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What we're seeing is the deep state continuing its politics by other means, but then finding that it can't put the genie back in the bottle and make sure that only the desired target got punished. Some bureaucrats didn't get the memo that an everyone-is-guilty rule was supposed to be used for selective prosecution. Instead they applied the rule fairly, which made everyone guilty.
The fact that they went after Biden doesn't mean it's not the deep state, it means that the deep state screwed up.
I think it means there's a few people within the bureaucracy who weren't on board with the overall goals, and had enough power to stir up some shit. Not enough to take Biden down of course, but enough to ruin the chance of anything happening to Trump.
Isn't it possible that some people in the deep state think Biden is getting old, and want to see him replaced by a younger Democrat? That's what voters in general want, if I recall correctly, and it seems reasonable to take voter sentiment as a prior for government employee sentiment. (Actually I think govt employees lean Dem heavily but that pretty much reinforces my point)
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No, I don't buy it.
By "deep state" I mean an undercover interest in harming Trump specifically and outsiders more generally. That's not what we're seeing here. I'm arguing that the Congressional and Executive handling of classified information is slapdash as hell, always has been, and the current dose of headlines are a bureaucratic attempt at course correction.
The "everyone-is-guilty" rule doesn't exist. There's no DoJ memo saying alright, comrades, this year we're enforcing classification documents. We have had a classification system, bureaucracy, etc. built up over years, and it's very clear on how normal usage is supposed to go. The DoJ/DoD is consistent about training it, about enforcing it, about making examples of the Snowdens and Bergers who actively worked around those protocols.
Except as you move up, into this particular environment, that falls apart. The rules were designed for a certain kind of work product, a specific set of users. SCIFs don't meet the realistic needs of untrained senators getting intel briefings over their morning coffee. So what happens instead? There's no incentive for the elite to make their own hardline rules, and there's little to no scrutiny coming from above.
So they wing it. There's an understanding that one evaluates documents with discretion and without publicizing anything too sensitive. It's mostly common sense; Congressmen don't spend too much time speaking off the cuff. Any press release is going to be filtered through the consensus of dozens of other level-headed, similar-minded bureaucrats. In short, the public face of your average Congressman is as restrained as you might expect from a class of wealthy, educated, self-interested professionals.
But this says nothing about their personal handling of information. As long as it doesn't end up public, who is going to complain when a document doesn't make it back into the safe? This works until it doesn't, until someone builds up enough pressure to overcome all the institutional inertia. Behind every rule is a story. This time, Trump's front and center, but it's not actually about him. It's about breaking kayfabe.
All of this can be true, but with the conclusion reversed. Nearly every time a "scandal" came up during the Trump administration, I chuckled and said, "...so today is the day that people are going to learn how X works, eh?" And when my left-leaning buddies would get into why it was a scandal, we'd discuss how X actually works, with the clinching question being, "So, what are you willing to do about the problem of X? The only constraint on your answer is that you need to be willing to apply the same standard to politicians you like as you do for politicians that you don't like." That's when it became clear that they didn't have any "solution" to the "blind spot" that they could embrace. Their initial reaction was not, "Oh my, this is a blind spot that is a problem with the system in general, and it would be nice if we could fix the system." It was always, from the first moment, motivated by and embraced specifically for its ability to get Trump, because he's obviously crooked and only someone so crooked could do such a thing.
We can check this in hindsight, too. If and when this mostly blows over, because people realize they can't take Trump's scalp on it without taking too many other scalps, how much energy do you think there will be to 'fix the blind spot'? What's an example policy fix that you expect is likely to be adopted in order to bring about changes to the system and then applied evenly to politicians on both sides?
Are these people involved in what Jiro was calling the deep state?
I don't doubt that the media and the average Democrat are more interested in taking Trump to task than in high-minded procedural reform. The issue is boring/niche enough that only the most partisan framing will make it into headlines. And in this court of public opinion, it'll be reduced to extremes: do we Lock Him Up, or is it a Nothingburger?
This is a far cry from the bipartisan outrage at Nixon, so both public options are nonstarters. A solution, if any, will have to be internal. I would not be surprised to see the Executive branch issue some boring policy changes. But this is kind of a copout, as far as predictions go, since I don't really expect them to be public. My more legible predictions are negative.
The DoJ will not charge Trump with mishandling classified documents.
The DoJ probably won't bring obstruction-of-justice or similar charges (barring new situations).
Neither Biden nor Pence nor anyone in Congress will see an actual charge or penalty for their boring, procedural mishandling.
Mainstream media will keep reporting anything Trump related as a mortal sin anyway.
I could buy that, but then I think we're sort of contradicting the original premise:
The way you're describing the response now does not seem like "visceral panic". If there is an actual visceral panic upon discovering a blind spot, wouldn't that be oriented toward at least some real, meaningful policy changes? Why wasn't that visceral panic triggered back when it was discovered that there was a blind spot in, "My God, we just trusted people like the Secretary of State?" I've read the culmination of the bureaucracy's response upon learning about such a blind spot - it's the IG's report (IGs are basically always supposed to take scalps; they are the sine qua non of the bureacracy's "visceral panic"). It's incredibly difficult for me to characterize it as "visceral panic".
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How is that not "in practice, everyone in high positions is guilty"?
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Wasn't there a Senator recently who spoke about having to use a SCIF in the basement of the Capitol to interact with classified documents?
I think it's entirely possible this is a problem limited to the upper-reaches of the Executive branch. I don't think Congress gets to be flippant with its handled of classified material (except to the extent the Speech and Debate clause allows them to verbally release it from the floor of their chambers).
Except we know Biden has stuff from his days as a Senator.
Yeah, and I've seen commentary that that is significantly worse precisely because it's more difficult for Senators to just take stuff home.
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You have no evidence for this. You're just assuming everyone is a bad-faith conflict theorist because you are unable to envision how anyone else could be otherwise.
When your model of your enemies is such that if they do what you expect, it affirms your beliefs, and when they don't do what you expect, you assume they made a mistake and thus it affirms your beliefs, consider the possibility that your model is wrong.
I expect my enemies to have double standards against Trump. They have acted accordingly.
Just because they didn't completely ignore Biden doesn't mean they are using fair standards.
And just because they acted against Trump doesn't mean they have double-standards.
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Sure, it's hard to come up with a mistake-theorist justification for his theory. It's possible to make a more charitable conflict-theory one, though. If one assumes that the deep state really, really hates Trump, then one might expect them to overplay their hand. Naturally this would be a more impressive prediction if made in September.
I agree that theories of the deep state tend to be sloppy and/or unfalsifiable. This is plausibly an example of such. I think it's still bad practice to put words in his mouth.
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Wouldn't that imply that the deep state is at least slightly less deep? or perhaps that it's targets are not purely politically partisan. For example as an ex civil servant, I can tell you there is a class of people which all civil servants I knew really disliked - politicians, regardless of allegiance.
"Slightly less deep" isn't nonexistent or powerless though.
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