I Gotcher Deep State Right Here

Classic projection - "The deep state is countervailing your heroic freedom-loving president's heroic effort to heroically do the heroic things that heroes such as he does for the patriotic glory of our nation and the purity of our heroic American essence."

The Deep State (as always) is comprised of sycophants, and other functionaries, who're more or less invisible, which renders them unaccountable politically, and so craven that all they care about is gaining power, and then wielding it for nearly the sole purpose of staying in power - seeing the democratic processes intended to check their craven instincts as silly little roadblocks, and considering the sense of honor necessary to observe and uphold the system of checks and balances as weakness instead of strength.

It's a very old story.

NYT via WaPo:

Among the story’s key points:

• As early as June, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney worked to execute the freeze for Trump, and a top aide to Mulvaney — Robert Blair — worried it would fuel the narrative that Trump was tacitly aiding Russia.
• Internal opposition was more forceful than previously known. The Pentagon pushed for the money for months. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security adviser John Bolton privately urged Trump to understand that freezing the aid was not in our national interest.
• Trump was unmoved, citing Ukraine’s “corruption.” We now know Trump actually wanted Ukraine to announce sham investigations absolving Russia of 2016 electoral sabotage and smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden. The Times report reveals that top Trump officials did not think that ostensibly combating Ukrainian “corruption” (which wasn’t even Trump’s real aim) was in our interests.
• Lawyers at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) worked to develop a far-fetched legal argument that Trump could exercise commander-in-chief authority to override Congress’ appropriation of the aid, to get around the law precluding Trump from freezing it.
• Michael Duffey, a political appointee at OMB, tried to get the Pentagon to assume responsibility for getting the aid released, to deflect blame away from the White House for its own role in blocking it. This led a Pentagon official to pronounce herself “speechless.”
• Duffey froze the aid with highly unusual bureaucratic tactics, refused to tell Pentagon officials why Trump wanted it withheld and instructed them to keep this “closely held.” (Some of this had already been reported, but in narrative context it becomes far more damning.)

Could you spot 45*'s new fall guy? And the double insulation?

"Michael Duffey? I don't know him - you'll have to ask Mick Mulvaney about all that..."

What we have is a POTUS - a stable genius and brilliant business guy - a guy so awesomely awesome and amazing at his job that he doesn't know who works for him or what the fuck it is we're paying them to do.