US officials mobilise to target ‘Deep State’ under Trump’s order
smartcybers786@gmail.com 
US President Donald Trump looks on as he issues executive orders and pardons for January 6 defendants, whose names are seen on the document he holds, in the Oval Office at the White House on Inauguration Day in Washington, US, January 20, 2025. — Reuters
#officials #mobilise #target #Deep #State #Trumps #order
A group of dozens of federal government officials, including U.S. intelligence officers, are helping President Donald Trump’s campaign to retaliate against their perceived enemies, according to government records and sources familiar with the effort.
The interagency weapons working group, which has been meeting since at least May, has drawn officials from the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Justice and Defense Departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Communications Commission, among other agencies, to show the documents.
Trump issued an executive order on his inauguration day in January directing the attorney general to work with other federal agencies.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard earlier this year announced groups within their agencies to “root out” those they say have abused official power against Trump.
When Reuters asked the agencies for comment on Monday, Fox News reported the group’s existence, citing Gabbard as saying she was “setting up this working group.” Key details in the Reuters story are previously unreported.
Several U.S. officials confirmed to Reuters the existence of an interagency arms working group in response to questions and said the group’s purpose was to carry out Trump’s executive order.
“None of this reporting is new,” said a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Americans deserve a government that de-Pionizes, depoliticizes and ensures that power is never turned against the people it is meant to serve,” Odney spokeswoman Olivia Coleman said.
The existence of the interagency group indicates that the administration’s push to deploy government force against Trump’s perceived enemies is broader and more organized than ever. Interacting groups in government usually make management policies, share information, and agree on joint actions.
Trump and his allies have used the term “weapons settlement” to refer to their unsubstantiated claims that former administration officials abused federal power to target him during his two impeachments, his criminal prosecutions, and the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The interagency group’s mission is “primarily to go after the ‘deep state,'” the term Trump and his supporters have used to refer to perceived enemies of the Obama and Biden administrations and his own first-term president, the source said.
Reuters could not determine to what extent the interagency group had implemented its plans. The news agency also could not establish Trump’s involvement in the group.
Biden, Comey, others reportedly discussed
Among those discussed by the interagency group was former FBI director James Comey, sources said. Anthony Fauci, Trump’s chief medical adviser on the Covid-19 pandemic. And the former top US military commander who enacted orders mandating mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations for service days. Discussions of potential targets extend beyond current and former government employees to include former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, the source said.
A senior ODNI official disputed the account and said “no individual has been targeted in retaliation.”
“The IWWG is merely looking at available facts and evidence that may point to actions, reports, agencies, individuals, etc. that illegally armed the government to carry out political attacks,” the official said.
Attorneys for Comey and Hunter Biden did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Fauci did not immediately respond.
Reuters reviewed more than 20 government records and identified 39 people involved in the interagency group. Five of the records related to an interagency group, five were related to the weapons working group Bondi announced in February, and nine referred to a small group of employees from the DOJ and several other agencies focused on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
A key player in the interagency group is Justice Department attorney Ed Martin, who failed to win Senate support in May to become U.S. attorney for Washington after lawmakers raised concerns about his support for the Jan. 6 rioters, the sources said. Martin, who also oversees Bondi’s DOJ weapons group, is the department’s pardon attorney.
Martin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Others working in or with the group include opponents of the Covid-19 vaccine mandate and supporters of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, according to reviewers of his social media accounts and public statements.
A Justice Department spokeswoman acknowledged that Bondi and Gabbard were ordered by Trump to review alleged actions “regarding weapons” by the previous administration but did not comment specifically on the activities of the Interagency Weapons Working Group.
Reuters could not determine whether the group has powers to take action or direct agencies to act or whether its role is more advisory.
The Russia investigation and indictment were filed on January 6
Sources said ODNI official Paul McNamara was a key figure in the interagency group. McNamara is a retired US Marine officer and an aide to Gabbard. Two other sources said McNamara oversees Gabbard’s Directors Initiative Group (DIG), as first reported by The Washington Post. The two documents show that he is among at least 10 ODNI officials associated with the Interagency group.
