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Who controls the Deep State?

Yep. I added this to the quote:

"Not at all convincing, BTW... from there to the 15 minute mark we simply have Nunes trying to pivot to the identity of the leakers.

Devin Nunes is NOT a democrat by the way... I don't know why you suggested that. All you'd need is to look at the chyron... you don't even need Google."

I must have misread something as I was picking up this from other sources and one of them was a Feinstein post interview over the same thing. That aside, he specifically states that no crime occurred except for the leaks and that someone had to have authorized the unmasking of Flynn and that's not going to be someone low on the totem pole.

-edit-

It also means there was more than one person involved. So, in summary, you have no evidence of any crimes (Clapper also said this) and yet the leaks still happened and it involves more than one person. That's significant.
 
I must have misread something as I was picking up this from other sources and one of them was a Feinstein post interview over the same thing. That aside, he specifically states that no crime occurred except for the leaks and that someone had to have authorized the unmasking of Flynn and that's not going to be someone low on the totem pole.

To be honest with you, I don't trust a single thing that comes out of Devin Nunes' pie-hole.
He is one of the biggest partisan hacks in Congress... and completely in the bag for Trump... he was even on the goddamn presidential transition team.
Why would you expect me to consider him credible on this issue?
 
Does anyone completely control them? We have examples of the CIA seemingly operating outside of their legal parameters and yet nothing came of it. Does anyone think that Obama ordered Dianne Feinstein to have her investigation monitored and people tried to be set up?

We have an organization who's history is full of things like supporting genocide (Guatemala), drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, coups to install dictators, illegally monitoring Senate panels and trying to sabotage them, and yet somehow it's inconceivable that these agencies may have monitored Trump and his campaign. I find the partisan blinders interesting, so long as it helps their own ends.

One of the few things the Trump administration is good for is that's it's highlighting this problem but it's frustrating to see that people don't care so long as it helps their team.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/...e-commitee-cia-interrogation-report.html?_r=0

US intelligence agencies withhold sensitive information from Trump - Business Insider

The Deep State is in a state of civil war.
 
Which they haven't.
Sure they have. Between the Russia stuff (Flynn being the obvious example) to simple things such as incredible disorginzation in the White House, the leaks have shown plenty of information the White House doesn't want out there.

To date, no illegal activity has ever been pointed to.
Shady refers to more than illegal.

That's not semantics. The President is literally the top dog in their chain of command.
And the President works for America, ergo, the intelligence agencies work for America. And, unlike the President, their work continues after eight years.

Again, I'm arguing semantics, not disagreeing with you that the DNI reports to the President.


Snowden and whoever did the CIA leaks went way beyond anything remotely acceptable.
So you supported the Obama Administration over Snowden? Not a gotcha question, just curious.

There are hundreds of thousands of people involved. Of course it's not all of one mind. However, it's regular enough that it seems to be not insignificant. If I were to guess, I'd say it's a few high ranking people.
But far from a "Deep State". If you're talking about "a few people" amongst hundreds of thousands, the term "deep state" seems a little far-fetched, does it not?

Say a decent amount of the military decides not to follow the order of the President, what happens then? This is no less serious and people better be going to jail.
Well, of course this is much less serious. No one's lives are on the line, just some embarrassment to a serial liar. I understand the point you're trying to make, but you truly are creating a false equivalence.

Let's put it another way. Let's pretend, only for argument's sake, President Trump DID collude with the Russians in order to win the election. This could lead to charges of treason. I want to be clear...I'm not saying that's what happened, I'm only presenting it for argument's sake.

If our intelligence agencies knew Donald Trump conspired with a foreign government to rig our election...should they "leak" those documents? Again, I'm well aware my example is on the extreme end and I'm not saying Trump did collude...I'm merely pointing out leaking, in and of itself, is not always wrong (regardless if it is always illegal).

I use that example to make this point. Nothing which has been released has compromised our country. It's exposed connections to Russia the White House would rather have not been public and exposed some other somewhat embarrassing items about the White House, but that's been about it. The only thing I can think of which comes close to damaging our country is the story about the compromising information presented to Trump and Obama about Trump.

Does the fact this material isn't truly harmful make it less illegal? I'm not arguing that. But I am arguing it is not nearly as worrisome as you're trying to make it sound and certainly far from a "deep state" running the government.

