Appearing Wednesday at the “2020 Vision: Intelligence and the U.S. Presidential Election” event hosted by the Michael V. Hayden Center, former CIA Acting Director John McLaughlin lauded the “Deep State” for its role in the House Democrats’ partisan impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

A partial transcript is as follows:

MARGARET BRENNAN: There is something unique, you would have to agree, that the impeachment inquiry is underway, sparked by a complaint from somebody within the intelligence community. It feeds the president’s concern about an often-used term, a “Deep State” being there to take him out.

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN: Thank god for the Deep State. Everyone here has seen this progression of diplomats and intelligence officers and White House people trooping up to Capitol Hill right now and these are people doing their duty and responding to a higher call. With all of the people who knew what was going on here, it took an intelligence officer to step forward and say something about it, which was the trigger that unleashed everything else.

Now, why does that happen? This is the institution in the U.S. government with all of its flaws, and it makes mistakes, is institutionally committed to objectivity and to telling the truth. It is one of the few institutions in Washington that is not in a chain of command that makes or implements policy. Its whole job is to speak the truth. Is engraved in marble in the lobby.