Wide-ranging group of US officials pursues Trump’s fight against ‘Deep State’

WASHINGTON – A group of dozens of officials from across the federal government, including intelligence officers, has been helping to steer President Donald Trump’s drive for

retribution against his perceived enemies

, according to government records and a source familiar with the effort.

The Interagency Weaponisation Working Group (IWWG), which has been meeting since at least May, has drawn officials from the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Justice and Defence departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Communications Commission, two of the documents show.

Mr Trump issued an executive order on his inauguration day in January instructing the attorney general to work with other federal agencies “to identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the federal government related to the weaponisation of law enforcement and the weaponisation of the Intelligence Community”.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard earlier in 2025 announced groups within their agencies to “root out” those who they said misused government power against Mr Trump.

Shortly after Reuters asked the agencies for comment on Oct 20, Fox News reported the existence of the group, citing Ms Gabbard as saying she “stood up this working group”.

Several US officials confirmed the existence of the IWWG to Reuters.

ODNI spokeswoman Olivia Coleman said: “Americans deserve a government committed to deweaponising, depoliticising and ensuring that power is never again turned against the people it’s meant to serve.”

The existence of the interagency group indicates the administration’s push to deploy government power against Mr Trump’s perceived foes is broader and more systematic than previously reported. Interagency working groups in government typically forge administration policies, share information and agree on joint actions.

Mr Trump and his allies use the term “weaponisation” to refer to their unproven claims that officials from previous administrations abused federal power to target him during his two impeachments, his criminal prosecutions and an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

The interagency group’s mission is “basically to go after ‘the Deep State’”, the source said. The term is used by Mr Trump and his supporters to refer to the President’s perceived foes from the Obama and Biden administrations and his own first term.

Biden, Comey, others reportedly discussed

Among those discussed by the interagency group, the source added, were former FBI director James Comey; Mr Anthony Fauci, Mr Trump’s chief medical adviser on the Covid-19 pandemic; and former top military commanders who implemented orders to make Covid-19 vaccinations compulsory for service members.

Discussions of potential targets have ranged beyond current and former government employees to include former president Joe Biden’s son Hunter, the source said.

A senior ODNI official disputed that account and said there was “no targeting of any individual person for retribution”.

“IWWG is simply looking at available facts and evidence that may point to actions, reports, agencies, individuals... who illegally weaponised the government in order to carry out political attacks,” the official added.

Reuters reviewed more than 20 government records and identified the names of 39 people involved in the interagency group.

Five of the records concerned the interagency group, five pertained to the Weaponisation Working Group that Ms Bondi announced in February, and nine referred to a smaller subgroup of employees from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and several other agencies that remain focused on the Jan 6, 2021 attack by Trump supporters on the US Capitol.

The source said an important player in the interagency group is Justice Department attorney Ed Martin, who failed in May to win Senate support to become US attorney for Washington after lawmakers expressed concern about his support for Jan 6 rioters. Mr Martin, who also oversees Ms Bondi’s DOJ weaponisation group, is the department’s pardon attorney.

Other people working in or with the group include Covid-19 vaccine mandate opponents and proponents of Mr Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, according to a Reuters review of their social media accounts and public statements.

A Justice Department spokesperson acknowledged that Ms Bondi and Ms Gabbard were ordered by Mr Trump to undertake a review of alleged acts of “weaponisation” by previous administrations but did not comment specifically on the IWWG activities.

Reuters could not determine whether the group has powers to take any action or instruct agencies to act or if its role is more advisory.

Russia probe and Jan 6 prosecutions were issues

The source said ODNI official Paul McNamara was a leading figure in the interagency group. He is a retired US Marine officer and an aide to Ms Gabbard. Two other sources said he oversees her Directors Initiatives Group (DIG), as first reported by the Washington Post. He is among at least 10 ODNI officials associated with the interagency group, two documents show.

Senators from both parties have raised questions about DIG’s operations, with Republicans and Democrats approving a defence Budget bill in October containing a measure requiring Ms Gabbard to disclose the group’s members, their roles and funding and how they received security clearances.

The source recalled the group being told that ODNI, which oversees the 18-agency US intelligence community, had begun using what they called “technical tools” to search an unclassified communications network for evidence of the “deep state” and hoped to expand its search to classified networks known as the Secure Internet Protocol Router, and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System.

The ODNI official disputed this as inaccurate and “not how the systems operate”.

A “big pillar they pushed” at the interagency group, said the source, was purging officials involved in investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and in compiling a 2017 multi-agency US intelligence assessment that determined Moscow attempted to sway the race to Mr Trump.

Ms Gabbard said in July that DIG found documents showing former president Barack Obama ordered intelligence agencies to manufacture the 2017 assessment – charges an Obama spokesperson rejected as “bizarre”.

The 2017 assessment’s conclusion was corroborated by a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report released in August 2020 and by a review ordered earlier in 2025 by CIA director John Ratcliffe.

Another focus for the interagency group was retribution for the prosecution of the Jan 6 rioters, said the source. Ms Bondi tasked the DOJ Weaponisation Working Group with reviewing the Jan 6 prosecutions.

Some of the documents seen by Reuters show that a smaller subset of employees from across the government have been convening on the topic. The Justice Department denied in its statement to Reuters that a separate Jan 6 group exists.

Among other issues the source recalled being discussed were the Jeffrey Epstein files, the prosecutions of Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, and the possibility of stripping security clearances from transgender US officials.

Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died by suicide in a US jail in 2019.

The White House official said the Epstein files “have not been part of the conversation”. The official also disputed Reuters’ characterisation of what the working group has focused on.

The senior ODNI official also denied the group discussed the Epstein files, revoking security clearance for transgender officials or Mr Bannon and Mr Navarro’s cases.

Mr Navarro said his case was an example of Mr Biden’s weaponisation of government.

Many people involved have been vocal Trump backers

The five documents pertaining to the interagency group indicate the involvement of at least 39 current and former officials from across the government.

In one document written before a spring gathering of the interagency group, ODNI official Carolyn Rocco said she hoped participants could help each other “understand current implications of past weaponisation”.

The source identified her as one of two former US Air Force officers involved with the group who work for Ms Gabbard and have been vocal opponents of the Covid-19 vaccine mandate in the military. Ms Rocco signed a Jan 1, 2024 open letter pledging to seek court martials for senior military commanders who made the shots mandatory for service members.

Some people on the list Reuters compiled from the documents it reviewed have amplified Mr Trump’s false election fraud claims. One is former West Virginia secretary of state Andrew McCoy “Mac” Warner. Now an attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, he alleged while running for West Virginia governor in 2023 that the CIA “stole” the 2020 election from Mr Trump.

Other names found in two of the documents include at least four White House officials, an aide to Vice-President J.D. Vance, and at least seven Justice Department officials, including former FBI agent Jared Wise, who was prosecuted for joining the Jan 6 assault and is now on Ms Bondi’s DOJ weaponisation group.

Two of the documents show the involvement of two CIA officers but Reuters could not determine what roles they may have played in the interagency group. The CIA is legally prohibited from conducting operations against Americans or inside the US except under very limited and specific circumstances. REUTERS