Last month, in the District of Columbia, a jury could not bring itself to find Michael Sussmann guilty of lying to the FBI. Nonetheless, we learned a lot during that trial. An FBI agent testified that he is under investigation for withholding exculpatory material during the investigation of the Trump campaign. Other revelations in that courtroom highlighted the eagerness of FBI brass, “the 7th floor,” to proceed with the investigation of that presidential campaign. Withholding exculpatory information about someone is a threat to that individual’s civil rights; withholding exculpatory material about a presidential campaign is a threat to democracy.

When explaining the FBI in the past, I and others would often stress how blessed the United States was to have as our domestic security service a law enforcement agency, an organization that works within the guidelines of the law, to protect our democracy.