The FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate has reignited talk of a supposed “deep state” within the US government.
While the former president’s son, Eric Trump, acknowledged the raid was part of an investigation into Trump’s removal of presidential records from the White House, leading Republicans and right-wing commentators have turned to the “Deep State” conspiracy theory.
They believe there is a secret network, or a shadow government, that is out to get Trump and his allies, and the former president has long-blamed this supposed group for his shortcomings or missteps.
But what is the “Deep State” and what has Donald Trump said about the conspiracy theory?
What are Trump’s supporters saying about the Deep State?
Donald Trump’s supporters have been blaming the “deep state” for the Mar-a-Lago raid.
Former leader of the Brexit party Nigel Farage said: “Shocked to wake up and hear about the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. The deep state truly does exist.”
Shocked to wake up and hear about the raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. The deep state truly does exist.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) August 9, 2022
Conservative activist Tom Fitton said: “The unprecedented, reckless and wildly abusive FBI raid on Trump’s home shows the Biden administration is hurtling towards despotism.
“This raid is part of the worst political scandal in American history -- the Obama-Biden Deep State abuse of President Trump. Pray for America!”
The unprecedented, reckless and wildly abusive FBI raid on Trump's home shows the Biden administration is hurtling towards despotism. This raid is part of the worst political scandal in the American history -- the Obama-Biden Deep State abuse of President Trump. Pray for America!
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) August 8, 2022
Republican politician Lauren Boebert said: “Everyone saying ‘a judge signed off on the FBI’s search warrant’ clearly won’t admit that the entire Deep State hates President Trump and would sign off on ANYTHING to hurt him.”
Everyone saying “a judge signed off on the FBI’s search warrant” clearly won’t admit that the entire Deep State hates President Trump and would sign off on ANYTHING to hurt him.
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) August 9, 2022
What is the Deep State?
The deep state generally refers to a conspiracy theory about a network of people within the government that work as a hidden, or shadow, government.
They supposedly work independently of the political leadership to achieve their own goals and work against those that counter their beliefs.
The term deep state has often been used in Turkish politics under dictator President Tayyip ErdoÄan.
Duke professor Timur Kuran, who studied the Turkish deep state, told Rolling Stone: “It involves vested interests that are coordinated by a powerful agent and that obey a hierarchy.
“In many autocracies, the dictator often blames failures on a deep state ostensibly commanded by an enemy of the legitimate state.”
In the US, Trump and some Republicans have used the deep state theory to explain away their legal troubles and wrongdoings.
For example, George Papadopoulos, Trump’s adviser during his presidential campaign who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, published a book titled Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump, in 2019.
Although deep state has been used by some Republicans to avoid taking responsibility for their failings, David Rohde, an editor at the New Yorker and the author of In Deep: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth About America’s “Deep State,” says it does point to something real.
Speaking to Vox, Rhode said that a California Berkeley professor named Peter Dale Scott used the term in his 2007 to describe the military-industrial complex.
Rhode said: “Scott wrote about a sense that the military and defence contractors had driven the country repeatedly into wars and maybe helped fuel 9/11 and the wars that followed.
“For Scott, it also applied to large financial interests, like Wall Street banks.”
However, he said that the term has since been “co-opted and vulgarised into what it is today, which is a shorthand for a conspiracy against Donald Trump.”
Here in the UK, outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson used the term deep state in July, when he denied that him leaving Downing Street would be the end of Brexit.
He claimed that some people believe Labour and “deep state will prevail in its plot to haul us back into alignment with the EU as a prelude to our eventual return”.
What has Donald Trump said about the deep state?
Donald Trump shared the deep state conspiracy theory throughout his presidency–beginning with the FBI’s Russia investigation into the 2016 election.
He accused the CIA and the Pentagon of being part of the deep state and repeatedly blamed his legal troubles on Barack Obama supporters who work within national security and law enforcement.
In a 2018 rally, Trump said: “Unelected, deep state operatives who defy the voters, to push their own secret agendas, are truly a threat to democracy itself.”
According to NPR, in a search of the term, "deep state" appeared only 64 times in TV transcripts in 2016 but shot up to nearly 2,300 mentions in 2017, and surged to nearly 5,000 hits in 2018, many of them on Fox News.
But the former president is continuing to talk about the deep state, even now.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas last week, the former president said that the president needs to prioritise removing “rogue bureaucrats” and cleaning out the “deep state”.
He said: “It’s time to clean house in Washington DC, and we did a lot of it but nobody knew that deep state was that deep.”
