This is indirectly related, I think, to the allegations made by the JFK conspiracy crowd, particularly the Garrisonites, who argue that some form/type of the "deep state" killed JFK because he (somehow) threatened their power and status. Of course, their theory goes well beyond that into la-la land where Warren and the WC and the HSCA and Congresses (plural) and major elements of the mainstream media covered up for the real assassins of JFK.
In any case, here is Barr in an interview with former NY Times journalist Bari Weiss (BW).
BW: During the Trump years, the phrase, “the deep state” went mainstream. Is any part of the idea that there is a deep state true?
AG BARR: Yes. I think it’s overdone, as many conspiracy theories are. But there definitely are people in the government, as there are in many of our institutions, who are very willful and are willing to sacrifice the values and processes of the institution in order to achieve some higher political end. And they do it. There are pockets of them in the Department of Justice and unfortunately, some in the F.B.I.
People say, “what do we do about the FBI?” The F.B.I. is like all of our institutions. I wish the F.B.I. was the extent of the problem, but government institutions are generally infected by this. All our other institutions—the medical profession, journalism, science—are also being politicized.
BW: Have they always been politicized? And we just didn’t know about it because there wasn’t the internet and social media and all of the tools that make things available for us to see and make judgments about with our own eyes and ears? Or are they only now becoming politicized?
AG BARR: I think there’s always been some partisan element. The media’s always been tilted toward the Democrats. But it's much more aggressive today than it’s ever been. People are much more willful and willing to sacrifice institutional values in order to achieve a broader political objective. To them, institutions are a means to an end.
The justice system has certain processes and values we follow in order to try our best to achieve justice. It’s a means of achieving justice, but we have processes that we have to adhere to, like due process and evidence. Same with journalism. There are certain disciplines that you try to use because ultimately you’re trying to present what’s objectively true. You sift through the evidence and have people who can back up what you’re saying.
But in all these institutions, those values are being sacrificed because people are trying to short-circuit in order to get to what they think is a higher objective. That corrupts the institution. Suppose someone in the justice system stepped back and said, “This is not really producing justice, so we’re going to assassinate people we know are criminals that have gotten off the hook.” That’s been done in some countries. That’s sort of the right-wing version of what I think is left-wing subversion of these institutions, sacrificing the processes and the values that make these instruments of society achieve certain ends.