McNamara did not respond to an email requesting comment.
Senators from both parties have already raised questions about the DIG’s actions, with Republicans and Democrats approving a defense budget bill this month that would require Gabbard to provide information on the group’s members, their roles and funding, and how they receive security clearances.
Sources recalled the group being told that Odini, the 18-agency agency that oversees the U.S. intelligence community, had begun using what it called “technical tools” to search a disorganized communications network for evidence of the “deep state” and known as the Secure Internet Protocol Router, or SIPRnet, and joint global intelligence communications.
An ODNI official disputed this as incorrect and “how the system has not worked”. Writers could not independently obtain information about the tools.
A “big pillar that they pushed” in the interagency group, the source said, was the purging of officials involved in investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and compiling a 2017 multi-agency U.S. intelligence assessment that Moscow determined had tried to advance Trump’s race.
Gabbard said in July that the DIG had ordered former President Barack Obama to prepare a 2017 assessment of the intelligence agencies that found the documents.
The end of the 2017 assessment was ordered by a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report released in August 2020 and by CIA Director John Ratcliffe earlier this year.
Another focus for the Internasi group was legal retaliation for the January 6 riots, the source said.
Bondi assigned the DOJ Weapons Working Group to review the J6 prosecutions. Some documents seen by Reuters show that a small subset of employees from across the government are calling on the topic. The Justice Department denied in a statement to Reuters that a separate Jan. 6 group existed.
Other issues that were cited included the Jeffrey Epstein files, the lawsuits of Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, and the possibility of ending security clearances for transgender U.S. officials. Reuters could not independently confirm that these were the subject of the discussions.
A White House official said the Epstein files “have not been part of the conversation.” The official also contradicted Reuters’ characterization of what the working group focused on.
A senior ODNI official also denied the group discussed the Epstein files, which revoked security clearances for transgender officials or the Bannon and Navarro cases.
Bannon did not respond to a request for comment. Navarro said his case is an example of the Biden administration’s arsenal.
Many of the people involved are Trump’s addressees
Five documents related to the interagency group indicate the involvement of at least 39 current and former officials from across the government.
In a document written ahead of the interagency group’s spring gathering, Odney official Carolyn Rocco said she hoped participants could help each other “understand the current implications of past weapons.”
Reuters could not determine Rocco’s position at Odney. The office only makes public the names of senior officers.
Sources identified him as one of two former US Air Force officers involved with the group who work for Gabbard and have been vocal opponents of the Covid-19 vaccine mandate in the military. Rocco signed an open letter on January 1, 2024, pledging to seek courts-martial for senior military commanders who mandated shots for service members.
Rocco did not respond to an email request for comment.
Some of the people on the list, compiled from documents they have reviewed from the interagency group, have amplified Trump’s false election fraud claims.
According to two documents, former West Virginia Secretary of State Andrew McCoy is “Mac” Warner. Now an attorney in the Justice Department’s civil rights division, Warner alleges that the CIA “stole” the 2020 election from Trump while running for governor of West Virginia in 2023.
Warner did not respond to a request for comment.
Other names found in the two documents include at least four White House officials, an aide to Vice President J.D. Vance, and at least seven Justice Department officials, including former FBI agent Jared Wise, who was prosecuted for his involvement in the January 6 attack and is now in Bondi’s DOJ weapons group.
Wise did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Two documents show the involvement of two CIA officers, but Reuters could not determine what role they played in the interagency group. The CIA is legally prohibited from acting against Americans or within the United States except in very limited and specific circumstances.
The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Officials from other federal agencies with some involvement in the interagency working group, including the FCC, FBI and IRS, did not respond to requests for comment. The DOD did not respond to a request for comment.
A DHS spokeswoman said the agency is working with other federal departments to “reverse the damage caused by the previous administration.”
