CRIMINAL GOVERNMENT (CIA, FBI, DOJ, NSA): FISA (702) Used As Domestic Surveillance and Political Spy Mechanism (Global Gang Stalking Crimes By These Agencies Are THOUSANDS OF TIMES More Criminal!)

Webmaster (ETK) note: This youtube video has already been scrubbed from the internet. However, portions of the dialogue were transcribed (below):

Digenova Former Independent Counsel Robert Ray Discuss FBI’s FISA Violations

“The problem for Brennan and Clapper and Comey and Baker and all of them now is that the FISA Court has already communicated with the Justice Department about its findings.

Ray expresses both the importance of exposing all of the facts in this case and the need to hold the conspirators accountable, and, his confidence that Attorney General William Barr is determined to do both.”

IV. Joe Digenova tells the world about “4 FBI contractors” spying for 4 years prior to 2016.

Joe Digenova: 4 FBI Contractors

Webmaster comment: The Youtube video on this post is taken down.

V. The Last Refuge

The Obama Use of FISA-702 as a Domestic Political Surveillance Program….
Posted on April 23, 2019 by sundance

Use of FISA (702) As A Domestic-Political Surveillance Program

Rag Tag Bunch of Conservative Misfits – Contact Info: TheLastRefuge@reagan.com

← April 23rd – 2019 Presidential Politics – Trump Administration Day #824

Now that we have significant research files on the 2015 and 2016 political surveillance program; which includes the trail evident within the Weissmann/Mueller report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the entire objective and gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of approximately four to six years.

Working with a timeline, but also referencing origination material in 2015/2016 – CTH hopes to show how the program operated. This explains an evolution from The IRS Files in 2010 to the FISA Files in 2016.

The FISA-702 database extraction process, and utilization of the protections within the smaller intelligence community, was the primary process. We start by reviewing the established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26th, 2017; and explain the details within the FISC opinion.

I would strongly urge everyone to read the FISC report (full pdf below) because Judge Collyer outlines how the DOJ, which includes the FBI, had an “institutional lack of candor” in responses to the FISA court. In essence, they were continually lying to the court about their activity, and the rate of fourth amendment violations for illegal searches and seizures of U.S. persons’ private information for multiple years.

Unfortunately, due to intelligence terminology Judge Collyer’s brief and ruling is not an easy read for anyone unfamiliar with the FISA processes outlined. The complexity also helps the media avoid discussing, and as a result most Americans have no idea the scale and scope of the issues. So we’ll try to break down the language.

View this document on Scribd

For the sake of brevity and common understanding CTH will highlight the most pertinent segments showing just how systemic and troublesome the unlawful electronic surveillance was.

Early in 2016 NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was alerted of a significant uptick in FISA-702(17) “About” queries using the FBI/NSA database that holds all metadata records on every form of electronic communication.

The NSA compliance officer alerted Admiral Mike Rogers who then initiated a full compliance audit on/around March 9th, 2016, for the period of November 1st, 2015, through May 1st, 2016.

While the audit was ongoing, due to the severity of the results that were identified, Admiral Mike Rogers stopped anyone from using the 702(17) “about query” option, and went to the extraordinary step of blocking all FBI contractor access to the database on April 18, 2016 (keep these dates in mind).

Here are some significant segments:

The key takeaway from these first paragraphs is how the search query results were exported from the NSA database to users who were not authorized to see the material. The FBI contractors were conducting searches and then removing, or ‘exporting’, the results. Later on, the FBI said all of the exported material was deleted.

Searching the highly classified NSA database is essentially a function of filling out search boxes to identify the user-initiated search parameter and get a return on the search result.

FISA-702(16) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (“702”); and the “16” is a check box to initiate a search based on “To and From“. Example, if you put in a date and a phone number and check “16” as the search parameter the user will get the returns on everything “To and From” that identified phone number for the specific date. Calls, texts, contacts etc. Including results for the inbound and outbound contacts.

