That is a good point. Maybe most of us have been fooling ourselves about the real nature and practical purpose of the FBI. We in America still want to have faith in the integrity of other, especially those who could make life hell for us if they ever chose to.
Perhaps this role of “A well dressed, well armed Goon Squad 4 Hire” is not so very new after all.
When Chuck Schumer said - with an approving smirk - that the intelligence agencies have “six ways from Sunday to get back at their critics,” he told us that we no longer live in a free country under the rule of law. He told us that the FBI now exists to serve the left, that people like Schumer have little to fear no matter what they do, and that conservatives better watch their backs. Nothing since then has changed that impression, only reinforced it.