September 29, 2019

Stephen Miller Calls the Whistleblower a “Deep State” Agent

The White House adviser nodded to a popular right-wing conspiracy theory on Fox News this morning.

Ron Sachs/CNP via ZUMA

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White House senior adviser Stephen Miller went on Fox News Sunday morning to parrot the official White House line that the whistleblower complaint about President Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky is nothing more than an attempt to hurt the president.

Miller called the whistleblower a “saboteur trying to undermine a democratically elected government” and invoked a far-right conspiracy line, saying that “this is a deep state operative, pure and simple.”

“A partisan hit job does not make you a whistleblower just because you go through the Whistleblower Protection Act,” Miller to host Chris Wallace said during a heated TV interview on Fox News Sunday.

Miller’s comments follow Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire’s testimony regarding the whistleblower complaint before the House Intelligence Committee last week.

In his testimony, Maguire defended his handling of the complaint. “I believe that the whistleblower and the inspector general have acted in good faith throughout. I have every reason to believe that they have done everything by the book and follow the law,” he told lawmakers.

Miller’s accusations that the whistleblower is a member of the “deep state” echo popular conspiracy rhetoric on the internet that claims the entrenched careerist bureaucrats of America’s intelligence community are working to take down Trump.

The claim that there’s a cabal of so-called deep state actors across the federal government working to undermine the president has cropped repeatedly across the right-wing universe. Trump allies have casually used it as an excuse for difficulties Trump has had in advancing his agenda, and online conspiracy theorists have accused the deep state of helping to enable a supposed pedophile ring being run by liberal elites. There is no evidence to suggest any such group exists.

In the original complaint, the unnamed whistleblower said that in a July 25 call Trump tried to push Zelensky to launch an investigation into former Vice President and 2020 Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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