Both Evan McMullin and John Schindler think we should be worried about what Trump will do now

[highplainsdem]

Remember, they both have national-security backgrounds.


Tweet from Evan McMullin:

Link to tweet

Thank US law enforcement & the courts for this, not Obama. But will this be where Trump starts using state power for political retribution?

From John Schindler:

Link to tweet

Remember when I told you to get worried if the Trump WH starts talking about the "deep state" enemy? They are.

That tweet includes a link to this 2/22 column Schindler wrote for The Observer:

Rebellion Brews in Washington—But American ‘Deep State’ Is Only a Myth

http://observer.com/2017/02/donald-trump-administration-cia-deep-state/

One charge, however, is more serious, and that is the claim from certain Trump supporters that the president is the target of a conspiracy hatched by the “deep state” in Washington. According to this take, the IC and related elements of our secret government have gone rogue and are acting beyond their remit. In this telling, resentful spies are spreading stories about President Trump, especially regarding his mysterious ties to Russia, in order to remove him from office.

-snip-

Indeed, the term Deep State isn’t American or even Western in origin, rather Turkish. It’s called derin devlet in that language, and for decades it’s meant the military and intelligence officials who have worked behind the scenes in Ankara to maintain the country’s secular institutions and values, as enshrined by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Serving as a state-within-a-state, derin devlet reputedly has been the hidden hand which has thwarted efforts aimed at weakening Turkey and its secular Kemalist values. That Deep State has been at war with Islamists and Kurdish separatists for years, using subversion and propaganda—and on occasion, violence—to blunt enemies.

While some aspects of the derin devlet myth are based in reality, over time it’s become the all-purpose bogeyman for Turks unhappy with the Kemalist system. Its shadowy and sinister hand is easily detected behind any activity—no matter how trivial—that Islamists in particular dislike. It’s therefore no surprise that the Deep State has served as the ubiquitous enemy of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who during his 13 years of power in Ankara has waged repeated campaigns against this elusive and wily foe.

Erdoğan’s pervasive efforts to re-Islamize Turkey, thereby undoing Kemalism in fact if not in name, have been met with vociferous Deep State opposition, according to the government. To fight back, Ankara has purged the military and security services repeatedly, most notoriously in the so-called Ergenekon trials, which lasted from 2008 and 2013, and led to prison terms for several top generals, who were said by Erdoğan supporters to be the sharp end of the derin devlet. That this complex conspiracy to subvert the system seems not to have existed outside the regime’s imagination was immaterial in Ankara.

Similarly, last summer’s mysterious coup, said by Erdoğan to have been the last gasp of the all-but-defeated Deep State, offered the Islamists one more opportunity to purge the military, the security services, and the whole state apparatus of those it considered stumbling-blocks to its far-reaching, back-to-the-Ottoman-future domestic agenda. Whether or not the Deep State exists in Turkey—few doubt that it does in some form—its myth unquestionably has been a huge boon to Erdoğan in his ceaseless quest for enemies to crush in order to consolidate his power.

It would be terrible for the United States if the Trump administration convinces citizens that any sort of derin devlet in Turkish fashion exists in our country.

-snip-

Tweet from Robert Costa this morning:

Link to tweet

Bannon is working closely with Trump on combating what he calls the "deep state" in intel comm, per multiple people at WH

Besides this Breitbart story that's reportedly led to Trump's tweet storm this morning

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/03/mark-levin-obama-used-police-state-tactics-undermine-trump/

which describes what RW conspiracists would call "deep state" activity though it doesn't use that term, Breitbart currently has an article accusing Rachel Maddow of helping the "deep state":

The Deep State Strikes Again with Rachel Maddow Department of Homeland Security Leak

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/03/virgil-the-deep-state-strikes-again-with-rachel-maddow-department-of-homeland-security-leak/

That Breitbart writer has been harping about the Deep State's war against Trump since December:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/12/12/virgil-the-deep-state-vs-donald-trump/


So this is Bannon's propaganda framework for what he wants Trump to believe, and to do.

And, as Politico reported two days ago, Trump's advisers are pushing him to purge the government of Obama appointees:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-obama-appointees-advisers-purge-235629

[LOL Lib]

1. I like EM, but

He can fuck right off. Throwing his hat in the election cost HRC votes. He is partially responsible for the DRUMPF.

[leftstreet]

2. This is all too complicated for Trump. He'll probably just resign

Nice links, thanks for posting

[Cosmocat]

7. Resign?

When this gets so ugly Republicans have to actually do their jobs in Congress, it is going to be like rooting Japanese out of a pacific island getting him out of office.

[gibraltar72]

3. Who is

gonna demand the keys for AF 1?

[Fred Sanders]

4. Breitbart. Bannon. A President believing only in conspiracy theories without evidence.

Deep state conspiring against Trump to take him down?

Keeping the real nuclear football somewhere else than near Trump would seem like a good idea about now.

[NotThisTime]

5. Always worry about the cornered wild animal....

[Amaryllis]

6. THis is encouraging:

"Rebellion is brewing in Washington. The resignation of the CIA’s spokesman, a career intelligence analyst, is a sign of how fragile IC morale has gotten under the new administration. If President Trump keeps upping the ante in his war on the spies, he can expect more damaging leaks to reach the media. Leaks happen in every administration, and Nixon’s ignominious fall ought to serve as a cautionary tale to any president who thinks he can find the right “plumbers” to fix the leaky faucet."
From the link in Schindler tweet.