaucracy—within a combination of various government agencies who operate outside of the law, pushing their own agenda for domestic and foreign policy. While we’ve only heard the term “deep state” relatively recently, in the past, the names for groups of rogue actors within the government have included “the cabal,” “the octopus,” and “the shadow government.”

Normally thought to be an idea promoted by conspiracy theorists, the notion that a group of rogue actors is operating within the U.S. government now seems to be more truth than fiction, with the revelation that multiple people within the Obama FBI, DOJ, CIA, and State Department appear to have tried to sabotage the Trump administration.

We now know that there were biased agents within the FBI who confirmed that the Russia investigation was merely an “insurance policy” in case then-candidate Trump won the election. A New York Times report also confirmed that “after Mr. Trump secured the nomination, Fusion GPS was hired on behalf of [Hillary] Clinton’s campaign and the [Democratic National Committee] by their law firm, Perkins Coie, to compile research about Mr. Trump,” and they hired Christopher Steele, a former British spy, to produce the unverified (and unverifiable) dossier that was knowingly misrepresented to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to launch spying operations on the Trump campaign.

Investigative reporter John Solomon said that soon-to-be-released emails show “damning evidence” of a plot against Trump.

“The email exchanges included then-FBI Director James Comey, key FBI investigators in the Russia probe and lawyers in the DOJ’s national security division, and they occurred in early- to mid-October, before the FBI successfully secured a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page,” Solomon reported in The Hill.

“The email exchanges show the FBI was aware—before it secured the now-infamous warrant—that there were intelligence community concerns about the reliability of the main evidence used to support it: the Christopher Steele dossier.”

This is just the tip of the iceberg of information, which serves as prima facie evidence that a “deep state” is alive and well. And the tables have just been turned.

Multiple Investigations Are Running

First, Durham has worked for the DOJ since 1982 and has conducted investigations under both Republican and Democratic administrations. He will “probe ‘all intelligence collection activities’ related to the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election,” according to Fox News.

While his appointment only recently was made public, Durham has already had this investigation active for weeks. He is known as a tough prosecutor who has already investigated corruption within the FBI and CIA.

The New York Times reported that Durham “is also investigating whether [the FBI’s 2016 general counsel James] Baker made unauthorized disclosures to the news media.”

Second, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is conducting his own investigation into “whether law enforcement officials intentionally misled the intelligence court,” according to The New York Times, as well as issues surrounding the handling of the unverified Steele dossier. That investigation is expected to be completed this month or next month.

Third, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed U.S. Attorney John Huber to investigate possible corruption within the FBI and DOJ. Huber’s investigation began in November 2017, he has a staff of 470 people, and he is able to impanel a grand jury and bring indictments in all 50 states—far more power than special counsel Robert Mueller.

The Walls Are Closing In

In addition to the above investigations, CNN correspondent Laura Jarrett wrote on Twitter that Barr is now “working closely with CIA Director [Gina] Haspel, ODNI Director [Dan] Coats and FBI Director [Christopher] Wray on surveillance issues related to Trump campaign—suggesting broader interagency effort underway.”

The intelligence community is working in concert to get to the bottom of this and make a definitive determination on the alleged corruption. There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

All of these developments should terrify any corrupt actors within the FBI, DOJ, CIA, and State Department who engaged in criminal activity vis-à-vis the investigations into the Trump campaign and the Trump presidency.

Very soon, the public will learn the depths of any corruption that may have occurred. And, unlike in the past, our current attorney general is “serious about cleaning house,” Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) told Fox News.

“I think you’re seeing the Justice Department go on offense to say ‘Let’s clean up the bad apples,’” he said. “That cannot be tolerated in America. This is not how we run our country.”

Adrian Norman is a writer and political commentator.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.