Donald Trump’s first two months in office have been dominated by a bitter war with the executive branch he oversees. Facing a Trumpian barrage of destructive policies, a White House with an inexplicable affinity with Moscow, and withering rhetorical contempt, national security professionals have defended their principles and their turf with leaks, most spectacularly claiming the scalp of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn after just 24 days on the job. However, for those concerned about the machinery of American governance, this ongoing war presents a dilemma. Even a justified pushback against Trump’s overreach risks collateral damage to institutions whose durability and credibility depend on their independence from the partisan fray.

Flynn, who was fired after leaks revealed that he had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition, is not an isolated example. At the beginning of March, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from investigations into Russian meddling in the election, after it emerged that he had misled Congress about his communications with Russian officials in 2016. While we don’t know who alerted the press to those communications, an enraged Trump reportedly took it as the latest evidence that the bureaucracy was determined to sabotage him.

This suspicion was likely only exacerbated over the weekend, when newspapers reported, citing unidentified American officials, that FBI Director James Comey had asked the Justice Department to refute Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped his phones.

Trump’s erratic behavior and lashing-out have forced the historically apolitical patriots of the U.S. national security workforce to make agonizing choices over how they might honorably react to a presidency’s assault on American values and institutions. Under what circumstances do the ends justify the means—be it resigning in protest, refusing a presidential order, or, in the case of Michael Flynn, publicly leaking information that included sensitive reporting on intelligence intercepts? And how will President Trump’s successors repair the tools of American statecraft?

There’s nothing new about bureaucratic intransigence or leaks, which have always been part of Washington’s information ecosystem. Leaks are channels through which officials and institutions exercise power and keep the American people broadly informed. Every administration struggles with message discipline as institutional tugs-of-war spill into the public sphere.