The Deep State and Its Link to the Obama Administration

Some months back, I posted an article on the Deep State, the military-industrial-intelligence complex that wields the real power in Washington.  According to Mike Lofgren, this unseen entity consists of the following players:

1.) A hybrid of federal security and law enforcement agencies which includes the following:

a.) The Central Intelligence Agency

b.) The Department of Homeland Security

c.) The Justice Department

d.) The Department of State

e.) The Department of Defense

2.) the non-financial private sector (i.e. private sector contractors that offer services to the government including companies like Booz Allen among others).

3.) the financial sector (i.e. Wall Street).

3.) the information technology sector (i.e. Silicon Valley).

It is key to note that none of these players are elected, however, they are firmly entrenched in Washington and control the levers of power.

Coincidentally, one of the Wikileaks emails leaked from John Podesta's computer provides us with a bit of a glimpse at one of the players in the Deep State.  While most of us think of Google as the search engine of choice and the purveyor of the Android operating system, Google is firmly entrenched in Washington.  Here is the email that I am referring to, dated September 9, 2008, authored by Chris Lu, the current Deputy Secretary of Labor:

Keep in mind that the subject of this email, data rooms, are virtual "data rooms" that were created to help the Obama-Biden team to transition to the Oval Office/White House, well before the election was even held.  These data rooms were of two types:

1.) working group rooms which held information that would assist with specific subjects that would be of interest to a transmission team (i.e. national security) that were accessible to only board members and working group chairpersons.

2.) a general room that was accessible to all of the principals on the list including James Rubin, (Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs under Bill Clinton) Susan Rice (current National Security Advisor), Valerie Jarrett (current Senior Advisor to the President), William Daley (former White House Chief of Staff to the current President), Peter Rouse (interim White House Chief of Staff to the current President) and, of course, John Podesta among many others.

What is key here is to note the final line in the email:

"The one thing you should know is that contrary to the log-in instructions, we're not giving out "transition2008.com" email addresses. We think that would compromise our ability to keep this whole enterprise under wraps."

Secrecy, apparently, was key.

The Obama-Biden transition team was co-chaired by John Podesta who was Bill Clinton's last White House Chief of Staff.  On November 5, 2008, then President-elect Obama announced his complete official transition team which included, among others, a woman by the name of Sonal Shah.  If you read the attached email carefully, you'll notice that she is referred to as "Sonal" and functioned as part of the "gang at Google" who helped set up the secure virtual data rooms.  It's that Google connection that I find most interesting, considering that they are not officially part of Washington.  According to her LinkedIn page, Ms. Shah was employed by Google from March 2007 to March 2009 as their Head of Global Development Initiatives as described in her own words:

"Led Google.org's Global Development efforts. Built a team to design, develop and implement two global initiatives. One focused on leveraging information and technology to provide citizens access to information about public services and improve outcomes. The goal was to empower communities to hold their government accountable.  

The second initiative focused on investing in small and medium sized enterprises for impact in low income communities. This led to the creation of a $20 million dollar fund with the Omidyar Network and the Soros Economic Development Fund. The fund focused on impact investments in growing viable business and creating jobs and other impact at the bottom of the pyramid."

She also states the following about her time on the Obama-Biden Transition Team from November 2008 to January 2009 as follows:

"Co-lead for President Obama's transition group on Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform. Led the efforts to set up innovation initiatives across the government."

It's also quite interesting to look at the rest of Ms. Shah's career.  From August 2006 to September 2008, she was employed as an Advisory Board Member at the Clinton Global Initiative and from August 2004 to March 2007, she was employed as a Vice President at Goldman Sachs.  During the Clinton Administration and the early part of the Bush II Administration, she was employed as a Director at the Department of the Treasury.  After her time at Google and after Barack Obama took office, she was employed by the Obama Administration as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Director in the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation from March 2009 to August 2011.   Not bad for a woman with a master's degree in Economics.

If you wish, you can see Ms. Shah's entire CV here.

When one starts to follow the thread that connects the Obama Administration to the information technology players in the Deep State, it is an amazing journey that shows us where the power in Washington really lies and how the same cast of unelected characters come up time and time again.