Under federal law, a vast majority of lawyers working in the executive branch are subject to oversight and accountability by inspectors general in their respective departments. These watchdogs, who answer to Congress and issue public reports of their work, can independently investigate claims of professional misconduct and, when warranted, refer the cases for appropriate action, which may include dismissal or even criminal prosecution.

But because of a quirk in the Inspector General Act of 1978, federal prosecutors and other lawyers working for the Department of Justice — which also houses the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Marshals Service — don’t get the same kind of independent oversight required in other government agencies.

Instead, what misbehaving lawyers there get and have gotten for the past 30 years is referral to the Office of Professional Responsibility, which was created in 1975 and whose director reports to the attorney general. The office claims independence, but in practice it can be overruled — as when the Justice Department ignored an O.P.R. conclusion that the two lawyers who wrote the Bush-era torture memos had committed “professional misconduct.”

Under this anomalous regime, allegations of misconduct by the F.B.I. director or his agents would be handled by Inspector General Michael Horowitz — as he did in his recent review examining the F.B.I.’s actions in the run-up to the 2016 election, including how James Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But similar allegations of wrongdoing against lawyers in the F.B.I.’s general counsel’s office or line prosecutors bringing cases in federal court — like those in Mr. Bartko’s case — would be shielded from Mr. Horowitz’s purview.

In effect, this means there are two tracks of justice at Justice: one for prosecutors and other lawyers and another for every other employee.