Ideally the goals of serving the president and serving the people and the Constitution do not conflict, but the important moments are the ones when they do. Friday afternoon, President Trump announced the withdrawal of Representative John Ratcliffe, the Texas Republican he’d tapped to replace Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. That abortive nomination lays bare how acute this tension has become in the Trump administration.

Read: Dan Coats spoke truth to Trump. Now he’s out.

Ashcroft was no one’s idea of a softie or a RINO. Democrats had howled when he was appointed attorney general—just weeks after losing his Senate seat to the deceased Democrat Mel Carnahan—and continued howling about his actions as attorney general. Goldsmith and Comey (and for that matter Gonzales and Card) were also lifelong Republicans. Yet when faced with tension between what the White House’s top lawyer wanted and what they believed the Constitution mandated, Ashcroft, Goldsmith, and Comey were clear that their ultimate obligation was to the latter.

Although the Trump administration hasn’t produced any scenes quite as dramatic as the hospital-room showdown—as far as we know—there have been plenty of cases in which political appointees have found themselves caught in similar conflicts. It’s not a coincidence that these same appointees have found themselves heading for the exits, often pursued by a bear.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen blocked a Trump plan to prevent migrants from seeking asylum, because she concluded that it violated laws passed by Congress. She was soon fired. White House Counsel Don McGahn refused to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, because he thought Trump would be obstructing justice in doing so. Attorney General Jeff Sessions came into the Justice Department as a radical outsider but nonetheless proved to be far too faithful to the institution for Trump’s taste. When he refused to un-recuse himself from the Russia investigation, Trump complained that Sessions had not “protected” him. The attorney general was eventually pushed out, though only after Trump refused his resignation and repeatedly humiliated him.

In the place of permanent appointees, Trump has become a great aficionado of acting appointments. It’s a clever, if devious, maneuver that represents an end-run around the Constitution’s requirement that the Senate advise and consent on appointees. Because these officials are only acting, they owe their loyalty entirely to Trump and depend on his indulgence to remain in the job. Based on examples like the sycophantic tenure of Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, this approach allows Trump to appoint officials who might never make it through the confirmation process, and encourages them to toe the line.

The latest victim of this tension is Coats. As my colleague Kathy Gilsinan has written, Coats was an unusual pick for the DNI job, because he was a career politician rather than an intelligence veteran. But Coats, following in the footsteps of previous politicians elevated to Cabinet roles, took the job seriously, and on occasion disagreed—quietly and politely, but unmistakably—with the president. That is a cardinal sin in Trumpworld, and while Coats held on longer than many people expected, he finally reached the end of the road on Sunday, when Trump said he was resigning.