All he did was tell Congress that he found more emails. That's not even a crime, yet you think it's not as big of a deal.
You know as well as I do the implications of what he reported to Congress and the timing of that report. Again, I have no problem with it, but let's not pretend it was a nothing burger and these leaks are an existential threat to our democracy. Because it was a very important moment and these leaks are not suggesting a mass revolt against our President, as your term of "deep state" suggests.

That's astounding.
No, it's realistic. "Deep state" is not realistic, it's just the bogeyman the right wing media is trotting out to deflect from the embarrassing behavior of our current President.
 
Except we have other examples to go off of. We have also had Trump dealing with a significant number of leaks that seems to be too numerous to be merely coincidental and too controlled in messaging that they give just enough info to create a fake scandal but somehow they never leak actual proof of any wrongdoing.
Or, there are more leaks, because Trump has absolutely no experience running any sort of federal agency, still hasn't filled a lot of job appointments at agencies, is deeply unfit for the job, and didn't bother to try and win the loyalty of the bureaucrats.


You read that wrong. I'm talking about Feinstein and the Senate panel having been spied on by the CIA. Now, unless you think Obama ordered them to do that then they took it upon themselves to do it. And even in that event, why did no one go to jail?
My apologies. But that doesn't really change anything.

It doesn't make sense for the CIA to undermine Feinstein one day, and then allegedly work to advance her party's agenda the next.


The only thing that's being ignored is the high volume of leaks that's happening. Sorry this seems really hard for you. But you're trying. Look at you!
:roll:

No one is ignoring the leaks. I'm certainly not ignoring them.

What I'm saying is that they are not evidence of a vast conspiracy by the US intelligence agencies to... what, exactly?

I mean, let's get real. If they wanted Trump out of office, they could fabricate evidence of him taking money from Russia, or plant drugs on him, or just whack him.

Meanwhile, leaks are downright routine for Presidential administrations. They happen to every President, and we are now in the era of apps that encrypt and/or permanently delete messages immediately. And let's face it, Trump repeatedly insulted the FBI, CIA and other agencies. Of course he's going to get leaks.
 
Lots of interesting and very...deliberate, responses to some questions asked of Chief House Intel Republican Devin Nunes. Seems like there may be something here.
Did you miss the part where he said "if you take the President literally, then he lied" ?

What's going on is that some of Trump's campaign staffers got caught on incidental collection. Meaning, they contacted targets of foreign surveillance, e.g. Russian intelligence agents. There is no way to spin that as a good thing.
 
Which doesn't change the fact that there are multiple high level felonies occurring at a rate that indicates possible charges of sedition happening.
Please.

Leaks are routine. Every administration gets hit by leaks.

Heck, administrations use leaks to spin their side of the story, or in Trump's case, sabotage factions in the White House. You really think Bannon doesn't know how to tip off the media?


The intelligence agencies work for the President and it should be concerning to have them working against an elected President. That should be very worrisome to anyone yet people shrug it off because it's helping their team at the moment.
It should also be worrisome that the National Security Advisor worked for and was paid handsomely by RT and the Turkish government; that Trump's second campaign manager was very likely laundering money for pro-Putin Ukrainian politicians to lobby the US; that a major candidate for President asked Putin to hack US servers to find missing emails; that a white supremacist has the President's ear; that the President is an inept buffoon who has the impulse control of an average 7 year old....

I think your concerns are a bit misplaced.
 
The Deep State is controlled by powerful individuals behind the scenes, and certainly the CIA is the likely common thread that unites them all. The Powers That Be.

I became cynical and disillusioned when as a young USArmy officer I discovered that Air America really was in the dope business. When Hasenfus was shot down in Central America and the Iran-Contra story broke, it only corroborated what I already knew. Ditto with Dark Alliance and Gary Webb.

All those Yale, Harvard and MIT fraternity brothers sworn to secrecy, going back generations....

One would think other secret organizations are also a part of it.
 
So you supported the Obama Administration over Snowden? Not a gotcha question, just curious.

If I'm understanding the question to be not giving him a pardon and pursuing legal action against him, yes, I supported Obama on that.

But far from a "Deep State". If you're talking about "a few people" amongst hundreds of thousands, the term "deep state" seems a little far-fetched, does it not?

