{"id":118337,"date":"2025-01-14T17:05:42","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T15:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=118337"},"modified":"2025-01-11T11:52:26","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T09:52:26","slug":"11-05-109","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=118337","title":{"rendered":"The Deep State Strikes Back!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>The Deep State Strikes Back!<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n


\nLee Smith<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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A front-runner for the top White House intelligence job may be planning to run cover for the IC, sources say<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n

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\nMike Turner, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence \/ Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to make war against the deep state. Now it seems the first battle may take place on home ground: the White House.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Congressional and intelligence sources tell Tablet that the candidate slotted in for the top intelligence spot on the National Security Council is ill suited to serve the president\u2019s agenda. Adam Howard, reportedly the front-runner for the NSC\u2019s senior director for intelligence, is currently staff director for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), chaired by Republican Congressman Mike Turner. According to several current congressional sources, multiple House members have raised concern over an alleged boast made by Turner on Capitol Hill that he\u2019s \u201ctaking over Trump\u2019s IC [Intelligence Community].\u201d Presumably, Howard is meant to be his instrument.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On Sunday, Joshua Steinman, an NSC official from the first Trump administration, posted a long thread on X reporting that the current NSC is being staffed with holdovers from the Joe Biden administration and others unlikely to serve Trump\u2019s agenda, including Howard, whose intelligence experience is limited to the two years he\u2019s served as HPSCI staff director. Biden\u2019s senior director for intelligence is Maher Bitar, an anti-Israel activist once affiliated with the Students for Justice in Palestine. Bitar also came from HPSCI, where he worked under then-Congressman now-Sen. Adam Schiff, one of Trump\u2019s most vocal opponents on Capitol Hill.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWithout an operational intelligence background, you can\u2019t clean up the mess made by the current [Biden] team,\u201d wrote Steinman.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Under Turner\u2019s leadership, HPSCI has been making the IC\u2019s case, defending the interests of a cadre that\u2019s abused its power by spying on Americans, including the president-elect.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The NSC\u2019s senior director for intelligence is the president\u2019s interlocutor with the 18 intelligence agencies that make up the IC and ensures that the president\u2019s initiatives are being fulfilled. The senior director administrates all covert action programs on behalf of the president and controls all classified information flow to and from the White House, most significantly the Presidential Daily Brief. He also has IC-wide oversight responsibility.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And yet, say congressional sources, Turner and his deputy Howard have over the past year neglected their constitutionally mandated oversight duties and instead covered for the IC. The sources say that they have impeded efforts to investigate anything that might have embarrassed Biden administration intelligence officials. When reached by Tablet, an HPSCI spokesman declined to comment for the record.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201c[Is Howard] willing to expose IC dirty tricks targeting the President?\u201d Steinman asked in his X thread. He was not outlining a hypothetical but rather referring to the NSC\u2019s work in the first Trump White House uncovering the surveillance of the president and his aides. After the 2016 election, NSC staffers found that Obama officials had unmasked the names of transition team officials in transcripts of foreign intelligence intercepts, most notably Gen. Michael Flynn. Trump\u2019s onetime national security adviser was unmasked by at least 40 Obama officials\u2014including now President Joe Biden.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The unlawful leak to the media of Flynn\u2019s phone conversation with Russia\u2019s U.S. ambassador led first to the combat veteran\u2019s departure from the White House and subsequently the special counsel investigation that hobbled the first half of Trump\u2019s first term in office. NSC holdovers from the Obama administration bogged down the Trump team and one holdover, CIA official Eric Ciaramella, teed up the first impeachment of Trump.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Turner in fact was excellent during the impeachment process, using the televised hearings to defend the president and break down Schiff\u2019s anti-Trump witnesses. After Turner took over the committee, he was reportedly keen to reset relations with Schiff and the Democrats and move toward bipartisanship. The problem is that it\u2019s hard to have comity with a faction led by an ambitious activist like Schiff who saw the committee as a political weapon to target opponents.