Rand Paul: The deep state is real… and it’s out for Trump
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says President Donald Trump is under siege by a deep state comprised of intelligence agencies which have been given the power to operate with virtually no congressional oversight.
The lawmaker made the claim during a lengthy interview with conservative commentator Laura Ingraham this week.
“The deep state is the intelligence agencies that do not have oversight,” Paul said.
According to Paul, only the majority and minority leaders and ranking members of intelligence committees in both chambers provide oversight for the nation’s massive intelligence apparatus.
“Only eight people in Congress know what they’re doing, and traditionally, those eight people have been a rubber stamp to let the intelligence communities do whatever they want,” he said.
That’s problematic, Paul added, because none of the establishment lawmakers in those positions believe there can be any wrongdoing among the nation’s spies.
“There is no skeptic among the eight people that are supposedly overseeing the intelligence community.” Paul said.
As evidence, the lawmaker pointed to vast intelligence abuses which occurred under President Barack Obama’s watch.
“John Brennan and James Clapper were doing whatever the hell they wanted, without any judicial warrants,” Paul said.
“I think there were numerous people in the Obama administration who were using intelligence — one, to try to bring Trump down; but two, also, they were using it for political purposes,” he added.
Paul is currently leading a push in the Senate for more oversight of the intelligence community.
“Now were seeing all these people from the intelligence community, Brennan [and] Clapper, all of them piling on and exposing themselves to be left-wing Democrats who hate the president. So yes, I think we have to be very careful about how much power we give to those in the intelligence community,” he said during a later interview with Fox News.
Brennan in particular, Paul said, will “go down in history as someone who is very much a partisan and not in the tradition of law enforcement of trying to be even-keeled and non-partisan.”
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