US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a representative of the so-called “deep state,” seeking to undermine President Donald Trump’s initiatives and obstruct his policies, according to E. Michael Jones, an American political analyst and former professor in Indiana.
“Basically everything that Pompeo does is an attempt to bring Trump back under the control of the deep state and that’s just a recipe for nothing happening,” Jones, the current editor of the Culture Wars magazine, told Press TV on Friday.
“What we’re seeing here is the result of this kind of weird combination of a president who is heading in one direction and a secretary of state who should be representing his policies, but is actually representing the policies of his opposition,” Jones said.
“So Mike Pompeo is a representative of the deep state,” he added. “The deep state has been trying to destroy Trump ever since he got into power.”
The term deep state refers to a secretive network of influential members of government agencies or the military operating outside the democratic system.
Trump and his political allies have made accusations about a shadowy entity within the US government bureaucracy that is determined to de-legitimize his administration since his inauguration.
During a US congressional hearing in May, Pompeo said that he "does not believe there is a deep state" at the US State Department or the CIA -- contradicting Trump's repeated assertion that there are forces within the government conspiring against him.
Pompeo was asked directly by lawmakers on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the US House of Representatives whether he believes there is a deep state at the State Department.
Pompeo was also asked if a "deep state" existed at the CIA where he served as director during the first year of the Trump administration.
"You know this term 'deep state' has been thrown around. I'll say this. The employees who worked with me at the CIA nearly uniformly were aimed at achieving the president's objectives and America's objectives," he said.
"There are always exceptions to every rule," Pompeo added. "I've never led an organization that didn't have bad actors, I don't think any government organization is exempt from having malfeasance as well."
And the unsubstantiated claim has largely fueled some of Trump’s most controversial attacks against the government he runs -- including charges that the FBI secretly placed a confidential source in his 2016 presidential election campaign.