[nicollo]

Apparently not many federal employees have a conscience, and an overwhelming number of them have elevated confirmation biases and cognitive dissonance.

As for our elected representatives, it's just as bad. Poor Madison thought that an extensive republic would lead to higher quality of public servants:

In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.

[Red Badger]

Madison never figured that the country would be populated with grifters......................