Trump hired the people he now believes are out to get him.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was America’s longest-serving district attorney, a one-time nominee to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and a part of the Office of the Independent Counsel under Ken Starr, tasked with investigating then-President Bill Clinton. President Donald Trump even appointed him to his role at the Department of Justice.
But now Rosenstein is part of the “deep state.”
He’s been absorbed into a right-wing narrative designed to discredit the Russia investigation. And the fact that Trump himself appointed Rosenstein to his role as deputy attorney general isn’t stopping it.
The conservative organization the Tea Party Patriots just released an ad with Rosenstein as the villain, demanding his metaphorical head on a plate. In it, Rosenstein, a longtime advocate of conservative law enforcement rhetoric, is described as “a weak careerist at the Justice Department protecting liberal Obama holdovers and the deep state instead of following the rule of law.”
The ad was released immediately after the House Intelligence Committee made the Nunes memo public. While the document itself proved to be dramatically overhyped by the right (and actually disproved several Trump talking points regarding the Russia investigation), it’s being championed by many conservatives as evidence of rampant anti-Trump bias within the FBI — and Republicans on Capitol Hill have gotten on board. Together, it amounts to a campaign to convince Americans that the deep state has overstepped its bounds.
But Trump is not the victim of rogue intelligence and law enforcement agencies; he’s a victim of a “deep state” of his own making. Each new enemy was once a trusted ally — from Rosenstein to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to adviser Carter Page. They were all his guys, until they weren’t. Now they’re his — and his movement’s — enemies, and the Republican Party is ready to help him make it so.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/7/16974178/trump-deep-state
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was America’s longest-serving district attorney, a one-time nominee to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and a part of the Office of the Independent Counsel under Ken Starr, tasked with investigating then-President Bill Clinton. President Donald Trump even appointed him to his role at the Department of Justice.
But now Rosenstein is part of the “deep state.”
He’s been absorbed into a right-wing narrative designed to discredit the Russia investigation. And the fact that Trump himself appointed Rosenstein to his role as deputy attorney general isn’t stopping it.
The conservative organization the Tea Party Patriots just released an ad with Rosenstein as the villain, demanding his metaphorical head on a plate. In it, Rosenstein, a longtime advocate of conservative law enforcement rhetoric, is described as “a weak careerist at the Justice Department protecting liberal Obama holdovers and the deep state instead of following the rule of law.”
The ad was released immediately after the House Intelligence Committee made the Nunes memo public. While the document itself proved to be dramatically overhyped by the right (and actually disproved several Trump talking points regarding the Russia investigation), it’s being championed by many conservatives as evidence of rampant anti-Trump bias within the FBI — and Republicans on Capitol Hill have gotten on board. Together, it amounts to a campaign to convince Americans that the deep state has overstepped its bounds.
But Trump is not the victim of rogue intelligence and law enforcement agencies; he’s a victim of a “deep state” of his own making. Each new enemy was once a trusted ally — from Rosenstein to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to adviser Carter Page. They were all his guys, until they weren’t. Now they’re his — and his movement’s — enemies, and the Republican Party is ready to help him make it so.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/7/16974178/trump-deep-state