FISA-702(17) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (702); and the “17” is a check box to initiate a search based on everything “About” the search qualifier. Example, if you put a date and a phone number and check “17” as the search parameter the user will get the returns of everything about that phone. Calls, texts, contacts, geolocation (or gps results), account information, user, service provider etc. As a result, 702(17) can actually be used to locate where the phone (and user) was located on a specific date or sequentially over a specific period of time which is simply a matter of changing the date parameters.

And that’s just from a phone number.

Search an ip address “about” and read all data into that server; put in an email address and gain everything about that account. Or use the electronic address of a GPS enabled vehicle (about) and you can withdraw more electronic data and monitor in real time. Search a credit card number and get everything about the account including what was purchased, where, when, etc. Search a bank account number, get everything about transactions and electronic records etc. Just about anything and everything can be electronically searched; everything has an electronic ‘identifier’.

The search parameter is only limited by the originating field filled out. Names, places, numbers, addresses, etc. By using the “About” parameter there may be thousands or millions of returns. Imagine if you put “@realdonaldtrump” into the search parameter? You could extract all following accounts who interacted on Twitter, or Facebook etc. You are only limited by your imagination and the scale of the electronic connectivity.

As you can see below, on March 9th, 2016, internal auditors noted the FBI was sharing “raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information”.

In plain English the raw search returns were being shared with unknown entities without any attempt to “minimize” or redact the results. The person(s) attached to the results were named and obvious. There was no effort to hide their identity or protect their 4th amendment rights of privacy:

But what’s the scale here? This is where the story really lies.

Read this next excerpt carefully.

The operators were searching “U.S Persons”. The review of November 1, 2015, to May 1, 2016, showed “eighty-five percent of those queries” were unlawful or “non compliant”.
85% !! “representing [redacted number]”.

We can tell from the space of the redaction the number of searches were between 1,000 and 9,999 [five digits]. If we take the middle number of 5,000 – that means 4,250 unlawful searches out of 5,000.

The [five digit] amount (more than 1,000, less than 10,000), and 85% error rate, was captured in a six month period.

Also notice this very important quote: “many of these non-compliant queries involved the use of the same identifiers over different date ranges.” So they were searching the same phone number, email address, electronic “identifier”, or people, repeatedly over different dates. Specific people were being tracked/monitored.

Additionally, notice the last quote: “while the government reports it is unable to provide a reliable estimate of” these non lawful searches “since 2012, there is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015 [to] April 2016 coincided with an unusually high error rate”.

That means the 85% unlawful FISA-702(16)(17) database abuse has likely been happening since 2012. (Again, remember that date, 2012) Who was FBI Director? Who was his chief-of-staff? Who was CIA Director? ODNI? etc. Remember, the NSA is inside the Pentagon (Defense Dept) command structure. Who was Defense Secretary? And finally, who wrote and signed-off-on the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment?

Tens of thousands of searches over four years (since 2012), and 85% of them are illegal. The results were extracted for?…. (I believe this is all political opposition use; and I’ll explain why momentarily.)

OK, that’s the stunning scale; but who was involved?

Private contractors with access to “raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to FBI’s requests“:

And as noted, the contractor access was finally halted on April 18th, 2016.

[Coincidentally (or not), the wife of Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson, Mary Jacoby, goes to the White House the next day on April 19th, 2016.]

None of this is conspiracy theory.

All of this is laid out inside this 99-page opinion from FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer who also noted that none of this FISA abuse was accidental in a footnote on page 87: “deliberate decision-making“:

Summary of this aspect: The FISA court identified and quantified tens-of-thousands of search queries of the NSA/FBI database using the FISA-702(16)(17) system. The database was repeatedly used by persons with contractor access who unlawfully searched and extracted the raw results without redacting the information and shared it with an unknown number of entities.

The outlined process certainly points toward a political spying and surveillance operation; and we are not the only one to think that’s what this system is being used for.

