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Notes -
The Podestas are very much not the top, they don't hold the office. They are campaign managers and chiefs of staff and fund raisers not office holders. They're at/near the tip top of that totem pole, but office holders are on a whole other totem pole.
Why do you have to hold office to be "the top"? We're not exactly short on "grey eminences".
Because the President's Chief of staff is like a butler, they may manage all the other servants or manage the president's schedule like an executive secretary, but the buck stops with the President.
Putin gave the presidency over to Medvedev before declaring himself Dictator For Life, or whatever his position is, but no one pretended the buck stops with Medvedev. American officials openly admit to lying to Trump about the numbers of troops in the Middle East, because they didn't want him giving orders to pull them. This "butler" model seems completely false.
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