Now, however, the various factions can’t even reach an agreement on what the rules are. The Republicans and Democrats on the intelligence committee don’t agree on the rules, much less the outcomes. The White House is attacking its own Justice Department; Trump expresses puzzlement at why “my guys” in the department don’t care of his dirty work, while the Department of Justice puzzles over why Trump is endangering their procedures and reputation.

Though Trump is pushing this tendency to its apotheosis, he did not create it. It dates back to at least Watergate and to the Church Committee. While no Justice Department has ever been so harried by its own president, the Justice Department is not new to political warfare. Congress held Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt; the George W. Bush Justice Department operated in deeply politicized ways, including its dubious firings of U.S. attorneys. Before Trump undertook his campaign against Robert Mueller, Bill Clinton and other Democrats led a campaign to discredit independent counsel Ken Starr. Before Republicans accused the FBI of trying to subvert the Trump presidency, Democrats accused the FBI of trying to create it by tanking Hillary Clinton.

The genius of attacking these institutions is that if they try to defend themselves, they only seem to validate the charge that they have become partisan actors. If the Justice Department and FBI rebut the claims leveled by Nunes or the White House, that encourages the impression that they are working against the president. The press has already found itself drawn into a similar sort of hand-to-hand combat with Trump, with the result that many of his supporters now treat it as a hostile, partisan force.

It’s important for Americans to question the FBI and the Justice Department, and to criticize the press. Accountability is essential in a democracy, and none of these institutions has ever been perfect. But in the present case, those leading the assault seem to be doing so for cynical reasons. Trump is attacking the Justice Department and FBI because of an investigation that threatens his presidency; he has repeatedly made charges (remember the “wiretapping” claim?) that proved to be false. Nunes and other House Republicans claim overreaches by the intelligence community, yet just voted against reforms of the surveillance process.

Meanwhile, other bad actors see an opening to take advantage of the moment. Former Representative Michael Grimm, a New York Republican, is attempting a comeback after a jail sentence. Even though he pleaded guilty to tax fraud, he now says he fell victim to the “same politically corrupt team of players” working on the Russia probe.

There’s a second problem that is more abstract. Jonathan Rauch has written for The Atlantic about the unintended consequences of another post-Watergate phenomenon. Americans became concerned about corruption, and made an effort to stamp out the trading of favors in all its forms. It turns out that those favors were the lube that kept many parts of the system working, and without them, the government has struggled to operate quite as smoothly. The current assault on institutions is having a parallel effect. Critics, acting out of both good and bad faith, have succeeded in pointing out the failures, biases, and shortcomings of our present system of administering justice.

But there’s no system or process to take its place.