During that dark chapter of American history, Senator Joseph McCarthy abused the awesome powers won during Teapot Dome to smear hundreds of American servicemen, civil servants and ordinary citizens through secret proceedings, selective leaks and crass bullying. He also branded those who invoked their constitutional rights not to testify as “Fifth Amendment Communists.” These disgraceful tactics ended in McCarthy’s own disgrace after he was censured by the Senate in 1954.

McCarthy would cheer the methods of today’s Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. They have conducted much of their business through so-called confidential interviews and depositions that are not public, binding witnesses to silence while lawmakers leak selectively from the testimony.

Republicans have used this practice to wreck reputations and careers. They have gratuitously exposed the private lives of dedicated civil servants. They have deprived Americans of some of the nation’s most dogged, experienced crime fighters, falsely accusing whistle-blowers of criminal wrongdoing and mocking their invocation of constitutional rights.

A senior F.B.I. lawyer, Lisa Page, was forced to resign after being pilloried by House Republicans. A senior F.B.I. counterintelligence agent, Peter Strzok, was fired for his texts with Ms. Page , but not before enduring crude questioning about his personal life by a Republican congressman, Louie Gohmert. Committee attacks on Bruce Ohr led to his removal as associate deputy attorney general. His wife, Nellie, a former contractor for us, was subjected to the misogyny of the president.

Finally, there is the constant pleas from Mr. Trump and his allies on the Hill for criminal investigations of those who have tried to raise the alarm about Russia. The low: Senators Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham referring Mr. Steele to the Justice Department to investigate if he “lied” to the F.B.I., a false allegation made to discredit a long-valued bureau source.

One of the most astonishing recent examples of the House Judiciary Committee’s character assassination involves Republican leaks to conservative news outlets of the closed-door testimony of James Baker, who was the F.B.I.’s general counsel from 2014 to December 2017. If reports based on those leaks are to be believed, Mr. Baker testified that a former senior Justice Department attorney came to him weeks before the 2016 election with information regarding possible Russian efforts to collude with the Trump campaign.

In other words, a sworn officer of the court reported a possible crime in progress to another sworn officer of the court, knowing full well that to do so falsely is a crime. But Republicans assert that his information should be rejected merely because that former Justice Department official had gone to work for Democrats.