Deep State Plays Victim in Mar-a-Lago Raid so Administration Can Keep Persecuting Wrongthinkers

A member of the Secret Service in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 9, 2022. (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)

Commentary

Your Deep State, aided by its corporate media communications arm, would like you to know that its rank corruption, brazen intimidation, and chilling weaponization on behalf of our ruling administration aren’t the real danger to America.

Rather, it’s those who would dare to call out tyranny, let alone seek to combat it, who are the real danger—not to America of course, but to its power and privilege.

These Deep State foes, therefore—the chief one of whom it was recently reported plans to launch a MOAB at it in the form of 50,000 firings should he win a second term—must be crushed.

This is the message emanating from the top ranks of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid. These agencies have served as the tip of the spear of the ruling class’s War on Wrongthink, of which Donald J. Trump was and remains the primary target—albeit one representative of tens of millions of Americans. The administration’s own aggression at Mar-a-Lago, indirectly, has enabled the next act in its inquisition.

By way of its National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terror, our ruling class has argued that the most lethal threat to the homeland comes from, among others, “anti-government” or “anti-authority” domestic violent extremists. It will now exploit the outrage over its latest and most extraordinary gambit by classifying those aghast at its actions as “anti-government” or “anti-authority,” and therefore as threats to be countered. And all to protect itself.

With the issuance of a purported joint Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/FBI intelligence brief obtained by Project Veritas, consistent with other reporting on threat bulletins circulating among federal authorities, the effort has already begun in earnest.

The administration telegraphed this strategy in its telling first statements as the furor over the Mar-a-Lago maneuver mushroomed.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose meek and “moderate” disposition has served as a useful veneer for his department’s malevolence in pursuing political foes, was indignant as he addressed the half of the country that rightly believed a rubicon had been crossed from republic into Third World tinpot dictatorship thanks to the raid he authorized.

Rather than address the criticism over the DOJ/FBI’s unprecedented act—one enabling an endless fishing expedition on pretextual grounds, for which the Department refuses to show us the underlying affidavit—he targeted the critics by casting them, not the DOJ/FBI, as the aggressors.

“[L]et me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors,” Garland said. “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray echoed these remarks, delivering a written statement reading in part: “Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others. Violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply concerning to all Americans.”

Message delivered: Never mind the contrast in the Hillary-Emails and Biden-Laptop versus Trump-Russia investigations, or the railroading of January 6ers versus the kid glove treatment enjoyed by the summer 2020 race rioters; never mind the authorities’ allegedly concocting of the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping hoax, and their unwillingness to disclose what their assets were up to during the Capitol breach; never mind the tagging of parents critical of their school boards with terrorist threat labels, or the associating of dissent over draconian COVID lockdowns or skepticism over the integrity of our elections with domestic terror threats—amid whistleblower allegations that the Deep State is cooking the books to inflate said threats; never mind the shackling of a former trade adviser, or the seizing of a congressman’s cell phone, or the siccing of the FBI by one administration on its predecessor and likely chief competitor—all on the shakiest of grounds.

The institutions—the DOJ and FBI—were not the aggressors, but rather the victims. And Messers Garland and Wray are singularly focused on defending their aggrieved institutions. Not the Constitution. Not the rule of law. Not whatever pretense of a republican system might remain.

Those who would recognize the transformation of the national security apparatus into the praetorian guard, on the other hand, are the ones in the wrong. How dare they acknowledge that which is in front of their nose!

The allied media is playing its part too, fueling the narrative that the real story of the Mar-a-Lago raid is about dangerous white nationalist conservatives literally pouncing.

No conservative of course would take issue with remarks condemning threats against law enforcement, abjuring political violence.

But too, we abjure the FBI and DOJ themselves using and abusing their awesome powers to target and inflict pain upon political foes—and crying victim to distract from it.

These points will be ignored.

As will the administration’s seeming disingenuousness. What else are we to make of the fact it’s suddenly concerned with purported threats to authorities when, again, it refused to aggressively pursue those who firebombed cop cars and attacked police precincts and courts during the anti-authority assault of the summer of 2020; likewise declined to prosecute those breaking federal law by menacingly protesting in front of the homes of Supreme Court justices while like-minded agitators called for violence on social media, and others acted accordingly in targeting pro-life centers across the country; and never vigorously opposed the progressive anti-cop, decarceral agenda that has led to a spike in violent crime against Americans of all stripes, including police?

While claiming criticism of it is illegitimate and dangerous, crying victim, as a shield, the praetorian guard will harness that purported danger as a sword to be wielded against critics. In tandem with media allies drumming up the same familiar tunes about dangerous right-wing extremist rhetoric proliferating on social media, they will push for further crackdowns on speech, and cruel and unusual operations against domestic political foes, all while aiming to drive home the narrative that MAGA equals mujahadeen as the midterms approach and 2024 looms.

Critiques of the Deep State, and efforts to defund, reorganize, or abolish parts of it will be linked to violent assaults.

This is the Deep State’s best defense of its actions—not to defend them but to call its critics terrorists, seek to silence them, and if need be hunt down and break them.

It cannot extricate itself from a toxic cycle of tyrannical action, generating merited pushback, which then requires ratcheting up to still greater levels of tyrannical action.

As it sees its power threatened, it will only lash out in still more destructive ways, thinking it will protect it—just as totalitarian regimes do.

In acting as such, it will prove its critics right.

But that will provide little comfort as the republic smolders around us.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.