Rep. Claudia Tenney found herself on a rhetorical island again Wednesday after she claimed the so-called “deep state” was responsible for ordering an extravagantly priced dining set for Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s office.

“Ben Carson is so misunderstood,” the New York Republican said on a local upstate New York radio show before blaming an unnamed person in the deep state for ordering the furniture.

The “deep state,” a term popular in far-right circles, refers to a conspiratorial cabal of longtime government officials and financial titans who seek to influence policy and politics through non-democratically elected office.

One of Carson’s staffers — “one of his key people” — was in Tenney’s office recently to discuss housing issues in the congresswoman’s district when they broached the Carson furniture affair, she said.

“Somebody in the deep state — it was not one of his people, apparently — ordered a table, like a conference room table or whatever it was for a room,” Tenney said. “And that’s what the cost was. Ben Carson tried to — he said, ‘You know how hard it is to turn it back because of the way that the procurement happens?’”