A group of hundreds of former U.S. intelligence officials — including some who signed the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter — has reemerged on the scene to attack FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard while handing out endorsements to leftwing Trump foes such as Abigail Spanberger and Eugene Vindman.
The Steady State, a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt “social welfare organization,” claims that it has “300+ members” who are former national security officials who “continue to promote democracy, rule of law, and national security based on the values shared by most Americans.” The group says it was first formed in 2016 in opposition to President Donald Trump. The group endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, and now has reemerged more prominently in the second Trump term.
Unlike 501(c)(3) public charities, under the tax laws, donations made to a 501(c)(4) are generally not tax-deductible for the donor. At the same time, a 501(c)(4) is allowed to endorse candidates, engage with campaigns even on a paid level, and engage in other political activities.
The first rule of Steady State is don’t talk about Steady State
The group says it has been operating since 2016, but its website only appears to have launched in March 2020 — premiering with an endorsement of then-candidate Biden for president. That would mean that they worked deep in the first Trump administration while congregating ways to defeat him.
Yet, Rick Wilson, a leader of the Lincoln Project (a leftist group now promoted by the Steady State), tweeted in November 2019 that “the idea that *anyone* inside the Trump Admin is ‘the Resistance’ or ‘the Steady State’ or ANYTHING other than complicit in his corruption, illegality, and overall fuckery is a risible lie.”
“The domestic and international threats that led us to action in 2020 have not disappeared. The gains we have made remain fragile,” the group’s website now says. “The threats to our democracy and international stability and security have evolved, and in some ways become more acute. The need to promote the values that brought us together three years ago remains as strong as, if not stronger than, ever.”
Steven A. Cash, the executive director of the group, told a podcast in June that “I think the Steady State wouldn’t exist, probably, if it wasn’t for Donald Trump. So we have to be honest about that.” Cash told another podcast in May that one-third of the group’s members are from the intelligence community, one third from the State Department, and one third from elsewhere. Many of the group’s members are not public.
Cash did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to him by Just the News through his LinkedIn, and the Steady State did not immediately respond to a request for comment either.
The October 2020 laptop letter, written to give Biden a “talking point” in his debate against Trump, contributed to the baseless narrative that the Hunter Biden laptop stories were nothing but a product of Russian disinformation — a narrative happily seized upon by Biden’s 2020 campaign and spread by some of the laptop letter signers.
“Steady State” gelled in 2016 to go after Trump
The group says that it “came together in 2016 to address a real danger to the country, as U.S. national security was damaged and our long-standing alliances were weakened.” The group added: “We saw the credibility of our country and our standing in the world diminished. The foundations of our democracy, as well as our global position and influence were badly shaken, as an authoritarian, anti-democratic strain became a part of our domestic politics.”
AlterNet reported in April that Lawyers Allied Under Rule of Law had said that the Steady State “formed in the first Trump term as a loose association that maintained a low internet profile because many members were in government” but has “become much more organized and active” in response to Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Cash told the Jack Hopkins Show in May that the Steady State “dates back to 2016” but that “it wasn’t even called the Steady State” at the time. He said that “Trump gets elected” and that he and a bunch of intelligence officers had recently left the IC at the time.
“And it was strange because, first of all, most of us never even thought of doing this. I mean, if we get involved in politics after we retire or leave, it’s sort of like we run for school board. … So we created the Steady State,” Cash said. “We didn’t even have a name yet. We offered our services to the new incoming administration, first to Michael Flynn, who didn’t respond, then got fired, and then to [H.R.] McMaster, who didn’t respond.”
Cash added: “We sort of ran out of steam until the breaking of the Ukraine scandal and that hit close to home with a lot of our people. … And we sort of decided that we had to pull up our big boy and big girl pants and take some risks, and we went really public.”
“Steady State” led by laptop letter signers and deniers
The Steady State counts among its publicly-acknowledged members at least four signers of the Hunter Biden laptop letter — and more laptop letter signers have previously been involved in efforts led by the group.
One of the signers of the Hunter Biden laptop letter, former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director Douglas Wise, was listed on the Steady State’s small steering committee in 2022 and in 2024, according to the WayBack Machine. The steering committee members are no longer listed on the group’s website in 2025.
