But the FBI has never been a friend of liberty and justice. Rather, as James Bovard writes, it "has a long record of both deceit and incompetence. Five years ago, Americans learned that the FBI was teaching its agents that 'the FBI has the ability to bend or suspend the law to impinge on the freedom of others.' This has practically been the Bureau's motif since its creation in 1908…. The FBI has always used its 'good guy' image to keep a lid on its crimes."

Bovard has made a vocation of cataloging the FBI's many offenses against liberty and justice, for which we are forever in his debt.

Things are certainly not different today. Take the case of Michael Flynn, the retired lieutenant general who spent less than a month as Donald Trump's national-security adviser.