David Webb: Deep state’s target

I am still and have always been reticent to use the term deep state without quantifying its complexity to avoid the typical partisan back-and-forth.

Put aside Republican versus Democrat and realize that there is a third combined version of partisan politics, embedded bureaucracy supported by a keep-the-dinosaur-size-government-in-place mentality; that is the current deep state.

In this case the left is the favored side because of the belief in a larger and more intrusive government versus the limited government that is a traditional Republican position. Add what is supposed to be each side’s traditional view of the Constitution and roles of the three branches of federal government: the left, favoring a living Constitution not strict construction, and one in which the bureaucratic and the judicial can be used to override the executive and the legislative.

There are still good Lincoln/Reagan Republicans but overall the effort to maintain a limited, efficient and constitutional government has been a losing battle until a recent awakening during the Obama years. The Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 after four decades was the first shot but the American silent majority awoke much later in 2009 and 2010 and in a manner that will not be silenced. Examine the following and then dig deeper for greater understanding.

Legal entanglements

Special counsel Robert Mueller removes former FBI Station Chief Peter Strzok who has a checkered history when it comes to the Clinton email scandal and President Trump.

Here’s what we know so far: Strzok was texting his mistress Lisa Page anti-Trump messages while she was an attorney in the General Counsel’s office working under Deputy Director Andrew McCabe during the Clinton email investigation.

The initial thought by many would be, no big deal. It’s not new that two married people would engage in an extramarital affair. But consider that from a security assessment view this would potentially make them both vulnerable to being compromised.

Strzok, as we now know, has done some very questionable actions regarding the changing of a term in a  statement made during the Clinton email investigation to “extremely careless” and working on the infamous dossier that was used to generate a special counsel based on former FBI Director James Comey’s deliberate leaking of information to a Columbia law professor.

Anyone who questions this can simply watch Comey admit to this in his testimony in Congress. The deep state in protecting itself and the Clintons while seeking to tarnish the election of Donald Trump can be summed up this way. The only crime special counsel Mueller could find is one his investigation created. If there would be no crime without an investigation, then the investigation itself created the crime.

Legal decision

On Monday the Supreme Court voted 7-2 to uphold the security-based Trump travel ban from certain countries based on an assessment done initially in the Obama administration.

This was easily predictable with the dissenting Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. These dissenting justices did not even offer a written opinion. Fact is, there is no constitutional objection, just ideological desire. 

Future legal decision

Cake wars, and not the Food Network type but one that is a religious liberty versus agendas issue in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

The issue before the court is whether applying Colorado’s public accommodations law to compel the petitioner to create expression that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage violates the free speech or free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.

Arguments in the case were heard Tuesday. Justice Anthony Kennedy will again be the swing vote and while no one can predict the court we will see if the Constitution and religious liberty will be upheld, which in this case does not hinder the ability of the complainants to go get a cake when they need one.

Ask yourself, why would you want to get a cake for your special day from someone who isn’t in agreement with you? Too often cases are set up to get to the higher or Supreme Court for a decision by those driving an agenda. Consider this the deep state from outside D.C. who want to use the judiciary to override the societal norms and what is often resolved by commonsense not the arm and weight of government.

The deep state is real and its target is not just President Trump but the American people, as it seeks entrenched control of our systems and more resembles an oligarchy that wants to control society.

Webb is host of “The David Webb Show” on SiriusXM Patriot ’25, a Fox News contributor and a frequent television commentator. His column appears twice a month in The Hill.