I’m a former civil servant. We are professionals, not a "deep state."

I retired from the federal civil service this month. My 42-year career began during the Carter administration and involved service to seven presidents: four Republicans and three Democrats. Most recently, I had the privilege of leading the dedicated professionals of the National Counterterrorism Center; over four decades, I worked throughout the intelligence community, on the National Security Council and overseas. In all those years, I never saw anyone, at any level, attempt to undermine any president. Rather, I worked with tens of thousands of individuals who took seriously their oath to the Constitution, generally shunned the limelight and wanted only to work on behalf of the United States.

Given all this, it was tremendously disconcerting to hear continued references to an alleged “deep state” and to personally have heard a senior official dismiss the nonpolitical staff of the Department of Homeland Security as “a bunch of Democrats.” I was referred to at a White House meeting as “an Obama holdover.” That’s technically true, insofar as I was an Obama/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Reagan/Carter holdover. But in a broader sense, it was utter nonsense.

Yes, the federal bureaucracy can be frustrating, even stultifying. A workforce of more than 2 million people, although broadly competent and hard-working, inevitably has poor performers. Some undoubtedly have acted illegally. Organizations may be overly focused on turf; on occasion, it felt as though I was spending more time fending off the bureaucracy than fending off terrorists. Discouraging, to be sure. But there is nothing approaching the kind of malfeasance that would justify broad-brush accusations of a “deep state.”