In a better , imaginary world, there would be no need for Thursday’s Senate hearings into whether and how the Russian government meddled in the 2016 presidential election. Instead, a combined Justice Department and congressional investigation into the subject would have started last summer and could be wrapping up right about now.

This investigation would have been successfully carried out by the government’s normal mechanisms — because in this made up universe, politicians would care more about the country they live in than getting to the studio in time for their next appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight. For the same reason, they’d defy the instinctive secrecy of the intelligence world in order to declassify whatever evidence they uncovered so Americans could judge it for themselves.

Unfortunately, on this planet we’re on a trajectory to the worst possible outcome. It’s now easy to imagine a future in which Trump and Russia become the millennials’ equivalent of the John F. Kennedy assassination: A subject where no one can honestly be sure whether there was no conspiracy or a huge conspiracy, the underlying reality concealed by the thick murk of government secrecy, and progressives exhausting themselves for decades afterwards trying to prove what really happened.

Democrats were thrilled when FBI Director James Comey took the unusual step of revealing that the bureau is carrying out an “ongoing investigation” into whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. But as Hillary Clinton would strenuously tell you, the mere fact of an FBI investigation does not prove anything, and no one should believe it does. The FBI could easily close its investigation without filing any charges — especially since this is a counterintelligence inquiry rather than a criminal one — either because investigators found no evidence of wrongdoing, or because they did but believe they can’t seek an indictment without revealing classified surveillance programs. The FBI then might give no public explanation of its decision, and leave secret indefinitely whatever evidence was gathered.

What happens then? Democratic partisans will be infuriated, and rightfully point to the fact that Comey’s investigation was ultimately overseen by a Trump political appointee at the Justice Department. But they’d have no formal recourse. (The investigation began last year during the Obama administration and is now supervised by Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente, since Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself on the subject. However, Rod Rosenstein, Trump’s nominee for Deputy Attorney General, will eventually be in charge.)

Meanwhile, there are several ongoing investigations in Congress, with the two most significant ones carried out by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

But these inquiries suffer from the same flaw: They are supervised by Republicans. The situation is especially dire with the House Intelligence Committee, now that the escapades of its chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, have revealed him to have a toddler’s sense of personal responsibility. Even worse, the ultimate authority in the House, Speaker Paul Ryan, has demonstrated his own lack of integrity by refusing to ask Nunes to recuse himself.