Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said the deep state is exerting power over Congress and keeping information from him regarding the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Paul was discussing the highly anticipated Senate testimony of CIA Director Gina Haspel on “America’s Newsroom” Tuesday and said he and other lawmakers are being kept in the dark by intelligence agencies.

“To my mind this is the very definition of the deep state,” Paul said. (RELATED: Rand Paul Says Congressional Votes Are Rigged: They’re Counting The Votes In Advance)

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“The deep state is that the intelligence agencies do things, conclude things, make conclusions but then the elected officials are prevented from knowing about this.”

Paul said lawmakers can’t exercise oversight if they are kept out of the loop and warned against the growing size and influence of the deep state.

“If we aren’t told about this and I’m not allowed to know about these conclusions, then I can’t have oversight,” he said. “And so then state grows, the intelligence, the deep state grows and has more and more power.”

“I’ve read in the media that the CIA has said with high confidence that the crown prince was involved with killing Khashoggi,” Paul continued. “I have not seen that intelligence nor have I even seen the conclusions. And today there’s yet another briefing and I’m being excluded. So really, this is the deep state at work … that your representatives don’t know what is going on in the intelligence agencies.”

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