Back in 2017 when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was working to reauthorize the FISA legislation, Nunes wrote a letter to ODNI Dan Coats about this specific issue:

SIDEBAR: To solve the issue, well, actually attempt to ensure it never happened again, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers eventually took away the “About” query option permanently in 2017. NSA Director Rogers said the abuse was so inherent there was no way to stop it except to remove the process completely. [SEE HERE] Additionally, the NSA database operates as a function of the Pentagon, so the Trump administration went one step further. On his last day as NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers -together with ODNI Dan Coats- put U.S. cyber-command, the database steward, fully into the U.S. military as a full combatant command. [SEE HERE]

There is little doubt the FISA-702(16)(17) database system was used by Obama-era officials, from 2012 through April 2016, as a way to spy on their political opposition. Quite simply there is no other intellectually honest explanation for the scale and volume of database abuse that was taking place.

When we reconcile what was taking place and who was involved, then the actions of the exact same principle participants take on a jaw-dropping amount of clarity.

All of the action taken by CIA Director Brennan, FBI Director Comey, ODNI Clapper and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter make sense. Including their effort to get NSA Director Mike Rogers fired.

Everything after March 9th, 2016, was done to cover up the weaponization of the FISA database. [Explained Here] Spygate, Russia-Gate, the Steele Dossier, and even the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (drawn from the dossier and signed by the above) were needed to create a cover-story and protect themselves from discovery of this four year weaponization, political surveillance and unlawful spying. Even the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel makes sense; he was FBI Director when this began.

The beginning decision to use FISA(702) as a domestic surveillance and political spy mechanism appears to have started in/around 2012. Perhaps sometime shortly before the 2012 presidential election and before John Brennan left the White House and moved to CIA. However, there was an earlier version of data assembly that preceded this effort.

Political spying 1.0 was actually the weaponization of the IRS. This is where the term “Secret Research Project” originated as a description from the Obama team. It involved the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder and the FBI under Robert Mueller. It never made sense why Eric Holder requested over 1 million tax records via CD ROM, until overlaying the timeline of the FISA abuse:

The IRS sent the FBI “21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The transaction occurred in October 2010 (link)

Why disks? Why send a stack of DISKS to the DOJ and FBI when there’s a pre-existing financial crimes unit within the IRS. All of the evidence within this sketchy operation came directly to the surface in early spring 2012.

The IRS scandal was never really about the IRS, it was always about the DOJ asking the IRS for the database of information. That is why it was transparently a conflict when the same DOJ was tasked with investigating the DOJ/IRS scandal. Additionally, Obama sent his chief-of-staff Jack Lew to become Treasury Secretary; effectively placing an ally to oversee/cover-up any issues. As Treasury Secretary Lew did just that.

Lesson Learned – It would appear the Obama administration learned a lesson from attempting to gather a large opposition research database operation inside a functioning organization large enough to have some good people that might blow the whistle.

The timeline reflects a few months after realizing the “Secret Research Project” was now worthless (June 2012), they focused more deliberately on a smaller network within the intelligence apparatus and began weaponizing the FBI/NSA database.
How this all comes together in 2019

Fusion GPS was not hired in April 2016 to research Donald Trump. As shown in the evidence provided by the FISC, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The Obama administration already knew everything about the Trump campaign, and were monitoring everything by exploiting the FISA database.

However, after the NSA alerts in/around March 9th, 2016, and particularly after the April 18th shutdown of contractor access, the Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to create a legal albeit ex post facto justification for the pre-existing surveillance and spy operations. Fusion GPS gave them that justification in the Steele Dossier.

That’s why the FBI small group, which later transitioned into the Mueller team, are so strongly committed to and defending the formation of the Steele Dossier and its dubious content. The Steele Dossier contains the cover-story and justification for the surveillance operation.

During a rather innocuous podcast discussion panel April 12th, 2019, one of President Trump’s personal lawyers Jay Sekulow mentioned the FBI had three FISA applications denied by the FISA court in 2016. [Podcast Here – Note comment at 25:05] The denials were always suspected; however, until now no-one in/around the administration has ever confirmed.

