{"id":15632,"date":"2021-02-24T08:07:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T13:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=15632"},"modified":"2021-02-24T12:28:08","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T17:28:08","slug":"the-lies-arent-secret-deep-state-triumphant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/24\/the-lies-arent-secret-deep-state-triumphant\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lies Aren&#8217;t Secret &#8211; Deep State Triumphant"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"c-single-blog__main-content l-main-content\">\n<div class=\"c-breadcrumbs\">\n<div>American Conservative, February 24, 2021<\/div>\n<div class=\"c-breadcrumbs__container\"><a class=\"home\" title=\"Go to The American Conservative.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\">Home<\/a>\/<a class=\"post post-articles-archive\" title=\"Go to Articles.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/articles\/\">Articles<\/a>\/<a class=\"taxonomy web_categories\" title=\"Go to the Politics Web Categories archives.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/web-categories\/politics\/?post_type=articles\"><span class=\"last-breadcrumb\">Politics<\/span><\/a>\/<span class=\"post post-articles current-item\">The Lies Aren\u2019t Secret<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"c-single-blog__main-content l-main-content l-main-content--contained\">\n<div class=\"c-single-blog__taxonomy c-taxonomy \"><a class=\"c-taxonomy__category\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/web-categories\/politics\">Politics<\/a><\/div>\n<h1 class=\"c-single-blog__title c-title wow animated\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/articles\/the-lies-arent-secret\/\"><span class=\"c-title-inner\">The Lies Aren\u2019t Secret<\/span><\/a><\/h1>\n<p>by James Bovard<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-single-blog__subtitle c-subtitle \">\n<p class=\"c-subtitle__inner\">Thanks to friendly courts, the Deep State continues to avoid accountability, triumphant at home and abroad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-single-blog__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/shutterstock_1173623929-scaled-e1614017011554.jpg\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/shutterstock_1173623929-scaled-e1614017011554.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/shutterstock_1173623929-scaled-e1614017011554-700x481.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/shutterstock_1173623929-scaled-e1614017011554-1024x704.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/shutterstock_1173623929-scaled-e1614017011554-768x528.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/shutterstock_1173623929-scaled-e1614017011554-1536x1056.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/shutterstock_1173623929-scaled-e1614017011554-2048x1408.jpg 2048w\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"c-single-blog__image-description\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-illustration\/white-house-secret-deep-state-political-1173623929\">(By Lightspring\/Shutterstock)<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"c-single-blog__post-meta c-post-meta \">\n<section class=\"c-post-meta__social-share c-social-share c-social-share--default\">\n<div class=\"c-social-share__group\" data-module=\"socialShare\" data-initialized=\"true\"><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"c-single-blog__content c-content \">\n<p><strong>Secrecy is the ultimate\u00a0 entitlement program for the Deep State.<\/strong> The federal government is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2013\/jun\/28\/nsa-surveillance-too-many-documents-classified\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">creating trillions of pages<\/a> of new secrets every year. T<strong>he more documents bureaucrats classify, the more lies politicians and government officials can tell. In Washington, deniability is prized far more than trut<\/strong>h.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the Trump era, the Deep State is triumphant at home and abroad. Trump\u2019s epic clashes with federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies helped cripple his administration, and they illustrate the continued danger of Deep State secrecy. If all of the FBI\u2019s shenanigans on Russiagate came to light, it would be far more difficult for the FBI to manipulate American politics and presidents in the future. If CIA records on Syrian rebels were exposed, the Biden administration would have far more difficulty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.syriahr.com\/en\/201904\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">dragging America back<\/a> into the Syrian civil war. But both seem unlikely. Recent court rulings make clear how badly Trump failed to drain the swamp.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-1\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-6678135-9\" data-google-query-id=\"CKiY04fFgu8CFUIG0AQdj4MGdQ\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/3946880\/TAC_INLINE_Pos1_0__container__\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/3946880\/TAC_INLINE_Pos1_0\" title=\"3rd party ad content\" src=\"https:\/\/fdc2ba6ba41f4404470a5ddb3341ef4e.safeframe.googlesyndication.com\/safeframe\/1-0-37\/html\/container.html\" name=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" sandbox=\"allow-forms allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation\" data-is-safeframe=\"true\" data-google-container-id=\"4\" data-load-complete=\"true\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>On January 12, 2017, FBI chief James Comey attested to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court that the Steele dossier used to hound the Trump campaign had been \u201cverified.\u201d But on the same day, <a href=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/accountability\/russia-and-ukraine-scandals\/comey-told-intel-chief-steele-dossier-was-not\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Comey emailed<\/a> then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: \u201cWe are not able to sufficiently corroborate the reporting.\u201d That email was revealed last week thanks to a multi-year fight for disclosure by the Southeastern Legal Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>The first three years of Trump\u2019s presidency were haunted by constant accusations that he colluded with Russians to win the 2016 election. The FBI launched its investigation based on ludicrous allegations from a dossier financed by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. In late 2019, an Inspector General report confirmed that the FBI made \u201cfundamental errors\u201d and persistently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/opinion\/2019\/12\/10\/ig-report-fbi-fisa-abuse-secret-court-trump-campaign-column\/4383722002\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">deceived<\/a> the FISA Court to authorize surveilling the Trump campaign.