Other acknowledged group members include former longtime CIA operations officer Marc Polymeropoulos, who helped draft the infamous laptop letter along with former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, who, in turn, said future Secretary of State Antony Blinken “triggered” him to craft the letter. Just the News previously reported that Morell played a key role in helping the Clinton campaign attempt to tie Trump to Russia in 2016.
Just the News also recently reported that yet another Steady State group member who signed the letter, Larry Pfeiffer, the former chief of staff to then-CIA director Michael Hayden (who also signed the laptop letter), has continued to suggest, without any credible evidence, that “the Russians played some role” in the incriminating laptop. Pfeiffer promoted the Steady State in August, tweeting, “Follow us please.”
In attempting to justify his baseless claim about the laptop, Pfeiffer had told the SpyTalk podcast audience to read an article written by and podcasts done by retired CIA officer John Sipher — who is also a member of the Steady State group. Sipher, a co-founder of Spycraft Entertainment and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, previously said he was proud to have played his part in influencing the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden — before backtracking and claiming he was being sarcastic.
The Steady State account itself tweeted in July about an article “From The Steady State’s own John Sipher.” The article seemed to be the same one that Pfeiffer had also pointed to. The story for The Bulwark argued that “Trump is still obsessed with the Hunter Biden laptop letter” as Sipher was forced to admit that “there is still no firm evidence that I am aware of that the laptop itself was part of a Russian deception scheme.”
The Steady State’s group membership also includes former CIA counterintelligence official Susan Miller, who says she played a role in assessing Russian election meddling in 2016, and who Just the News previously revealed has called Donald Trump a “dictator” and MAGA supporters “Nazis” — and who insists that the now-discredited Christopher Steele dossier “might be true.”
Selling a story with no evidence
In addition to the four Hunter Biden laptop letter signers, Cash — a former CIA lawyer during the Clinton administration who publicly resigned from the Biden Department of Homeland Security effective on Trump’s inauguration day in January 2025 — has also repeatedly defended the baseless letter. Cash also defended it during a SpyTalk podcast episode in May of this year.
“I wasn’t a signatory of that letter… it just hadn’t come across my radar to tell you the truth,” Cash said. “If you read that letter, in my view, it’s pretty measured. It is calling attention to what appears to me to be a well-founded danger. It uses language that is very measured.”
Steady State in July also republished a Substack post by Sipher criticizing CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s commentary about the CIA’s “lessons learned” review from earlier this year. That report criticized the tradecraft of the 2016 intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian meddling and showed that former CIA Director John Brennan had pushed to include the infamous Steele Dossier in the ICA.
Attacks on Patel, Gabbard, and Trump Admin writ-large
The Steady State in February attacked the CIA’s “deferred retirement” efforts as “Orwellian” and “insidious,” and elsewhere opposed Patel’s nomination to be FBI director, claiming that he “is demonstrably unqualified and presents a direct threat to the principles of justice, impartiality, and integrity that define the FBI’s mission.”
The group also sent letters in April in opposition to the nomination of Ed Martin to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
The group attacked Gabbard in May over her assessment that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was acting at the behest of Nicolas Maduro’s regime, among other things. That month, the group also railed against the Pentagon’s deployment of the National Guard to help quell anti-ICE riots and violence in Los Angeles.
Gabbard announced in August that she had revoked the security clearances of three dozen “current and former intelligence professionals who have abused the public trust by politicizing and manipulating intelligence.”
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that “Tulsi Gabbard Blindsided CIA Over Revoking Clearance of Undercover Officer.” Gabbard’s office has denied this, and the CIA employee in question, Julia Gurganus, had made it publicly known for years in her own online biographies that she worked at the CIA.
Despite this, spy novelist Robert Morton tweeted that “outing an undercover CIA officer isn’t a slip — it’s a betrayal. Gabbard’s leak doesn’t just end one career, it endangers lives, burns networks, and weakens America’s hand abroad.” The Steady State shared that tweet and strongly implied that Gabbard’s alleged actions had been criminal, tweeting, “50 U.S.C. § 3121 et seq. (Intelligence Identities Protection Act)…..” The group also posted a Substack article attacking the revocation of security clearances.