If Sekulow is accurate, this adds additional context to the actions of the FBI in the aftermath of Admiral Mike Rogers and an increased urgency in gaining legal justification for surveillance and spy operation unlawfully taking place. A valid FISA warrant would help the FBI cover-up the surveillance. The likely targets were Manafort, Flynn and Papadopoulos…. but it appears the DOJ/FBI were rebuked.

These FISC denials would then initiate institutional panic dependent on the election outcome. An insurance policy would be needed. The Steele Dossier becomes the investigative virus the FBI wanted inside the system. To get the virus into official status, they used the FISA application as the delivery method and injected it into Carter Page. The FBI already knew Carter Page; essentially Carter Page was irrelevant, what they needed was the FISA warrant and the Dossier in the system {Go Deep}.

Fusion GPS was not hired to research Trump, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a plausible justification for already existing surveillance and spy operations.

Fusion-GPS gave them the justification they needed for a FISA warrant with the Steele Dossier. Ultimately that’s why the Steele Dossier is so important; without it, the DOJ and FBI are naked with their FISA-702 abuse as outlined by John Ratcliffe.

♦ Prove the July 31st, 2016, Crossfire Hurricane operation originated from fraud by exposing the CIA operation that created the originating “Electronic Communication” memo. Declassify that two-page “EC” document that Brennan gave to Comey.

♦ Release and declassify all of the Comey memos that document the investigative steps taken by the FBI as an outcome of the operation coordinated by CIA Director John Brennan in early 2016.

♦ Reveal the November 2015 through April 2016 FISA-702 search query abuse by declassifying the April 2017 court opinion written by FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer. Show the FBI contractors behind the 85% fraudulent search queries. [Crowdstrike? Fusion-GPS? Nellie Ohr?]

♦ Subpoena former DOJ-NSD (National Security Division) head John Carlin, or haul him in front of a grand jury, and get his testimony about why he hid the abuse from the FISA court in October 2016; why the DOJ-NSD rushed the Carter Page application to beat NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers to the FISA court; and why Carlin quit immediately thereafter. Squeeze this bastard’s nuts in the proverbial legal vice.

♦ Prove the Carter Page FISA application (October 2016) was fraudulent and based on deceptions to the FISA Court. Declassify the entire document, and release the transcripts of those who signed the application(s); and/or depose those who have not yet testified.

♦ Release all of the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages without redactions. Let sunlight pour in on the actual conversation(s) that were taking place when Crossfire Hurricane (July ’16) and the FISA Application (Oct ’16) were taking place.

♦ Release all of Bruce Ohr 302’s, FBI notes from interviews and debriefing sessions, and other relevant documents associated with the interviews of Bruce Ohr and his internal communications. Including exculpatory evidence that Bruce Ohr may have shared with FBI Agent Joseph Pientka. [And get a deposition from this Pientka fella]

♦ Release the August 2nd, 2017, two-page scope memo provided by DAG Rod Rosenstein to special counsel Robert Mueller to advance the fraudulent Trump investigation, and initiate the more purposeful obstruction of justice investigation. Also Release the October 20th, 2017, second scope memo recently discovered.

VI. A FISA Court report details how communications of Americans were unlawfully monitored by U.S. spy agencies, and that some of the communications were passed to contractors by the FBI. (DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES)

Former Director of the FBI James Comey (2nd L) and Director of the NSA Michael Rogers on Capitol Hill on May 20. A FISA Court report details how communications of Americans were unlawfully monitored by U.S. spy agencies, and that some of the communications were passed to contractors by the FBI. (DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES)

Declassified Top Secret Report Details Spying on Americans

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court describes Obama-era surveillance practices as ‘a very serious Fourth Amendment issue’

By Joshua Philipp, The Epoch Times

May 31, 2017 Updated: June 1, 2017

Declassified Top Secret Report Details (Government) Spying on Americans

A recently declassified, top secret court report shows that the Obama administration monitored the communications of American citizens. The report says the administration concealed its abuses, violated the Constitution, and illegally shared this spy data.