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-2\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1572516514557-5\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>If the FBI\u2019s deceit and political biases had been exposed in real time, there would have been far less national outrage when President Trump fired Comey. Instead, that firing was quickly followed by the appointment of<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the Russian charges.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0I<\/span>n April 2019, Mueller admitted there was no evidence of collusion. Conniving by FBI officials and the veil of secrecy that hid their abuses roiled national politics for years. Not one FBI official has spent a single day in jail for the abuses. The Bureau\u2019s charade simply confirms the nearly boundless prerogatives of the nation\u2019s most powerful law enforcement agency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Absurd secrecy rationales also made mincemeat of Trump\u2019s foreign policy.<\/strong> One of Trump\u2019s biggest failures abroad was his failure to end U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war. Beginning in 2013, the Obama administration began covertly providing money and weapons to Syrian groups fighting the government of Bashar Assad. The program was a catastrophe from the start: CIA-backed Syrian rebels ended up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/world\/middleeast\/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fighting<\/a> Pentagon-backed rebels. Much of the U.S. aid ended up in the hands of terrorist groups, some of whom were allied with Al Qaeda. Providing material support to terrorist organizations is a federal crime, except apparently when the weapons are sent by U.S. government agencies.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-3\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1573040805625-0\" data-google-query-id=\"CK2a04fFgu8CFdLM4QodT8gIMw\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/63118993\/ADN_Players\/TAC_Player_0__container__\"><iframe id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/63118993\/ADN_Players\/TAC_Player_0\" title=\"3rd party ad content\" name=\"google_ads_iframe_\/63118993\/ADN_Players\/TAC_Player_0\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-google-container-id=\"9\" data-load-complete=\"true\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Appeals court decisions on Syria FOIA requests epitomize how the \u201crule of law\u201d now amounts to little more than political appointees reciting empty phrases to rubberstamp federal coverups. Too many federal judges behave on par with the bureaucratic dregs who supervise traffic courts which uphold every speeding ticket that police ever issue.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When Trump tried to end the Syria weapons program, a <i>Washington Post <\/i>article portrayed his reversal in apocalyptic terms. Trump responded with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2017\/07\/25\/trump-blasts-fabricated-syria-story-appears-to-confirm-covert-cia-program\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an angry tweet<\/a>: \u201cThe Amazon <i>Washington Post <\/i>fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad.\u201d That disclosure spurred a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the <i>New York Times <\/i>for CIA records on payments to Syrian rebel groups. The CIA denied the request and the case ended up in court.<\/p>\n<p>CIA officer Antoinette Shiner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courthousenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/CIArecords.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">warned the court<\/a> that forcing the CIA to admit that it possessed any records of aiding Syrian rebels would \u201cconfirm the existence and the focus of sensitive Agency activity that is by definition kept hidden to protect U.S. government policy objectives.\u201d Of course, \u201ckept hidden\u201d doesn\u2019t apply to CIA \u201cnot for attribution\u201d bragging to reporters. <i>Washington Post<\/i> columnist David Ignatius <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/what-the-demise-of-the-cias-anti-assad-program-means\/2017\/07\/20\/f6467240-6d87-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proudly cited<\/a> an estimate from a \u201cknowledgeable official\u201d that \u201cCIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Federal judges, unlike Syrian civilians slaughtered by U.S.-funded terrorist groups, had the luxury of pretending the program doesn\u2019t exist<\/strong>. In a decision last July, the federal<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>appeals court of the Second Circuit stressed that affidavits from CIA officials are \u201caccorded a presumption of good faith\u201d and stressed<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cthe appropriate deference owed\u201d to the CIA. The judges omitted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/jul\/26\/forget-putin-its-meddling-by-americas-evangelical-enforcer-that-should-scare-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">quoting former CIA chief<\/a> Mike Pompeo\u2019s description of his agency\u2019s <i>modus operandi<\/i>: \u201cWe lied, we cheated, we stole. It\u2019s like we had entire training courses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since Trump\u2019s tweet did not specifically state that the program he was seeking to terminate actually existed, the judges entitled the CIA to pretend it was still top secret. The judges concluded with another kowtow, stressing that they were \u201cmindful of the requisite deference courts traditionally owe to the executive in the area of classification.\u201d Judge Robert Katzmann dissented, declaring that the court\u2019s decision put its \u201cimprimatur to a fiction of deniability that no reasonable person would regard as plausible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On February 9, another federal appeals court shot down a FOIA request from BuzzFeed journalist Jason Leopold who had sought the same records based on Trump\u2019s tweet. Leopold succeeded at the district court level. Federal Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled in favor of disclosure last November, <a href=\"https:\/\/casetext.com\/case\/leopold-v-cent-intelligence-agency-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">declaring that<\/a> \u201cit seems wildly unlikely that, in the eight and a half years since the Syrian civil war began, the Central Intelligence Agency has done no intelligence-gathering that produced a single record even pertaining to payments [to] Syrian rebels.