The media only recently reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was fed up with the FBI’s spurning Congress and ordered it to be more cooperative. Yet here it is again inviting a contempt citation, and that says something about how badly the FBI wants this EC kept out of sight.

So what’s in it that matters so much? One possibility is that the EC also contains a reference to the dossier. A better theory is that the EC gets to the heart of the legitimacy—or illegitimacy—of the Papadopoulos investigation. The FBI would have needed solid intelligence to justify a full-blown counterintelligence probe—especially of a presidential candidate. Yet the Papadopoulos intelligence was thin gruel—a random comment by a drunk guy making a vague claim. So by what precise means, and via whom, did the details make their way to the FBI? Did it come from actual intelligence sources? Were Obama or Clinton friends or political operatives involved? Did the FBI play a role in plumping up the evidence to transform a political product into official intel?

These are all important questions, as they go to a piece of the FBI’s action. They also divert from the bigger story, in which it is important to keep the EC in perspective. The FBI always needs something on which to hang an investigation.