The 99-page report was released by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court), which oversees requests for surveillance warrants. The report’s contents were filed on Sept. 26, 2016, and March 30, 2017. It was marked top secret, but was declassified on April 26.

“This is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue,” the report states, and notes the Obama administration’s surveillance activities using the National Security Agency (NSA), and its failures to disclose such information previously, showed “an institutional ‘lack of candor.’”

The Obama administration had been carrying out this unlawful surveillance for years and heavily increased the scale of its surveillance in 2016.

“This is the sort of thing that would make Richard Nixon blush,” said Chris Farrell, director of investigations at the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, in a recent video. He added, “President Obama … has abused and misused the National Security Agency in a way that no one ever even pondered before.”

He said, “This is an abuse of the Constitution and an illegal act that has no parallel, no par, in American history.”

The NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md. (NSA VIA GETTY IMAGES)

The Obama administration only disclosed its abuses to the FISA Court on Oct. 24, 2016, two weeks before Donald Trump was elected. The court then learned about the administration’s “non-compliance” on procedures for NSA surveillance regarding searching for personal information on Americans.

The report notes, “The full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court,” and it details the process of uncovering how deep the unlawful surveillance went.

In a friend-of-the-court brief submitted to the FISA Court, Richard Hutchison of the Landmark Legal Foundation called for the court to “to exercise its authority” to consider “exceptional matters,” and issue orders to “protect the administration of justice, including an order to direct a full investigation into the leaking of surveillance activity,” based on the findings outlined in the report from the FISA Court.
National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers on May 23. Rogers has served as NSA director since April 2014. Under his watch, spying on Americans and the unmasking of their identities increased dramatically, most notably in the 2016 election year.(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers on May 23. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The brief states that according to media reports, “during the last year of the prior administration, law enforcement and intelligence officials sought, and eventually obtained, authorization from this Court to eavesdrop on then or former Trump campaign officials; continued monitoring the individuals even when no evidence of wrongdoing was said to have been found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government.”

It states the administration then “rushed to collect and then distribute intelligence information collected to numerous federal agencies, increasing the likelihood that certain information, including the identities and conversations of private U.S. citizens, might be leaked to the media.”

Illegal Surveillance

Close to 1 in every 20 of the NSA’s searches through upstream internet data was targeting Americans, according to reports by John Solomon and Sara Carter for Circa. The writers also received internal, classified reports relating to the issue.

The searches for data on Americans violates U.S. surveillance laws, according to the FISA report.

“Upstream” collection refers to data intercepted by the NSA as it is being transmitted through data routes between computer networks. The FISA report states that close to 9 percent of the NSA’s “internet collection” is from upstream data.

The searches for data on Americans violates U.S. surveillance laws, according to the FISA report. Under U.S. law, it says, the NSA can only target people “reasonably believed to be located outside the United States,” and it must “prevent the intentional acquisition of any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States.”

Farmland and a security fence surround the NSA’s Utah data collection center in Bluffdale, Utah on March 17, 2017. (George Frey/Getty Images))

Farmland and a security fence surround the NSA’s Utah data collection center in Bluffdale, Utah on March 17, 2017. (George Frey/Getty Images))

In other words, the NSA is not allowed to intentionally spy on Americans; and even when searching for data in other countries, it is not permitted to knowingly use keywords that will reveal data on Americans.

The report states, “The Oct. 26, 2016 notice informed the court that NSA analysts had been conducting such queries in violation of that prohibition, with much greater frequency than had previously been disclosed in the court.”
The NSA is not allowed to intentionally spy on Americans.

After some investigation, it states, “the problem was widespread during all periods under review.”

The court then expanded its investigation to include other time periods and found the violations had been ongoing. It notes that the violations were not caused by computer errors and that searching on some of these databases requires analysts to “opt-out” of Section 702 surveillance authorities when searching through upstream internet data.

Section 702 is part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which, according to an NSA fact sheet, outlines “procedures for targeting certain persons outside the United States other than United States persons.” The procedures are in place to avoid illegal surveillance of U.S. persons.
FBI Violations

The FBI disseminated raw information received from the surveillance documents, according to the FISA report.

