WASHINGTON — It is a perfectly Washington construction — inscrutable, important-sounding, soaked in self-regard.

“Senior administration official.”

Could be anybody, really. Or could it? The only consensus on Thursday: It wasn’t me. According to senior administration officials moved to identify themselves.

After the publication of an Op-Ed in The New York Times on Wednesday by an anonymous senior administration official — who claimed to be part of a shadow effort to protect the nation from the worst impulses of President Trump from within — a key question, aside from the still undisclosed identity of the author, emerged:

What is a senior administration official? Who counts?

Certainly cabinet secretaries would qualify, and top aides in the White House, like the chief of staff.