The group has also harshly criticized the declassification efforts by Gabbard related to Russiagate.
“Tulsi Gabbard’s role in disclosing classified intelligence in an attempt to validate the coup narrative exemplifies the dangers of politicizing intelligence. Her actions not only contravene the warnings of intelligence professionals but also endanger sensitive national security information,” the Steady State wrote in August.
Cash went on PBS’s Newshour in August to attack Attorney General Pam Bondi over the Trump DOJ allegedly investigating whether any of those officials involved in the Russiagate hoax may have committed crimes. Cash claimed that “we had a tremendous amount of accountability” already and that Bondi’s efforts were “bizarre.”
The group has also launched “The Fredonia Project” which it says is a Steady State original series, following the American embassy of the fictional nation of ‘Fredonia’ as it sends back situation reports to the government of Fredonia.” The group created a fake CIA World Factbook entry for their fictional country. The name itself was taken from the 1933 Marx Brothers film “Duck Soup.” The fake dispatches from the fictional Fredonian Ambassador Rufus T. Firefly III largely serve to criticize the Trump administration on domestic and foreign policy.
Cash had written in his December resignation letter that “I cannot, in good conscience, continue to serve as an Intelligence Officer under a Trump administration. … I fear that a President Trump will end our democracy.”
“When does staying silent become complicity; and when does standing apart from politics become a political act itself? … When forced to choose between two existential threats — one to the Agency, the other to the Republic — our greater loyalty must be to the survival of our national core itself,” Cash wrote for the Cipher Brief in July.
“This is not an ordinary moment. The indicators of authoritarianism we once tracked overseas — attacks on an independent judiciary, politicization of law enforcement, efforts to delegitimize elections — are now visible here at home. In such a moment, silence is not neutrality. It is abdication.”
Endorsing Spanberger, Vindman, and others
The Steady State has spent this year endorsing a number of Democratic candidates, including some prominent Trump foes, including Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., in her bid to be the next Virginia governor. The endorsement even included a link to an ActBlue donation page.
“In an era marked by democratic backsliding and the increasing politicization of intelligence, Ms. Spanberger stands as a principled and stabilizing force,” the Steady State wrote. “She is, without question, the best candidate to lead Virginia through this critical moment.”
The Steady State also endorsed Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., in his reelection bid. Vindman and his brother, retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, played key roles in the Ukraine-related Trump impeachment effort in 2019 and 2020.
“In a time marked by democratic backsliding and the increasing weaponization of intelligence for political gain, Representative Vindman stands as a principled and stabilizing force,” the group wrote. “He is, without question, the best candidate to lead Virginia’s 7th district through this critical moment.” The endorsement included a link to Vindman’s donation page.
The Steady State in March also endorsed Democratic candidate Gay Valimont for a congressional seat in Florida, writing that “her extensive experience as a grassroots activist for gun reform” had “prepared her to fight on issues that affect all Floridians and all Americans,” and also endorsed Democratic candidate and former Rear Admiral Eileen Laubacher for a congressional seat in Colorado.
What’s in a name? Semantics abound.
The “steady state” phrase has become a popular alternative to the “deep state” terminology among some Trump opponents, due to the overwhelmingly negative connotations of the latter.
Miles Taylor, a former DHS official during the first Trump administration, was the “Anonymous” author of a September 2018 article in the New York Times which claimed that “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” Taylor wrote: “This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.”
Bradley Moss, a partner at national security-specialist lawyer Mark Zaid’s firm, wrote in The Atlantic that month that “The ‘Steady State’ Is Shirking Its Obligations,” and “If the president is unfit to serve, the anonymous op-ed authors have a duty to their country to come forward publicly.”
“The steady state is what is the reality of the U.S. government generally and the national security part of the U.S. government specifically […] They’re not a deep state in the nefarious kind of way that that term implies,” Cash told SpyTalk in May, adding, “It represents in some ways the best of what the U.S. government is. It’s what gives us stability. It’s what gives us expertise. It’s what keeps us from falling into autocracy.”
Steady State’s recent coming out of the shadows and the history of its members and supporters seem markedly at odds.