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia rushed to the rescue of the CIA\u2019s prerogative to deceive the world, or at least American citizens. The court unanimously <a href=\"https:\/\/casetext.com\/case\/leopold-v-cent-intelligence-agency-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">overturned the earlier ruling<\/a>, declaring, \u201cDid President Trump\u2019s tweet officially acknowledge the existence of a program? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. And therein lies a problem.\u201d The judges proffered no evidence that Trump had tweeted about a program that didn\u2019t exist. The judges reached into an \u201cAlice in Wonderland\u201d bag of legal tricks and plucked out this pretext: \u201cEven if the President\u2019s tweet revealed some program, it did not reveal the existence of Agency records about that alleged program.\u201d Since Trump failed to specify the exact room number where the records were located at CIA headquarters, the judges entitled the CIA to pretend the records don\u2019t exist.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In his final months in office, Trump repeatedly promised massive declassification which never came. Was the president stymied by individuals he had unwisely appointed\u00a0such as CIA chief Gina Haspel and FBI chief Christopher Wray? Or was this simply another series of empty Twitter eruptions which Trump failed to follow up? Instead<strong>, his legacy is another grim reminder of<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>how government secrecy can determine political history.<\/strong> There is no reason to expect any sunshine on federal atrocities from the Biden administration. Biden\u2019s Justice Department is continuing the Trump administration\u2019s effort to extradite Julian Assange, whom Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2010\/dec\/19\/assange-high-tech-terrorist-biden\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">denounced in 2010<\/a> as a \u201chigh-tech terrorist.\u201d Will the Biden administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2015\/mar\/16\/whistleblowers-double-standard-obama-david-petraeus-chelsea-manning\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ruthlessly prosecute<\/a> federal whistleblowers like the Obama administration did?<\/p>\n<p>James Madison, the father of the Constitution, <a href=\"https:\/\/firstamendmentwatch.org\/history-speaks-james-madisons-report-virginia-house-delegates-1800\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">declared in 1798<\/a> that \u201cthe right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon\u2026has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right.\u201d Unfortunately, Americans have lost that right. America is becoming an impunity regime, in which government officials pay no price for their abuses. This is not a partisan issue: Republicans and Democrats have partnered for decades to keep Americans in the dark. <strong>Vast secrecy means that the political system, regardless of its external forms, is based on blind trust in officialdom<\/strong>. <strong>Pervasive secrecy defines down self-government: people merely select their Supreme Deceivers.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i><strong>James Bovard<\/strong>\u00a0is the author of\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2LsDHUb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lost Rights<\/a><i>,\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2uSsrq2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Attention Deficit Democracy<\/a><i>, and\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2mN0dbO\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Policy Hooligan<\/a><i>. He is also a\u00a0<\/i>USA Today<i>\u00a0columnist. Follow him on Twitter\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JimBovard?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i>@JimBovard<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Conservative, February 24, 2021 Home\/Articles\/Politics\/The Lies Aren\u2019t Secret Politics The Lies Aren\u2019t Secret by James Bovard Thanks to friendly courts, the Deep State continues to avoid accountability, triumphant at home and abroad. (By Lightspring\/Shutterstock) Secrecy is the ultimate\u00a0 entitlement program for the Deep State. The federal government is creating trillions of pages of new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2702,347,987,47,362,264,1449,2703,262,26,708],"class_list":["post-15632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bashar-assad","tag-cia","tag-deep-state","tag-fbi","tag-inspector-general","tag-lies","tag-robert-mueller","tag-rudolph-contreras","tag-syria","tag-terrorism","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Lies Aren&#039;t Secret - Deep State Triumphant - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/24\/the-lies-arent-secret-deep-state-triumphant\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Lies Aren&#039;t Secret - Deep State Triumphant - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"American Conservative, February 24, 2021 Home\/Articles\/Politics\/The Lies Aren\u2019t Secret Politics The Lies Aren\u2019t Secret by James Bovard Thanks to friendly courts, the Deep State continues to avoid accountability, triumphant at home and abroad. (By Lightspring\/Shutterstock) Secrecy is the ultimate\u00a0 entitlement program for the Deep State. The federal government is creating trillions of pages of new [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/24\/the-lies-arent-secret-deep-state-triumphant\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-24T13:07:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-24T17:28:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/shutterstock_1173623929-scaled-e1614017011554.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jimbovard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2021\\\/02\\\/24\\\/the-lies-arent-secret-deep-state-triumphant\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2021\\\/02\\\/24\\\/the-lies-arent-secret-deep-state-triumphant\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jim\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"headline\":\"The Lies Aren&#8217;t Secret &#8211; 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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(By Lightspring\/Shutterstock) Secrecy is the ultimate\u00a0 entitlement program for the Deep State. 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