“Oh, what a tangled web we weave... when first we practice to deceive.”

This quote is attributed to Sir Walter Scott, a Scottish historian and novelist. Too bad he wasn’t available for a sermon at the royal wedding this past weekend, rather than social justice preacher Bishop Michael Curry. The House of Windsor certainly wove a tangled web over the decades.

The Deep State has been weaving its own tangled web of Russian collusion for the past two years beginning with Russia supposedly hacking the 2016 election, creating the electoral outcome they desired. It has since morphed into Trump colluding with the Russians, despite zero proof on the one-year anniversary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s free-for-all investigation by his merry band of partisan Democrats.

It’s now to the point that Mueller’s team is investigating anyone in Trump’s circle who ever ate a bowl of borscht or drank a sip of Russian vodka. At a time when this couldn’t get any more ridiculous, look no further than the Washington Post for a version of “can you top this?”

A few days ago, the WaPo published an opinion piece entitled, “The FBI didn’t use an informant to go after Trump. They used one to protect him.”

Sure, they did. I can’t wait to read from the WaPo how Iran wants nukes to “protect” Israel or that that sanctuary cities are for the “protection” of legal, law-abiding residents of those cities.

The Trump piece was written by Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and Yale graduate. That’s two strikes against her already. The Clintons are Yale graduates and James Comey is a former FBI agent. I rest my case.

Her piece comes on the heels of revelations that the FBI had an “informant” spying on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Remember that Watergate was about a bungled burglary of DNC headquarters. Having a mole within the DNC would have been beyond Nixon’s wildest dreams. Yet this is just what the FBI did to Trump.

Former Agent Rangappa knows better however, “As a former FBI counterintelligence agent, I know what Trump apparently does not: Counterintelligence investigations have a different purpose than their criminal counterparts.” Then why was a special counsel appointed? Their mandate is to investigate crimes, not perform counterintelligence. She did not explain this glaring contradiction.

Why was the FBI spying on an opposition candidate? As reported by the NY Times, “The FBI had already identified at least four members of the Trump campaign with significant ties to or contacts with Russian intelligence.” Really? In fact, an FBI operative invited a low-level Trump campaign volunteer to London, paid him for his trip, then fed him bogus information about the Russians hacking Hillary Clinton’s email.

When the volunteer later had a bit too much to drink and repeated what he had been told by the FBI operative to an Australian ambassador and Clinton Foundation donor, that apparently started the FBI investigation. Rush Limbaugh gave a detailed summary of how this played out.

Rangappa justifies this by criticizing, “Accusations that the FBI was ‘spying’ on the Trump campaign -- rather than spying on foreign spies.” Which in fact is exactly what the FBI was doing. In all of these stories, why aren’t any Russians mentioned? It seems that only Trump campaign aides -- Papadopoulos, Page, and Manafort -- are the ones being investigated. It sure seems as if the FBI was spying only on the Trump campaign, not on any Russians.

Does the FBI investigate organized crime by spying on ordinary citizens not connected to the criminal enterprises? Rather than investigating the actual criminals? That is what we are being told.

The exception being one of the Russian companies indicted by Team Mueller that didn’t even exist as a company at the time of alleged criminal activity. Another Russian company is ready to defend itself against Mueller’s indictment, catching Mueller and his team flatfooted and unprepared for discovery and a trial. Special Counsel or Keystone Cops?

Rangappa concludes that Trump, “Should be glad to know that the FBI appears to have been trying to thwart a hostile country’s efforts to infiltrate his campaign.” Sure thing.

They are “protecting” Trump by indicting his associates, squeezing them to rat out Trump, leaking to the media, withholding exculpatory evidence, and so on. This must be 15-dimensional chess that the FBI is playing, “thwarting” the Russians by spying on the Trump campaign, transition, and administration, trying first to prevent his election, then cripple his transition, and when both of those attempts failed, destroy his presidency, all under the guise of “protecting” him.

Trump is hitting back, and hard, using his weapon of choice, Twitter.

What the former FBI agent doesn’t realize is that she inadvertently gave Trump the green light to do the same to his 2020 electoral opponent. Trump can use his FBI, CIA, and DOJ to “protect” his Democrat opponent by inserting a spy into their campaign.

It would be easy enough to do. Bernie Sanders spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union, providing justification to allege Russian collusion and influence. Hillary Clinton and her husband received plenty of money from the Russian government, again a good reason to investigate if the Russians are meddling in her campaign. Joe Biden’s son made a billion-dollar deal with China after Joe took a trip there, so China may be meddling in Joe’s presidential campaign.

If any of these three run for president in 2020, using former FBI Agent Rangappa’s reasoning, Trump’s FBI has a legal and ethical duty to spy on their campaigns, “to protect the campaign, not undermine it.”

See what a tangled web the deep state is weaving? They have handed Trump the keys to the kingdom, providing precedent and justification to do to his next opponent what was done to him and his campaign. And future presidential campaigns as well. The Banana States of America.

All because of Obama and his administration’s tangled web and “practice to deceive.”

Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn and Twitter.