Jason Chaffetz - The Deep State

Dedicated to the American people. May they always remain vigilant to keep their government open, transparent, and accountable.

It is October 12, 2012, and I am in Stuttgart, Germany, on my way to Libya. I am standing in the office of four-star U.S. general Carter Ham, about to get a classified briefing on everything the United States knows about the attack less than four weeks ago on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. I am about to find out, I hope, why four Americans, including our ambassador, died during the attack and why no nearby American forces were deployed to save them. I am a U.S. congressman and I have top-secret security clearance.

No one introduces me to a young, blond-haired man in the room holding a notebook and pen. I do notice that people in the room seem a little intimidated, a little too aware of this fellow. So I ask who he is and that I be introduced.

He is a lawyer from the State Department who has just arrived from Washington, D.C. He knows nothing about Libya. He is not a specialist in anything remotely having to do with the country or terrorism or the military or conflict zones.

He will contribute nothing. He is a State Department lawyer who specializes in Freedom of Information Act requestsor, more specifically, how to keep information hidden from the public... and from a congressman.

He next appears at a classified briefing in Tripoli. I have had it with being watched over by a State Department minder. I want him out of the Tripoli meeting. He refuses. He wants to be in the room when I am briefed. He telephones Secretary of State Hillary Clintons chief of staff, Cheryl Mills. Now there is a standoff. I want him out.

Well, it turns out he doesnt have the proper security clearance for this meeting.

He is out.

This storythis bookis not about Benghazi. What happened at Benghazi, and more specifically, the story Ive related here about my attempt to uncover the truth about Benghazi, is ultimately about the very much alive and thriving Deep State. It is about control of information to the American people and the control of the truth.

That moment, facing the young blond-haired State Department lawyer, was the first time I knew I was face-to-face with the Deep State.

Unfortunately, it was not my last confrontation with them.

The Deep State is real. They dont like exposure, accountability, or responsibility. They fight back, outlast, and work the system for their advantage. And they certainly dont like disruptive forces such as Donald Trump. For example, but for a few brave soulswhistleblowers who willingly put their careers on the linethe absolute duplicity of Hillary Clintons team and the Obama administrations response to the Benghazi attacks would never have been exposed.

This is a book about what happens when huge swaths of government begin prioritizing their careers over getting the job done. Many readers will think they know this storya story of incompetent drones who are underqualified and lazy. When we talk about the Deep State, we get this story all wrong. We misunderstand what has happened, and mischaracterize who is doing it.

Sometimes even conservatives talk about the Deep State as though the term refers to dumb, inefficient bureaucracy.

In fact, it is the opposite: the Deep State is intentional, unconstitutional, and organized. It is about pure, unfettered power, and it gets very angry when it is even questioned.

Their stonewalling, their inability to coherently defend themselves, their secrecythese look like weakness, but they are the Deep States greatest strength. We need a better guide to the parts of the federal government that are actively working against the will of the people.

The Deep State has an agenda. It rarely matches up with conservative principles.

The stories in this book are always frustrating and sometimes shocking, but they will challenge many closely held assumptions about the Deep State. The heart of this book, though, is unraveling the greatest puzzle of the Deep State: Congress rarely does anything about it. As chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I was the tip of the spear challenging the Deep State and trying to hold them accountable. In this book I highlight their tactics, illuminate the problems, and offer a way to fight back and win. It is important to expose the stories, but if the American people are going to win, Congress is going to have to do things differently, and this book helps concerned citizens understand so they can engage.

The Deep State has been in place for a long time, arguably since the middle of the twentieth century. As a new member of Congress, I got to see it in action as we took on the powerful forces at the Internal Revenue Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice, the Department of State, etc. The deeper I dove in, the more shocking was the brazen approach of the power brokers. They were used to operating anonymously and without consequence. This problem is bigger than we can imagine and getting worse, unless we do something dramatic to wrest back control.

Washington, D.C., will hand out more than $4.3 trillion in the next twelve months, or roughly $12 billion per day (including about $700 million per day in interest on the national debt). What could go wrong?

I believe the United States of America is exceptional and inspired. I also believe that after 240 years we have an obligation on our watch to provide diligent stewardship. We must pass our country to the future generations better than ever.

Responsible parents do all they can to create a better life for their children. This includes leaving our country better than we found it.

The United States of America is the greatest country on the face of the planet, but we have a responsibility as citizens to engage in the management of our government, our resources, and the American peoples money. Government does some good things, but it can also ruin our lives or reach too far into them.

Our countrys long-term success includes living within our financial boundaries, limiting government to the powers envisioned by our Founders, defending ourselves with a dominant military, and ensuring accountability within the omnipresent government apparatus.

Not everyone sees it that way. The problem: many of those who disagree with everything Ive just said work in the government.

Yes, the Deep State is real. Its been characterized as different things by different people. Some call it the governments massive secrecy apparatus as conducted by the federal defense and intelligence agencies; others include a handful of federal trial courts, corporations, and private interests, including Wall Street and big banks, in their description of the Deep State.

All of that may be true. I tend not to imagine nefarious conspiracies in dusty dark corners. I tend to see ordinary imperfect human beings and ordinary human institutions, acting too often with greed, fear, and with messy self-interests. The Deep State is not Democrat or Republican. It doesnt wear a trench coat, and it doesnt linger furtively on street corners at midnight in Washington, D.C. In truth, and perhaps most startling, the Deep State doesnt hide at all.

In fact, the reality is much worse than that. The Deep State is a vast, self-perpetuating bureaucracy whose aim is singular: to exist again tomorrow and the day after, to replicate itself, to be indestructible and nearly impossible to disrupt. As a congressman, I have seen it and experienced it up close in my confrontations with the State Department, the IRS, the EPA, the Secret Service, and the Justice Department, just to name a few. U.S. presidents come and go, political parties win one election cycle and lose the next. The Deep State does what it wants, and waits out periodic blips. Inevitably, it seems, the Deep State goes on.