Maybe you didn’t think he should have been convicted for it, but no honest person could say that Trump hadn’t again and again violated his oath for his own gain or presented a credible threat to the transfer of power. Given the chance, he surely would have blocked the succession. As citizens we can make reasonable, objective judgments about conduct by Trump, Clinton and, yes, Gaetz. We didn’t need the FBI to decide whether Clinton was an ethical albatross with a wingspan of Ron Burkle’s 747 or whether Trump was a blessedly bumbling aspiring authoritarian.

No matter what prosecutors find, we already know Gaetz’s conduct in office was unacceptable. The time for McCarthy and House leaders to have made that decision was back when Gaetz was trying to help steal the 2020 election. Or how about menacing a congressional witness? Maybe when he pushed past Capitol Police to barge into a secure room for a publicity stunt? McCarthy and other Republican leaders should have shunned Gaetz long ago . Instead, they joined him for fear of a loss of their own power.

The real problem isn’t hypocrisy. The real problem is the moral imbecility of our national leaders who need the members of a federal grand jury to tell them basic right from wrong.