The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

Add this infamy to all the other crimes of the liberal establishment – its poisonous influence has converted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the eyes of the American people, from a proud institution dedicated to upholding the law into just another suppurating bureaucratic pustule. Where once we saw FBI agents as heroes – many of us ancients grew up watching Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., every Sunday night – now we see careerist hacks looking to suck-up to the Democrat elite while bending the law and subverting justice to do it. Truly, everything liberals touch dies.

The revelations about Oh-So-Special Agent Peter Strozk shouldn’t surprise anyone, as bad as they are. Even that hack Robert Mueller couldn’t keep him all-board the Russia Soft Coup Express after Strozk’s anti-Trump texts to his FBI mistress came out. Shocker – this is the same Democrat-loving clown who watered down the Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit investigation conclusions (helpfully drafted months before the investigation concluded). Oh, and he oversaw the unsworn, unrecorded interview of his special gal (not the one he was cheating with; the one with the taste for Chardonnay and failure who would have helped his career as a reward for his slavish devotion had she not botched running against Donald Trump). He was also in on the ambush of LTG Mike Flynn, who he and his scuzzy compadres decided to prosecute while the Harpy, Huma and all the rest of the Clinton Nostra got a pass.

Oh, but for the lefty in-crowd, it’s “Bros before Bureaus.” The new head honcho Christopher Wray – Where the hell is he hiding anyway? Is he locked in a gimp box somewhere in the Hoover Building? – didn’t even fire Strozk though intermural adultery is allegedly against the rules at the FBI. Nope, nothing builds confidence in a law enforcement agency’s organizational integrity like bending the rules to protect your bigwig buddies.

Oh, wait – outright payoffs do too! Don’t even start on Andrew McCabe and his wife’s Democrat contributions – to her. Yeah, the wife of the FBI second-in-command got money from the Democrat Party and he’s still not recused from this fake investigation. Are you kidding?

By the way, have we got even a single iota of information on what the unholy hell happened since Special Agent Johnson and Special Agent Johnson took over the investigation of the Las Vegas shooting?

It’s long past time to lance this boil. It’s sad when you have to accept that you can’t talk to the FBI, that they can’t be trusted to do justice, that you must protect yourself from being railroaded like LTG Flynn was and always – always always always – demand to speak to your attorney and demand that the FBI not question you if they come sniffing around. LTG Flynn trusted them not to have an agenda. Look what happened, and learn.

It’s heartbreaking, because the FBI’s real legacy – a legacy field agents largely live today – is a legacy of heroes.

Flashback to Miami, April 11, 1986. Eight agents make a felony stop on a car with two suspected bank robbers, igniting a firefight that demonstrated the bravery and devotion that should be what first comes to mind when any American thinks of the FBI.

William Russell Matix and Michael Lee Platt were ex-military and had killed before – and they packed an arsenal that ensured they were not going quietly. The FBI agents, lightly armed with under-powered handguns and a couple 12 gauges – came under intense rifle fire that the light vests some wore could not stop. In the end, seven of the eight agents were hit – and Special Agent Benjamin Grogan and Special Agent Jerry Dove died fighting.

This was no long-range stand-off – they fought it out with these psychos from just a few feet. Matix and Platt were both hit, but they were not going down. The agents were literally shot to pieces, but despite being outgunned, they didn’t back off. Not one inch.

His forearm shattered by a .223 rifle slug, Special Agent Edmundo Mireles, Jr. (no surprise, a former Marine from Texas), pumped his Remington 870 shotgun with his one good arm again and again as he engaged the criminals. His buddies dead or wounded all around him, bleeding out, Mireles then drew his .357 and advanced on the pair, in the open and totally exposed, as they attempted to drive away in one of the FBI cars. He put six magnum slugs into the criminals and finally put them down.

Matix took six hits to kill, Platt a dozen. And Mireles? This hero went back on the job, and actually worked with my former battalion commander Colonel (Ret.) Bill Wenger in Afghanistan in the 2000s on assignment there for the FBI. Now that’s a patriot. Now that’s what the real FBI is all about.

This dramatization gives you a good idea of what happened. The legendary Miami shootout has been studied for three decades to gather lessons learned about proper tactics and equipment, but the most important lesson it teaches is about courage.

That’s the courage that these desk-riding bums in Washington are dishonoring every time they sell their souls and their honor to kiss up to skeevy politicians.

You see that sanctimonious clown James Comey on Twitter presuming to quote the Bible, and it’s all you can do to keep your lunch from launching. These timeserving ladder-climbers are not what the FBI is, but their petty institutional gamesmanship has now seared that impression into the consciousness of millions of Americans. When you would say “FBI” to a liberal, he/she/xe would snarl, seething at the Bureau’s reputation for taking out the foreign and domestic terrorists progs love to play footsie with. But the tragedy is that when you say “FBI” to a conservative today, you get a sad shake of the head because we can no longer trust the Bureau because the top ranks are manifestly riddled with vindictive partisans angling for their own advantage.

Mueller, then Comey, and their progeny have done this. As liberals inevitably do, they have disgraced yet another proud institution. Imagine yourself a field agent, dedicated to upholding the law, and having to not only live under this corrupt regime but to have to share in the contempt the American people have learned to feel for it.

It’s heartbreaking, because the reality of the FBI is not the Muellers and the Comeys and the McCabes and the Strozks and whoever Strozk was having an affair with. It’s Special Agent Benjamin Grogan, Special Agent Jerry Dove, Special Agent Edmundo Mireles, Jr. and thousands of others who put their lives on the line for us every single day. They aren’t in the big upper-floor offices at HQ hiding documents from Congress or leaking to their pals at the WaPo. They aren’t mingling with Democrat bigwigs, schmoozing for their next step up the ladder. They’re doing their job.

Maybe the FBI can recover its reputation someday – I sure hope so. Maybe it can earn our trust and respect again. But the first step is for the President and Congress to pop this bureaucratic zit and clean out the pus.