Mr. Schiff’s pathway could easily be considered a precedent. And the government does not need more encouragement to out a journalist’s sources. The executive branch, in the institutions of the Department of Justice and the F.B.I., has used metadata — call records and routing information not protected by the Fourth Amendment — to document reporters’ contacts with their sources in a number of cases in which the source has subsequently been imprisoned. The public interest case for prosecuting leakers is easy to make. But we should note that the government’s obligation to protect national security and a reporter’s duty to uncover abuses of executive power often clash. Whom you side with at those junctures depends on which tribe you belong to. I’m a journalist, so I often side with the journalists.

I do have a big problem when journalists wittingly or unwittingly collude with foreign governments to degrade the institutions of democracy that we rely on. And while I’m tempted to assert that Congress has no business ever poking its nose into reporting, I can’t deny the circumstances that collided here; Mr. Solomon is part of this story. But to deny him any First Amendment protection of his work is to fail to see beyond the immediate ramifications of Mr. Schiff’s decision. If Republicans regain control of the House, what would prevent them from using the same tactic to pummel the press for stories its members don’t like? Ah, but what if the reporters have been consorting with liars and cons, as seems to be the case here?

Well, the worst people often have the best available information, and judgment calls are a humble part of the journalistic enterprise. Congress should recognize this and acknowledge that it is important.

Mr. Schiff did not subpoena Mr. Solomon directly, and his staff seems to believe that this settles the matter. But it should not. Mr. Schiff has effectively punished a reporter for reporting. And punishments that might be levied for errors in reporting and for apparent partisan bias should never come from the government. Journalists who don’t object to this investigative practice will conspire to make it much easier for future entities in government to harass reporters who are pursuing the truth.

It pains me to see some of our most respected advocates for press freedom default to the view that Congress’s procedures were duly followed and, while there may be some ickiness in the air, Republicans who have complained about Mr. Schiff’s methods have no right to complain about intrusive government. This argument does not track, though, especially during a week when the Justice Department’s inspector general revealed serious and potentially material deficiencies in the F.B.I.’s application to renew a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order against Carter Page, a low-level Trump foreign policy aide whom the F.B.I. suspected might have a been a conduit for the Russian government to control or influence the Trump campaign. (There is no evidence that Mr. Page, a serial entrepreneur with some dubious friends, served in this role.)