FBI fires the agent who would not turn in his fellow agents.

Let me lay out the play. Pay attention.

The former acting director of the FBI is a man named Brian Driscoll. Earlier this year, the President’s people went over to FBI headquarters and asked for the names of every single agent who had ever worked a January 6 case. Every single one. The list was for, you know, purposes.

Driscoll said no. Driscoll said no like a guy who has read the FBI manual and noticed there is no part of the manual where you hand over a list of your own agents to a White House staffer for unspecified “purposes.” Driscoll’s deputy said no. They held the line.

That was January.

This is August. On Thursday, the FBI showed Driscoll the door. Other senior agents went out with him. The official explanation: there was no official explanation. Driscoll’s farewell email to the bureau included the sentence “I understand that you may have a lot of questions regarding why, for which I have no answers.” Buddy. The acting director of the FBI. No answers.

Now, I have known some guys in my life. I have known guys who carried lists. The list-carrier is always the most popular guy in the room until he is the least popular guy in the room. And the guys who refuse to hand over the list — those are the guys who, when the dust clears, you find out you wanted on your side. Always. You don’t fire those guys. You promote those guys.

Unless, of course, the dust never clears, because the dust is the point.

Six months ago a senior agent said no to a politically loaded request. Today he is unemployed. The agency is now run by people who know exactly what happened to him.

That is not law enforcement reform. That is staffing the lobby of an HR department in the year 1953.

I’m arguing with the television again. This time at full volume.