Depends on how many and where they are placed.

Well, of course this is much less serious. No one's lives are on the line, just some embarrassment to a serial liar. I understand the point you're trying to make, but you truly are creating a false equivalence.

I think this is not understanding the matter. We're talking about an entity that has a history of doing really unethical things from supporting genocide to dictators to overthrowing governments to arming extremists. The hidden hand may seem less dangerous to you because you can't see it but that's not the case.

If our intelligence agencies knew Donald Trump conspired with a foreign government to rig our election...should they "leak" those documents?

I think we'd have already seen that evidence, if there was a smoking gun. Former DNI director has already stated this. For the sake of your scenario, though, if they had the smoking gun and released just info on that smoking gun, then that would possibly be the right move. I'd prefer to go through the over-site committees though. There are Democrats on the committee so why not use what's there first?

I use that example to make this point. Nothing which has been released has compromised our country.

I disagree. It's undermining the legitimacy of the sitting President and it's sewing more distrust between them.

I'll end with this, we have too much secrecy going on in a nation that should want to limit it.

 
"James Clapper says that there wasn't evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump earlier this year."

That's some pretty careful language right there.
I wonder what has changed since then.

Since the election? Trump is the President now, that's what's changed since then.
 
Or, there are more leaks, because Trump has absolutely no experience running any sort of federal agency, still hasn't filled a lot of job appointments at agencies, is deeply unfit for the job, and didn't bother to try and win the loyalty of the bureaucrats.

This statement doesn't make sense. You think because some political appointees haven't been made that this is going to spontaneously cause people who have security clearances, are trained on proper handling of sensitive information, and have been doing the job to just lose their **** and be leaking all over the place? Upper management has very little to do with day to day operations.

My apologies. But that doesn't really change anything.

It doesn't make sense for the CIA to undermine Feinstein one day, and then allegedly work to advance her party's agenda the next.

Of course it changes it. We have the CIA spying on a Senate panel and, again, I'm pretty sure Obama didn't order it so they did it of their own volition. How many people did it? How many knew about it? Yet it happened. That's significant.

What I'm saying is that they are not evidence of a vast conspiracy by the US intelligence agencies to... what, exactly?

Undermine a non-establishment President. I mean, Trump sucks as a President but he's still an outsider.

I mean, let's get real. If they wanted Trump out of office, they could fabricate evidence of him taking money from Russia, or plant drugs on him, or just whack him.

Meanwhile, leaks are downright routine for Presidential administrations. They happen to every President, and we are now in the era of apps that encrypt and/or permanently delete messages immediately. And let's face it, Trump repeatedly insulted the FBI, CIA and other agencies. Of course he's going to get leaks.

Why go all out when you think you can do death by a thousand cuts and keep it on a lower level? That aside, there's 4 years for more to happen.
 
Did you miss the part where he said "if you take the President literally, then he lied" ?

Nope. Trump shoots from the hip, lies, exaggerates, ect. I find it interesting, though, that you don't see the irony of your own quote, "if you take him literally". Now, anyone can see that that statement purposefully leaves the door wide open for plenty of other things to have happened that was *exactly* wire tapping Trump Tower.

What's going on is that some of Trump's campaign staffers got caught on incidental collection. Meaning, they contacted targets of foreign surveillance, e.g. Russian intelligence agents. There is no way to spin that as a good thing.

Talking to the Russian ambassador and Obama's DNI, Clapper, has already stated there was no colluding so why then have Flynn's identity unmasked and then leak just enough info to make a fake scandal but somehow they stop short of providing that smoking gun? I mean, they are already committing serious crimes so why aren't they giving the smoking gun of bad stuff? Answer that question.
 
Please.

Leaks are routine. Every administration gets hit by leaks.

Heck, administrations use leaks to spin their side of the story, or in Trump's case, sabotage factions in the White House. You really think Bannon doesn't know how to tip off the media?

I see, that totally makes it so much less serious of a crime.

It should also be worrisome that the National Security Advisor worked for and was paid handsomely by RT and the Turkish government; that Trump's second campaign manager was very likely laundering money for pro-Putin Ukrainian politicians to lobby the US; that a major candidate for President asked Putin to hack US servers to find missing emails; that a white supremacist has the President's ear; that the President is an inept buffoon who has the impulse control of an average 7 year old....

