It has been an accepted fact of life that, love her or hate her, Hillary Clinton brings with her enough baggage to fill the belly of a C-5 transport plane. It’s just part of the package — exacerbated by her undeniable instinct to hide, to parse and to obfuscate.

But as the saying goes, even paranoids have real enemies. Oh sure, congressional Republicans have long been on that list, forcing Clinton to give account of her actions in the wake of the terror attack at Benghazi and on whether her insistence on using a private email server put national security at risk.

Surely if she wins the White House her Republican opponents will not let up on the latter charges. But angry partisans may be the least of her worries now that the integrity of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is on the line.

Yes, the case against Hillary Clinton isn’t just an issue for FBI Director James Comey, whose personal reputation has already been besmirched by Clinton operatives and supporters. The deep fractures within the nation’s top law enforcement agency are now in plain view. So too the role of the U.S. Justice Department and whether an agency led by a Clinton appointee — even if it is holdover Loretta Lynch or perhaps especially if it is Loretta Lynch — can possibly function in the overheated atmosphere that will follow this election.

Comey’s letter to congressional leaders a week ago informing them of the discovery of new emails possibly relevant to the Clinton case have unleashed a torrent of leaked information, presumably from within the ranks of FBI field agents. Many, it seems, have been frustrated by inaction at Justice about what they consider actionable information relative to the Clinton Foundation.

Such tensions between investigators and prosecutors aren’t uncommon. But if, in fact, Justice told FBI investigators to “stand down” when there were active leads to be pursued in whether a “pay to play” relationship existed between the foundation and a Clinton-led State Department, then this republic is in real danger.

And if those shots were being called by political operatives at Justice, who seem to be such influential players, then this post-election season will be headed into uncharted territory indeed.