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And the truth of the deep state is the subject of the talk please join me to welcome our gas. Thank you. Very nice. It is good to see you. And to say that steve share with rocks. That is my friend and neighbor and former journalist. We walk our dogs together when we can. But not right now. Take any support you can get anywhere. Where you right now . I am at my parents in laws house in kennebunkport maine normally a live in new york city my wife has asthma so we left the city as the covid outbreak was spreading. So we are here in maine and safe and well and my friends in new york who are still there although it does look like it is doing better and seattle has set a good example for the country to flatten the curve. At least you got to be in a place you are more comfortable in all the ways that you need to be. We are lucky. Its funny about seattle. This is what i was thinking and we can start with this. The protesters came to olympia to complain about the infringements on their personal freedoms because of the restrictions from social distancing. More than one of the signs as they gathered up and Holding Together much closer than 6 feet, was no more from the deep state. How do you suppose in their thinking the response to covid19 is a symbol but an action by the deep state . So those conservatives people use it in different ways. So the conservatives and i am guessing these protesters view it as the administrative state. And an evergrowing federal or state governments that is encroaching on americas lives like with their right to vaccines or guncontrol and education curriculum and they feel that the warnings are over exaggerated and its an example of washington dictating to average americans how they should live their lives. Lets define it and all definitions of the deep state. Wended that term first become prevalent . I wrote the book to clear the definition of a deep state. But i dont like the term it is pejorative but it started off as a term Political Science is used to talk about the military and the country of turkey and the dynamic we and sometimes was applied to egypt and the earliest example was a book in 2007 with the host professor and his view of the deep state and with another view of the impressive government but they talk about the militaryIndustrial Complex and those defense contractors pushing the country into the endless war so in 2007 it was more along those lines with the defense contractors suspicious how 9 11 came about but also very suspicious of austrian their power so and told 2007 and that was the example of the left and the right coming together with the suspicion of the federal government but before the 2016 the term deep state wasnt widely in use with average americans. Did you talk to many conservative deep stators that recognize the concern of the military Industrial Complex . There is unity the one person that comes to mind is senator rand paul who is republican and very nervous about the us to be drug in two wars overseas with the National Security agency and his Kindred Spirit is ron wyden of oregon who was a liberal also very concerned if there is eavesdropping in too much spine going on in the country so there is growing distrust of the federal government there was a poll that set me off to write the book that 70 percent of americans think there is a group of unelected officials that make government policy in washington. I always thinking about leading up to the campaig campaign, donald trump was asked for his support with russia given all the negative things it has done around the world and trumps response is you think were so great . We are not so great or innocent. We have done a lot of things. I thought that was an interesting response and i wonder if you think that resonated with those who came to support donald trump . I think it did. People mock him but he is extremely good at messaging and consistently presenting that narrative and in terms of what the us has done around the world, he is right. I start my book and 1977 a huge investigation in the Church Committee and they investigated on the cold war or to expose assassinations the caa was spying on john lennon when he was protesting against the vietnam war and they were also famous for wiretapping and harassing mlk J Edgar Hoover had a list of 26000 americans that would be rounded up in case of emergency any way it was an amazing number of scandals but there was a whole system that was created in the late seventies and president ford said after watergate to control the fbi and the cia and then talking to people current and former that claim they operated differently since all these protections and oversight mechanisms were in place. I guess until of the grave and watergate. [laughter] you got me. But that is true. Did you interview rand paul . I did not. I tried but he declined. I just wonder what he would say. In some ways his politics could look back on the seventies reforms and say these are concerns that i mentioned i grew up in chicago where black panthers were killed through very underhanded means. So do we come around . So is there a coming together with a concern of the deep state . Not amount mainstream republicans those systems were put in with the federal court and that which we will talk about four eavesdropping and with the Intelligence Oversight Committee and ron wyden and the idea is to have eavesdropping you had to have a warrant and there was a band on assassinations to carry out the assassination another country has to be written and then the findings have to go to the leading members of congress of both parties. Cia directors im sorry fbi directors are supposed to not serve any longer than ten years to prevent J Edgar Hoover for emerging and this is much more extensive than what other countries have for those in the legislative bodies by england or germany or france that can subpoena the intelligence service. All of that said there is a bunch of people out there who say they are out of control just to go to 9 11, with the detention and torture practices that were approved with the Justice Department wrote a famous legal opinion that those officers that were involved said they were following the orders they were lawful by a duly elected president that was the difference the cia and fbi doing things on their own. But people dont believe it and in terms of assassination, brock obama carried out a Record Number of drone strikes and there is even one citizen that was killed and yemen with no public presentation of evidence and a us citizen was killed by the us government. There is pretty remarkable numbers on that. We will come back to that but let me circle back. These Committee Reforms did they curtail president ial power or shift power from the executive to congress . They did and the broader question is how do you control the cia and fbi to keep them from carrying out abuses how do you have president s from doing that . There is a school of thought with the current us attorney general that to agree to all of these changes that they worked in the Ford White House and antonin scolari a one Antonin Scalia said the creative one creation of oversight committees also the inspectors general they had come to terms with the spending of emergency funds for coronavirus those were independent, apolitical positions created by congress and to investigate spending and abuse and corruption in the executive branch and there was a school of thought that essentially the presidency was being weekend too much. Too much oversight by congress and then there was a speech about this from the attorney general that said too much activism from judges he is an opponent of abortion rights he saw that as the courts going too far but with the president s power, he complained just recently