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s a lot riding on the current NSC starting off on the strongest possible footing and with an eye to defending a commander in chief certain to be in the deep state\u2019s crosshairs. Steinman concluded his thread with the observation that if the new intel director \u201cisn\u2019t 100% on board with the Trump Agenda, we are in for trouble.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The day after Steinman\u2019s post, incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz wrote on Twitter, apparently responding to Steinman\u2019s allegations, that \u201canyone working under President Trump in the NSC will be fully aligned with his America First agenda. Any rumors or suggestions to the contrary are fake news and a distraction from the mission. We will clear the decks to Make America Great Again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Waltz, a retired colonel in the National Guard and a combat-decorated Green Beret, served on the House Intelligence Committee and is perfectly aligned with Trump\u2019s priorities on the threats facing America\u2014China, Russia, and Iran. He wrote to Tablet: \u201cI will not be bringing any personnel\u2014political appointees or detailees\u2014who are not in line with the President\u2019s agenda. Additionally, detailees will be dismissed on day one pending an assessment of President Trump and the NSC\u2019s priorities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Steinman isn\u2019t the only one who thinks Adam Howard doesn\u2019t fit the bill.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After HPSCI finished its report on cases of sexual assault at the CIA, it was released only after victims complained. The victims have continued to raise concerns that the CIA has not been held accountable, and the House report seemingly praised CIA leadership and allocated more resources to the Agency to stop employees from sexually assaulting their colleagues. The report<\/a> reasoned that the CIA was \u201cunable to appropriately address the challenges due to its lack of certain tools and authorities. The Committee sought to provide CIA with what it needs to fix these gaps in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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According to Senate sources, with the 2024 Intelligence Authorization Act, Senate Intelligence Committee Republicans were keen to cut all funding for DEI programs across the IC and limit DEI management positions, and successfully did so in their version of the bill. But since Turner and his staff were willing to satisfy the Biden administration\u2019s requests, the disparity weakened the GOP Senate\u2019s provisions and the final bill.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Perhaps most oddly, Turner and Howard spooked the country with a vague warning of a security threat to prevent consideration of reforms to 702, the authority for the warrantless bulk data collection of American communications. When 702 was up for reauthorization in spring 2024, House Speaker Mike Johnson wanted to give the Judiciary Committee the opportunity to make amendments protecting U.S. privacy rights. But Turner moved to block the bill from coming to the floor with an amendment process.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The HPSCI chair took the unusual step of publicly announcing<\/a> that he had made available to House members classified information regarding a \u201cserious national security threat\u201d and called on President Biden to declassify all information related to it. Although Turner didn\u2019t specify the threat at the time, it turned out to be a Russian space-based military capability<\/a>\u2014a serious threat, but not as urgent as Turner had made it seem. Lawmakers had been in possession of the intelligence for weeks prior to Turner\u2019s announcement.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The point was that the information about the Russian space weapon was reportedly collected via 702. Turner\u2019s announcement was meant to show that the controversial surveillance program was an indispensable tool and anyone who moved to reform it was playing fast and loose with national security and exposing Americans to danger.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Under Turner\u2019s leadership, in other words, HPSCI has been making the IC\u2019s case. But defending the interests of a cadre that\u2019s abused its power by spying on Americans, including the president-elect, is the opposite of what Donald Trump had in mind when he swore he\u2019d clean out the deep state.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When contacted by Tablet, Steinman said: \u201cPresident Trump has the greatest instincts in a leader I have ever seen. And he deserves a team that executes his vision with the tenacity and vigor befitting the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Lee Smith<\/strong> is the author of Disappearing the President: Trump, Truth Social, and the Fight for the Republic<\/a> (2024).<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Deep State Strikes Back! Lee Smith A front-runner for the top White House intelligence job may be planning to run cover for the IC, sources say . Mike Turner, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence \/ Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to make war against the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118337"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118495,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118337\/revisions\/118495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}