I think your concerns are a bit misplaced.

Yes, some people ran private businesses that operated internationally. As I've pointed out, there's nothing but innuendo and there is no evidence of wrongdoing as stated by the previous DNI director. So you're going to ignore Clapper saying there ain't **** going on and take a small piece of innuendo instead?
 

Yup...but that would be more following the orders of the President where this thread is more dealing with when these agencies do their own thing, which is obvious they do, like Obama didn't order the CIA to spy on Feinstein and the Senate panel. Well, I'm assuming he didn't at least, because it wouldn't make sense.

So Clapper can say that statement and it can still be true that Trump was being surveilled.
 
This statement doesn't make sense. You think because some political appointees haven't been made that this is going to spontaneously cause people who have security clearances, are trained on proper handling of sensitive information, and have been doing the job to just lose their **** and be leaking all over the place?
What I think is that Trump is incredibly incompetent, which has resulted in an inability on his part to put a stamp on those agencies, and give them clear ideas of where they are going and who they work for.

Equally important is that there are like half a dozen motivations for people to leak, that have nothing to do with say 50,000 US intelligence agents and staffers, working in secret, with no one knowing about it, and no known leader, rising up in what can only be described as the most ineffectual coup in human history.


Of course it changes it. We have the CIA spying on a Senate panel and, again, I'm pretty sure Obama didn't order it so they did it of their own volition. How many people did it? How many knew about it? Yet it happened. That's significant.
It was a handful of CIA officers. There was no indication it was ordered by CIA execs. There is certainly no evidence it's tied into a vast conspiracy of bureaucrats trying to DOMINATE THE WORLD.


Undermine a non-establishment President. I mean, Trump sucks as a President but he's still an outsider.
lol

I hate to break it to you, but Trump shoots himself in the foot at least 4 times a week. No one needs to coordinate anything to demonstrate how unfit he is for office.


Why go all out when you think you can do death by a thousand cuts and keep it on a lower level?
Why gosh, let me think of the reasons.

1) Trump survived slashing his own wrists on a daily basis during the campaign
2) If you want someone out, why the hell would you wait 2 or 3 years for it to happen?
3) Why didn't they prevent him from getting into office in the first place? Do you really think that if the entire intelligence arm of the US genuinely wanted to subvert the elections, the worst they would do is get Manafort fired?
 
Nope. Trump shoots from the hip, lies, exaggerates, ect. I find it interesting, though, that you don't see the irony of your own quote, "if you take him literally". Now, anyone can see that that statement purposefully leaves the door wide open for plenty of other things to have happened that was *exactly* wire tapping Trump Tower.
Sure, if you believe in the Illuminati rule the world. Or that it's the Famous Corporation, run by Ed McMahon, that secretly picks the President. (10 points to anyone who gets the reference)


Talking to the Russian ambassador and Obama's DNI, Clapper, has already stated there was no colluding so why then have Flynn's identity unmasked and then leak just enough info to make a fake scandal but somehow they stop short of providing that smoking gun? I mean, they are already committing serious crimes so why aren't they giving the smoking gun of bad stuff? Answer that question.
Because it's still under investigation -- and the FBI and DoJ are not allowed to make official comment until the conclusion is finished.

I might add that dealing with the President shooting his mouth off, and accusing the President like this, doesn't speed up that process.
 
I see, that totally makes it so much less serious of a crime.
I didn't say that makes it less severe of a crime. What it does is point out that screaming "LEAKS!" doesn't prove there is a conspiracy afoot.


Yes, some people ran private businesses that operated internationally. As I've pointed out, there's nothing but innuendo and there is no evidence of wrongdoing as stated by the previous DNI director. So you're going to ignore Clapper saying there ain't **** going on and take a small piece of innuendo instead?
I've already said several times on DP that it is very possible there isn't any collusion.

That doesn't change the fact that there was more than enough reason to be worried about the direction of this administration.
 
Does anyone completely control them? We have examples of the CIA seemingly operating outside of their legal parameters and yet nothing came of it. Does anyone think that Obama ordered Dianne Feinstein to have her investigation monitored and people tried to be set up?