under President Trump the immigration orders stopped by federal judges that stopped what trump was trying to carry out. He just said that his overreach. We need a strong presidency to protect the country in moments of disaster and bar argues more than the Judicial Branch performs best when the country is under threat and he favors a strong presidency that cannot be encumbered or slow down. To questions. Is there any evidence in your reporting that this is a little bit that a strong president has done a better job than the legislature here in congress during times of crisis . I would argue post 9 11 , the president needed to detain the terrorist and put them in guantanamo bay. The bush administration, they ran a warrantless wiretapping program. They felt that most supported that after 9 11 but if you fastforward to today there is a belief among other conservatives of a strong executive with donald trump who welcomes that power and says we can get into the Coronavirus Response but to go back and forth i am the ultimate authority it is up to the states to decide. But these are central questions about how should our democracy function . Should they be equally powerful or do we need a strong presidency . I thought that the founders wrote the constitution in such a way they were three coequal branches of government. What what attorney general bar say to that quick. Article two of the constitution describes the execute the laws and running the government is the chief executive branch that there are conservative scholars that agree with that. And to be fair, congress has struggled. Is so divided politically i cant think of that legislative package that has emerged through the last few presidencies than congress leading the way. There is a sense since 9 11 they redeem the power that they have lost. When donald trump says i am the president and i can do whatever i want because i am a president , and they point to article two, theres nothing else in the constitution that i can point to that says wait a minute i thought there was some oversight . The main mechanism is the election. That is the primary thing. That the executive is held accountable in regular elections and impeachment those of the two mechanisms. So i can hope they will always then respect the outcome of any election or the outcome of any impeachment. If they say their power is all encompassing, they can also say this impeachment proceeding is a fraud and we wont comply because we dont have to because we are the executives. That is part of the argument and thats what happened with the recent impeachment proceeding but to be fair there was a. Recently where trump was pushing the attorney general to go easy on roger stones sentencing which was very unusual interview he said the president s tweets and demands the sentence that roger stone the less is making it impossible for bill bar to do his job. There is a red line. One of the things that came out of watergate is that the attorney general under nixo nixon, john much mitchell was punishing the president s enemies so they are supposed to apply the law equally. So if the president says lets go crackdown on pharmaceutical companies that is my priority for Law Enforcement then the attorney general should do it. I want to emphasize that president s are elected. They have democratic mandates from the American People to carry out their policies and Government Servants should carry those out unless they are illegal and improper. But the president says to the attorney general, i dont like that. And that pharmaceutical companies ceo because they gave me a Large Campaign donation and that is improper and we did signal that activity is improper. But it is all extraordinary what is happening today. What about his own approaches to investigating ukraine or biden or the fbi with the decision to investigate trump was legal . Is that political or can they be seen as a duly responsible efforts of the attorney general . This is where i think there is more problems. Just today Republican Controlled Senate ruled the cia assessment that russia intervened in the election to help donald trump was correct. Based on the evidence the Intelligence Community collected and all republican senators saw, they agreed , this wasnt just a fake story to discredit donald trump or a plot that russia helped trump. They in fact did help trump and right now you mentioned the attorney general had us attorney carrying out of probe of cia analyst of the assessment was correct and theres a separate part of the investigation of what they did but it was a big boost for these Intelligence Analyst to find it extraordinary they are investigated by a us prosecutor for the assessment of what russia did. One of the most puzzling things is this pattern to investigate the investigators. Anyone that comes out with that assessment that the president doesnt like, like a criminal investigation, that has a Chilling Effect on the Intelligence Committee and they are testifying less and less because senators will push them its the same thing to contradict President Trump or attack them and said the assessment is north korea would not give out the Nuclear Weapons but trump mocked him and then the new is much more political with those assessments that align with the president s messaging. It is difficult because the line between political as we are supposed to see them is difficult so you mentioned the bbc comedy yes minister about the Permanent Secretaries of departments to maneuver around the political appointees in the prime ministers in the uk. They were the power in that tv show. How much truth to do you ascribe to the notion and all of these appointments today . No question 3 million americans the uniform it military of the 2 million americans a spend years if not decades with the federal government from park service and with Social Security and cia and fbi they have biases every office one president complains about the bureaucracy they are elected and they have a mandate and they feel sometimes certain parts of the government but when Ronald Reagan came in he said that it would not carry out the agenda to carry out communism and felt that the pentagon for how many us troops obama should sent to afghanistan but no president has taken Civil Servants careers because that is what is different about the trump er trump era. Congressional committees that would love to catch Government Service during that period they have subpoenas they can send fbi agents they can wiretap Governors Service if they want, there are laws, federal Civil Service and engaging in activities. Every federal Civil Servant takes an oath of office. I spoke to many of them and they admitted some of them they have colleagues who arent that great. But, joan dempsey was one of the characters in the book who had a career, one a few women in the community and she rose to the number three position in the cia. One of the top intelligent officials of her generation. She saw most of her colleagues as a dogooders, very cautious and rule abiding. People who like to work for government. That is her view. Again many people are very cynical about government workers. Just setting trumps rhetoric aside, is there any evidence the last four years have seen more activity by these supposedly neutral parties to undermine the policies of the Trump Administration . Guest i would say no in most parts of the government. Think many people have left. A lot of departures at epa, Michael Lewis wrote a book about this. I think the biggest question, focuses on the fbi and the trump russa investigation. James and baker, its not james baker of the head of state it was general counsel the fbi. He worked with jim comey throughout the summer of 2016 and as the fbi was carrying out the trump russia investigation. Thats the big question was the fbi