Editorials & Other Articles

I became aware of the latest conspiracy theory in an unusual way: as a question on a pro-democracy podcast. Within minutes of sitting down with Tim Miller for The Bulwark podcast last Thursday, he asked about the right wing’s latest attack on me: “I don't know if you've seen this. Glenn Beck says that ‘Marc Elias has stopped posting on X, John Kerry privated his account and Peter Strzok deleted his account. Is the deep state panicking?’”

Sadly, over the last several years, I’ve become accustomed to the attacks and laughing them off. As far back as 2018, Donald Trump described me on social media as the Democratic Party’s “best election-stealing lawyer.” Earlier this year, he told officials at the Department of Justice that another lawyer and I were “bad people, really bad people” and “radicals” trying “to turn America into a corrupt, communist, third-world country.”

Beck was interviewing Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence. His question about the “deep state” was posed to the very person who coordinates the most sensitive classified information for the U.S. government. If anyone runs the deep state, it’s Gabbard.

One might expect a person in her position to correct Beck — or at least resist fueling a false narrative. Instead, Gabbard agreed: “That’s the only way I can read this situation. Those who are truly innocent would not be taking those kinds of actions.” She went on to suggest that the Department of Justice is reviewing the matter “to bring about accountability to those involved.”