Trump vs the Deep State

President Donald Trump. 

I've been thinking a lot about the resignation of Michael Flynn. Though Flynn made his own bed by lying to Mike Pence, it's clear that his political fate had a lot more to do with what he believed then what he actually did. His actual actions, though foolish, weren't that bad. Certainly talking to a foreign diplomat during the transition period is not a big deal, even if it is technically against the rules. Obama's administration did the same thing when he was elected, so this really isn't a big deal.

But one thing is for certain. Trump would not have gotten rid of Flynn if someone hadn't leaked the fact that he had said things he shouldn't have said to the Russian ambassador. Which brings up some questions. 

First of all, why on earth was the government listening in to Flynn's conversation? Of course, thanks to Edward Snowden, we know that the NSA listens into pretty much everything, everywhere. But the source of the leak wasn't the NSA, it was the FBI. The FBI was tapping into the Russian ambassador's phone line. There is no indication that they had a warrant to listen in on Flynn, so either they ignored the law entirely or they were spying on all of the ambassador's calls. Why would they be doing that? 

Second, why was Flynn's involvement in the phone call released? Normally when a transcript is released or even discussed, great care is taken to scrub the identity of  any US citizens, especially when there is no warrant to spy on that citizen.  That didn't happen this time and zero steps were taken to protect Flynn's identity. 

Third, it is illegal to talk to the media like this. Whoever leaked the specific accusations to the media committed a felony. It is a crime to reveal the identity of someone like this and whoever did it committed a very serious crime. 

So what does this all mean? There has been a lot of talk about the "deep state" as a concept. Basically, there is a shadow government in the United States that is immune to the change of presidents. It's the massive bureaucracy of political appointees and career officials that are in the service of globalism and not the American public. This deep state is threatened by the election of Donald Trump and are doing whatever they can to undermine and eliminate him.

I'm not sure how much of all of that is true. But I do think there are elements in the United States intelligence community and the criminal justice system that aren't answerable to anyone and are doing everything they can to undermine President Trump. Many of these people are political appointees from the Obama administration who have not yet been purged due to the fact that half of Trump's cabinet haven't been confirmed yet. The rest are Russiaphobes who desperately feared Flynn for his pro-Russia views. 

They aren't alone though. There is a large amount of people that do support the president and want him to succeed. Even in the government. Most of them are not political appointees. Some of them are genuine Trump supporters but most of them are just patriots that care more about the country than anything else. 

These two groups have been called "black hats" and "white hats" respectively. I don't know if I actually agree with those terms, but they do make some sense. It's clear to me that there is a group within in the FBI, NSA, CIA and the State Department that are trying to undermine Trump and they succeeded by getting rid of General Michael Flynn. 

It is also clear to me that they are being actively opposed and have been so since before the election. After all, it was very clear that the FBI was dumping harmful things about Hillary Clinton during the lead up to the election. This was done legally and continues to this day.

Essentially, there is a civil war in the intel community right now and it just claimed it's first public victim in Michael Flynn. What happens next though is the big question. If the deep state comes after Trump directly a lot of very bad things could happen, including both civil war and war with Russia. I don't think the millions of people who voted for Trump would accept him being removed from office. I won't say much more than that... 

As for Russia it's clear that they understand what the Russiaphobes want. They want regime change. Just like they did in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Ukraine, and what they attempted to do in Syria. Putin obviously knows this and won't accept that. It's very possible if the black hats succeed we will have war. The fact that they have already torpedoed Trump's chances at building a better relationship with Putin is not enough. They want blood and won't stop until they get it. 

The real question is what Donald Trump is going to do about it. He can't simply fire everyone because we can't tell the good guys from the bad guys and if we do fire everyone the country will be unsafe. But he can't just let these deep state people keep leaking and undermining him. That makes the country weak and unsafe as well. 

Trump's only option is to use the white hats to root out these black hat people who are more loyal to Obama or hate Russia this much. That will take time and it's very possible that more Trump appointees will fall as well. And though I think it is unlikely, it is indeed very possible that the black hats will succeed in their goal. They are trying to either remove Trump or marginalize him to the point where he can't do anything effectively. 

I don't think they will succeed though. They have a very powerful enemy in Donald Trump and he has the support of the people and the white hats. They can hurt him but they can't defeat him. Not without a lot of luck. And I think their luck has run out...