(CNN) This is the week that we learned that there are a group of senior staffers within the White House and administration who are actively working to circumvent President Donald Trump's wishes under the belief that to do what he wants at all times would endanger national security.

Stop. Go back. Read that first sentence again.

That's a remarkable thing. Even in an administration defined by its seeming unending capability to amaze and disrupt standard procedures of governance, the idea that there is an active effort among top aides to marginalize Trump stands out.

But it's where we are after a week in which the first look at Bob Woodward's "Fear: Trump in the White House" painted a picture of a President deeply out of his depth and out of the loop. And a week on which an anonymous Trump administration official penned a New York Times op-ed that detailed an effort "to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office."

Those accounts confirm reports from sources like Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former Trump White House aide, and Michael Wolff in his best-selling "Fire and Fury." While the anecdotes might differ, the thrust of all of this reporting on Trump is the same: He is an isolated figure who frequently lashes out at a staff that views him with some combination of fear, loathing and ridicule.