It states “the FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information,” and notes this was discovered in a Department of Justice oversight review on March 9, 2016.

The section on the FBI on page 83 of the 99-page report is heavily redacted. If the FBI received Section 702 information, this suggests the information was on U.S. citizens and intercepted by the NSA from foreign communications. Being “raw” data, it could have unlawfully revealed the names of the U.S. citizens.

Former NSA Director Keith Alexander at a conference on cybersecurity at Georgetown University on March 4, 2014. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

Former NSA Director Keith Alexander at a conference on cybersecurity at Georgetown University on March 4, 2014. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

The fact that the FBI spread the reports correlates with accusations from President Donald Trump that intelligence agencies had illegally spied on members of his team, then illegally spread these reports with the names revealed.

It adds that certain contractors “had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems” and that this “went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI’s request.”

It notes that the Obama administration “has not explained” how its providing of raw information to the FBI contractors was not a violation. It states the FISA Court is “nonetheless concerned about the FBI’s apparent disregard” for these rules and “whether the FBI may be engaged in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported.”

The Broader Picture

The illegal surveillance is part of a broader system of abuse. Farrell noted the Obama administration mobilized other government branches for political motives, such as using the IRS to suppress political rivals and similarly politicizing the Justice Department and other government bodies.

The findings also support allegations that the Obama administration was illegally spying on the Trump team and U.S. government officials.

The findings also support allegations that the Obama administration was illegally spying on the Trump team and U.S. government officials.

And it corroborates similar claims that have been lodged against the NSA and other U.S. intelligence agencies.

Dennis Montgomery, a former contractor for the NSA and CIA, left his post with 47 hard drives and more than 600 million pages of information, which he claimed exposed illegal surveillance of judges, politicians, and nearly anyone of power in the United States.
Radomes of the digital communications listening station of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German intelligence agency, stand at night in Bad Aibling, Germany on June 2, 2015.(Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Radomes of the digital communications listening station of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German intelligence agency, stand at night in Bad Aibling, Germany on June 2, 2015.(Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

After receiving immunity, Montgomery turned this information over to the FBI more than two years ago, with the help of Larry Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch, a conservative political advocacy group.

Klayman said in a recent interview on the Chicago-based “Franklin Raff Show” that the information showed “everyone from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, to other Justices, to hundreds of judges, to Donald Trump, to me—anybody who was anybody—was subject to this government surveillance by the intelligence agencies, the NSA, and CIA.”

After turning the evidence over to the FBI, under then-Director James Comey, Montgomery testified on his claims under oath, and “Comey sat on this for over two years, he buried this investigation of perhaps the biggest scandal in American history,” Klayman said.

Montgomery had claimed previously that the surveillance he played a direct part in under the NSA and FBI included monitoring 17 of Trump’s businesses, including the Trump Tower, Trump’s family members, and even Trump himself.

The illegal surveillance of Americans may confer political power on unelected bureaucrats.

Klayman noted that by spying on U.S. officials, judges, and businessmen, the intelligence agencies under Obama could have been collecting data that could be used for blackmail. He alleged that in his own attempts to alert lawmakers, he found politicians didn’t want to go after intelligence agencies, since the agencies have access to information on everybody. Through this, he said, “the agencies own them.”

“The intelligence agencies now, the people that run it, are more powerful than the president of the United States,” he said. “They can make or break people at any time.”

Similar claims have been raised about the intelligence agencies and the so-called “deep state” of powerful unelected elites, particularly regarding the stream of leaks to the press used to smear the Trump presidency.

CNN reporter Dana Bash discussed the deep state’s leaks against Trump in a May 16 video, stating, “What this president has done—his first 100-plus days, even before he came into office—is pick fights with the intelligence community and now the law enforcement community.”

Bash added, “So we know that they talk about the deep state; well, these are communities that have a lot of loyalty within, and know how to get back, even if you’re the president of the United States.”