The Deep State

The phrase comes from the Turkish derin devlet, used in the 1990s for networks within Turkey's military and security services accused of operating outside democratic control. In the United States, former congressional staff member Mike Lofgren used it in a 2014 essay and 2016 book to describe a hybrid of national security agencies, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley that he argued governs regardless of elections. It entered wide use in 2017, when President Trump and his supporters applied it to career officials in the intelligence agencies, the FBI, and the Justice Department whom they accused of undermining his administration.

Those who use the term point to leaks of classified information, the FBI's handling of investigations into the 2016 Trump campaign, which a 2019 Justice Department inspector general report found contained 17 significant errors and omissions in surveillance applications, and resistance by some officials to presidential policies. Political scientists describe related ideas in more neutral terms, such as bureaucratic autonomy and principal-agent problems, in which career staff with expertise and job protections can slow or reshape the policies of elected leaders.

Critics of the term say it is a conspiracy theory that casts nonpartisan civil servants as enemies, and that the same inspector general report found no evidence that political bias drove the decision to open the investigation. They argue that career officials following the law and their oaths are a safeguard, not a threat. Since 2025, the administration has cited the deep state in justifying workforce reductions, the reinstatement of Schedule F as Schedule Policy/Career, and the removal of officials. Supporters say elected leaders must be able to direct the government, while critics say these steps politicize the civil service.