Whenever any criminal conspiracy begins to unravel, one overriding question always emerges, about the fate of each low-level perp who actually carried out the felonious instructions of Mr. Big.

The question is: Will he stand up?

No. Next question.

Will he fold under pressure? As Joe Pesci famously asked in “Goodfellas.”

Absolutely yes, he will fold under pressure.

The small-timers always rat out the boss. That’s the true mark of a thug — snitching on one’s fellow criminals.

Forget the nonsense about honor, or omerta. Once the dominoes start tumbling, it’s every stool pigeon for himself. It’s like being at the bakery on a Sunday morning — everybody’s grabbing a number to get in line to spill the beans.

Ask yourself: Would you go to prison to protect the likes of James Comey? Or John Brennan? Or James Clapper?

After all their fantastic lies about Russian conspiracies, all the perjury in front of Congressional committees, all the fawning puff pieces in the fake-news media, the sky is finally dark with chickens coming home to roost.

At long last, the walls are closing in, as they have tut-tutted about President Trump so many times. The nooses are tightening — around them.

Did you see the agitprop this week in the Deep State’s modern version of Pravda, The New York Times? The feds were said to be “scrutinizing” the phone and email records of Brennan in order to “assess” his involvement in what the Times still refuses to admit was a failed coup d’etat against the duly elected president of the United States.

Notice, the honest cops are not said to be “investigating” or “probing” him — the usual words for a criminal investigation. No, they’re merely “scrutinizing” the CIA’s clownish Keystone Cop.

This is professional courtesy, because Brennan is one of them — he voted for the Communist candidate for president in 1976, back when the Soviet Union actually posed a real threat to the United States.

But whatever duplicity the fired commissars of the Deep State use to spin their debunked dossiers on those cable-news networks nobody watches, the end game is coming into view.

As always, the capos have lined up some fall guys — like the goateed little FBI lawyer who fabricated evidence that was submitted to the FISA court to continue the illegal surveillance on Trump’s people.

Does anyone believe that weasel was freelancing when he left a paper trail of his obstruction of justice? I know that G-boy voted for Hillary and he simply adores avocado toast, but he can’t possibly be that dumb.

Lucky for him, the G-boy has somebody to trade up — whichever comrade ordered him to falsify the evidence, or else.

Remember: For every Whitey Bulger, there’s always a Kevin “Two” Weeks.

The prosecutors’ pitch is always the same. They tell the nervous snitch, the train is pulling out of the station, and it behooves you to … get on board, because otherwise, you’ll be going to a place where you won’t be seeing any Judy Garland movies for a very long time.

All aboard!

Same deal with the “whistleblower,” who by the way used to work for Brennan, and had his photo taken with his hero, Barack Obama. (In the photo, the whistleblower is the one with the goatee — squirrelly facial hair is a recurring theme in this Beltway B movie.)

It’s clear why the “whistleblower” has vanished — under no circumstances can his corrupt handlers allow him to testify under oath about who directed him to concoct that bogus story about a “quid pro quo” between Trump and the Ukrainian president.

Ditto, he must never be allowed to reveal who directed him to that pinko mouthpiece who was speculating on social media about a “coup” against the Republic as early as January 2017.

Anybody seen Stefan Halper or Joseph Mifsud lately? Why do you suppose John Durham, the U.S. attorney in charge of breaking up this Red sedition ring, keeps traveling to Italy? These days, it’s a lot safer to keep your witnesses stashed outside the country — just ask Jeffrey Epstein.

It’s not Trump supporters these “soldiers” of le Resistance have to worry about as the target letters start going out, it’s their own comrades. Does the name Vince Foster ring a bell?

“I’m just a patsy,” Lee Harvey Oswald once said. Look what happened to him.

My advice to that crooked FBI lawyer and the “whistleblower” and all the other future witnesses against the Deep State: Shave your goatees. Don’t make it any easier for them to find you.