WASHINGTON — All those times Donald Trump railed about the secretive “deep state” trying to undermine his presidency, he might have tried checking upstairs and down the hall. Declining to carry out Trump’s orders is something lots of Republicans have been doing, pretty much since he got elected — and particularly among GOP congressional leadership. Among his major roles at the White House was to shepherd names of judges pre-screened by the conservative Federalist Society into appointments for open judgeships at the trial and appellate levels. One informal adviser to the president said on condition of anonymity that McGahn was among the most “subversive” of Trump’s top aides. In other words, GOP leadership passed the agenda items it would have focused on regardless of which Republican president had been elected in 2016.

Source: Huffington Post April 24, 2019 21:22 UTC