Judicial Watch
President Trump is off to a fast start with a battering ram of executive orders aimed at the issues central to his promises to the American people: the border, the economy, the woke oligarchy, and national security. Nowhere are the stakes—for the president and the country—higher than in national security. Trump has pledged to take on the “Deep State” of civilian and military officials who seek to control or undermine democratically elected leaders. Trump’s executive order on “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government” makes it “the policy of the United States to identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”
The president is enjoying mostly sunny weather in these early days of his term, but how long will that last? The Deep State will fight back. What forms might that fight take? In an exclusive report to Judicial Watch, Adam Lovinger, a former National Security Council Senior Director for Strategic Assessments in the first Trump administration, provides a road map to the threats ahead.
Lovinger’s report identifies key areas and tactics that adversaries of the Trump Administration within the vast apparatus of the federal government will use to oppose the president and his policies. Among them: deterring Trump appointees; weaponizing federal investigative processes; specific departments and offices of concern; and the manipulation of security clearances.
Deterring Threats and Weaponizing Federal Investigations
As Trump’s political appointees move forward, Lovinger told Judicial Watch, opponents within government “will start targeting those who pose the greatest threat,” including the development of “blackmail files.”
Blackmail, Lovinger notes, has “a low bar.” For blackmail to be useful, “it only needs to contain a grain of truth. “Lies” and “leaks” follow. The targets include “Republican appointees” and “Trump advisers.”
It’s hard not to see some form of this attack at work in the campaign against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who endured numerous allegations of violence against women, incompetence, and being a falling-down drunk. The broad outlines of the process are familiar to anyone who remembers the “Russia collusion” campaign from Trump’s first term.
Phony allegations are used to “weaponize the federal investigative process”—Robert Mueller and Jack Smith come immediately to mind here. Criminal and administrative investigative processes are launched “without cause or legal predicate,” or based on “tainted, doctored, or fabricated information.” The infamous Steele Dossier at the heart of the bogus Russian collusion case is perhaps the most famous recent example of phony allegations whipping up a media frenzy and weaponizing federal investigations.
Specific Government Offices of Concern
In the long running Russia collusion campaign against Trump, the Justice Department was weaponized at many levels to go after the president. FBI and Justice officials pushed the Steele Dossier—”a thirty-five-page report filled with ludicrous, salacious and completely unfounded allegations,” in the words of JW President Tom Fitton—in an attempt to destroy Trump. The effort went back to the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign and involved high-ranking Obama Administration officials and allies. “Obama knew. Clinton knew. Biden knew,” Tom posted on X. “[FBI Director James] Comey knew. [CIA Director John] Brennan knew. [FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe knew. [FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter] Strzok knew. [Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper knew. [Representative Adam] Schiff knew. FBI knew. DOJ knew. CIA knew. State knew. They all knew Trump was innocent but they smeared and spied on him.”
Lovinger identifies “key nodes” of the federal national security, intelligence, and law enforcement bureaucracies “captured by the Deep State.” One of his top concerns is the Defense Department, which he accuses of profound abuses of power, including blackmail, coverups, and persecution of whistleblowers.
Lovinger urges that particular attention be paid to the Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment (a “dirty tricks” unit); Office of General Counsel (covering up weaponized investigations); Office of Inspector General (abuse of whistleblowers, undermining Congressional oversight); Washington Headquarters Services (protection of Deep State players and “launching secret criminal investigations”); and the Office of Hearings and Appeals (covering up misconduct).
Outside of Justice and Defense, Lovinger warns that the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a federal investigative agency, “pretends to help whistleblowers” and then sells them out, colluding with other agencies to cover up senior-level misconduct. Lovinger also criticizes the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency, an independent executive branch oversight agency, for normalizing “IG misconduct” and deflecting “external scrutiny.” The new Trump administration appears attuned concerns about inspector general misconduct; last week, Trump fired more than a dozen inspectors general.
Abuse of the Security Clearance Process
Lovinger raises red flags about abuse of a “weaponized” security clearance process. The process is largely controlled by the Defense Counterintelligence Security Agency. A weaponized security clearance process, Lovinger warns, provides an “effective way” to delay or deny Trump staffers access to information or employment. It’s an effective tactic because denial of security clearances is “newsworthy”—an easily understood news hook for a story on a subject who is then seen to be in trouble. It’s also a process with “no checks and balances”—a security clearance denial on grounds of “suitability” or “fitness” is “unreviewable.”
Weaponized federal investigations, misconduct by powerful government offices, abuse of the security clearance process—Lovinger is not a neutral observer in these matters. He endured a nightmarish ordeal at the hands of Trump’s opponents in the federal bureaucracy. After leaving the Pentagon to join Trump’s national security team in 2017, Lovinger was ordered back to the Defense Department, accused of mishandling sensitive information and leaking to the media, stripped of his security clearance and fired, his career in ruins. Thanks in part to help from Judicial Watch, Lovinger was later cleared of all wrongdoing. He is now vice president for strategic affairs at the Gold Institute for International Strategy. In November, he published an in-depth account of life at the top on the national security apparatus, The Insider Threat: How the Deep State Undermines America from Within. It’s a sobering reminder that the sunny weather for the Trump administration is not likely to last.
