Juan Williams: The real ‘Deep State’ is pro-Trump

‘If you ain’t scared, you ain’t alive.’

There is every reason to fear violence at this week’s inauguration.

It is terrifying to see more armed troops at the U.S. Capitol to deal with potential terrorists than there are in Iraq and Afghanistan.

{mosads}And it is beyond scary that those terrorists could be our fellow Americans and in some cases people tied to the U.S. military and police.

“We always had counter-surveillance but now we have counter-surveillance looking at cops during the inauguration of a new president,” former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last week.

In the last week, it is hard to miss disturbing stories about law enforcement’s presence on the wrong side of the Capitol Hill siege:

A Pennsylvania policeman apparently wore a hat during the Trump speech preceding the attack on the Capitol which read: “Trump MAGA 2020 f… your feelings,” according to the CBS station in Pittsburgh.

A Virginia policeman posted on Facebook that “the right IN ONE DAY took the f***ing U.S. Capitol. Keep poking us.”

Trump loyalist police from several other states are under investigation for taking part in the riot.

And two Capitol Hill Police officers are suspended and at least ten others under investigation for participating in the violence or helping the insurrectionists.

Meanwhile, the Joint Chiefs of Staff felt the need to send a message to everyone in the military last week to remind them that, whatever their politics, they have all taken an oath to defend the Constitution.

A former Navy Seal bragged on Facebook about “breaching the Capitol,” adding “you had to destroy doors and windows to get in.”

“A Washington Post analysis of individuals who breached the Capitol or were in the vicinity of the riots identified 21 people with some prior military service background,” the newspaper reported, adding that of 72 people arrested or charged by last Thursday about 15 percent, 11, had military experience.

Fear of these trained fighters goes beyond D.C. on Inauguration Day to state capitols. And farther beyond is fear of spur-of-the-moment violence in random locations by those acting on the outright lie that Trump won the election.

The greatest fear is of an attack on the newly elected president and his vice president. At that point, a nation on the edge might go over the edge.

Here is how deep this goes:

In December, the Secret Service made changes in the group of agents assigned to protect the incoming president. Part of the shift is the normal turnover with a new administration. But some reassignments were done because some agents appeared to “embrace [Trump’s] political agenda,” according to The Washington Post.

In the past, one agent took leave to become a Trump Deputy Chief of Staff and was reportedly one of the people associated with the Trump photo op that followed the forcible clearing of a peaceful protest against racial violence in Lafayette Square.

The ties between Trump and law enforcement go back to the 2016 election.

It has been widely reported that then-FBI director James Comey was prompted to release his fateful letter announcing a reopened investigation into Hillary Clinton in part because he was concerned about leaks from Trump supporters in the FBI’s New York bureau.

One former FBI agent in New York ran a non-profit that took in $1.3 million in donations from Trump. Rudy Giuliani’s former law firm was representing the FBI Agents Association while the former mayor went on television to promise negative information on Clinton.

A 2018 New York Times column reported that “the FBI agent corps today overwhelmingly fits the demographic profile of a Trump voter,” and cited one agent who told another paper: “The FBI is Trumpland.”

Meanwhile, Trump celebrates the military and police as his personal troops in facing off against Black Lives Matter or dealing with immigrants.

{mossecondads}Here is Trump in a March 2019 interview with Breitbart:

“I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”

That was not a one-time utterance.

Here is Trump in 2018 campaigning for then-candidate Josh Hawley’s Senate bid in Springfield, Missouri:

“Law enforcement, military, construction workers, Bikers for Trump… They travel all over the country… these are tough people. These are great people. But they’re peaceful people, and Antifa and all — they’d better hope they stay that way.”

Trump’s “tough people” and “law-and-order” rhetoric is the cutting edge of troubling ties linking two other factions with a big presence at the siege — white supremacists and conspiracy theorists, especially followers of the QAnon conspiracy.

The Washington Post reported last week that “dozens of people on a terrorist watch list,” were at the attack on the Capitol and the majority of those people are “suspected white supremacists.”

It turns out Trump was right to warn about a “deep state” working beneath the surface of these institutions to subvert our democracy. But it turns out they are his loyalists.

It’s unclear how deep the rot goes and how many people it involves.

Pray for the safety of all those in Washington on Wednesday. The threat is not yet over. 

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.