The critique of these tweets is now familiar. They violate norms of law-enforcement independence from presidential influence. Their proximate aim is to discredit the Justice Department and FBI, probably in order to delegitimize it as the investigation of Robert Mueller gets ever closer to the president. And they appear to be part of an effort to weaken public confidence in American institutions more generally—not just DOJ, but also the “so-called” courts, the “fake news” media, the supposedly lying, incompetent intelligence community, and others.

This is all depressing enough. But another sharp cost of Trump’s caustic tweets has been largely neglected: The slow destruction of the morale of federal government employees, especially executive branch employees.

Just about everyone I knew when I worked in the Justice Department had an idealistic sense of mission—about the importance of law enforcement to the country’s welfare, about the integrity of the department’s actions, and about commitment to the rule of law. Of course these ideals weren’t always honored; and not every employee’s conception of the rule of law was sound. But the ideals were part of the constitutive culture of the department that gave meaning and urgency to its employees’ work, and that kept them grinding in their vital jobs even when they had more lucrative private-sector options. Every department and agency in the government has analogous commitments about the importance and integrity of work there.

Trump’s assault on executive branch departments and employees is crippling these cultures of commitment. I know this from talking to several Justice Department friends, including the one with whom I dined last summer. I see it in stories about how the State Department’s ranks are thinning fast. And it stands to reason that employees throughout the government feel the same way. It is hard to work for a president who attacks you weekly if not daily; who calls into public doubt your independence and integrity; and who shames you with his persistent shamelessness, deceit, and ignorance. The president is succeeding not just in diminishing the reputation of these institutions before the nation, but also in wrecking their aspirations within.

“What am I supposed to do about it?” my gloomy friend asked me last summer. My friend wanted to buck up colleagues’ spirits, and the department’s reputation, in the face of the president’s attacks. But options were limited. My friend had a pretty important job but was not a well-known public figure. The options were thus to resign in protest, or speak out and probably be fired. Neither course would have any effect on the president, my friend concluded, before deciding that the better option for the nation was to ignore the president and continue working hard to uphold the law.