We have an organization who's history is full of things like supporting genocide (Guatemala), drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, coups to install dictators, illegally monitoring Senate panels and trying to sabotage them, and yet somehow it's inconceivable that these agencies may have monitored Trump and his campaign. I find the partisan blinders interesting, so long as it helps their own ends.

One of the few things the Trump administration is good for is that's it's highlighting this problem but it's frustrating to see that people don't care so long as it helps their team.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/...e-commitee-cia-interrogation-report.html?_r=0

US intelligence agencies withhold sensitive information from Trump - Business Insider

Who watches the watchmen?

When you blindly trust ____ to keep you safe and willing give up liberty, well simply read Ben Franklin's quote on that..
 
Depends on how many and where they are placed.
Not really. The whole concept of "deep state" is just silly and is meant to be a ruse to disguise Trump's failures. Those buying in need to wake up.

We're talking about an entity
Again, you refer to intelligence services as if they are one large monolithic entity, all working for the same cause. That's just not true.

I think we'd have already seen that evidence, if there was a smoking gun. Former DNI director has already stated this. For the sake of your scenario, though, if they had the smoking gun and released just info on that smoking gun, then that would possibly be the right move. I'd prefer to go through the over-site committees though. There are Democrats on the committee so why not use what's there first?
I'm not discussing politics, I'm simply presenting the idea that leaking isn't inherently wrong or immoral (even if it's illegal). So far, nothing which has been leaked about the Trump Administration has put lives in danger, only provided embarrassment for the President. There's nothing to suggest the intelligence agencies are going to ignore a command from the President.

I disagree. It's undermining the legitimacy of the sitting President
This is false. If the information being released is undermining the legitimacy of the President, then it is the President's (and his administration) actions which are undermining their legitimacy. Again, just like with Clinton's e-mails, the release of information can only be damaging if it is true.

If the information is undermining Trump's legitimacy, he only has himself and his administration to blame. If Flynn hadn't lied about his Russian contacts, he could still be in his position. If Flynn hadn't lied about his contacts, the Vice President wouldn't have publicly made a false statement. If Sessions had been more forthcoming (and I don't buy for a second he didn't recall his conversation or think it wasn't pertinent), then there wouldn't have been an uproar over that. If Trump hadn't seemingly blatantly lied about former President Obama tapping his phones, there literally would be no information to prove him wrong (since he wouldn't have even said it).

These are self-inflicted wounds. It is those actions which have embarrassed the President.
 
I believe the 'deep state' is simply another term for the military-industrial complex. It would be a privately-affiliated faction, not necessarily anything to do with the u.s. government itself.
 
Who watches the watchmen?

And that's the problem. These groups have become so large and expansive that it would be hard to even have proper oversight, especially from our elected officials who have never worked the various jobs so they don't really know what they are looking for or the right questions to ask.
 
What I think is that Trump is incredibly incompetent, which has resulted in an inability on his part to put a stamp on those agencies, and give them clear ideas of where they are going and who they work for.

Which is irrelevant. These people know what their jobs and, and how to do them, regardless of political appointees.

Equally important is that there are like half a dozen motivations for people to leak, that have nothing to do with say 50,000 US intelligence agents and staffers, working in secret, with no one knowing about it, and no known leader, rising up in what can only be described as the most ineffectual coup in human history.

A bit of hyperbole here. No one said anything about 50,000 but there could be plenty involved in ways they don't realize. Again, we are talking about an agency that has supported dictators, extremists, genocide, ect. Not the best track record there.

It was a handful of CIA officers. There was no indication it was ordered by CIA execs. There is certainly no evidence it's tied into a vast conspiracy of bureaucrats trying to DOMINATE THE WORLD.

Just some random handful of agents spying on our own legislators. No big deal. How many went to jail?

I hate to break it to you, but Trump shoots himself in the foot at least 4 times a week. No one needs to coordinate anything to demonstrate how unfit he is for office.

I won't disagree there but yet here he is, in the White House.

Why gosh, let me think of the reasons.

1) Trump survived slashing his own wrists on a daily basis during the campaign
2) If you want someone out, why the hell would you wait 2 or 3 years for it to happen?
3) Why didn't they prevent him from getting into office in the first place? Do you really think that if the entire intelligence arm of the US genuinely wanted to subvert the elections, the worst they would do is get Manafort fired?

And yet we have all these leaks still.
 
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