This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.

Throughout Donald Trump’s first term, his third campaign, and the first 10 months of his second term in office, he and his allies warned darkly of a “deep state” seeking to thwart his every move. In an address to the National Conservatism Conference in September, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that “leaders in the intelligence community”—the massive bureaucracy she runs—are among the “traitors to the Constitution” who have tried to undermine the president because they oppose his policies.

This kind of public invective is par for the course in the Trump administration. But these attacks have generated real action: Gabbard has revoked security clearances of supposed Trump opponents by the dozen and fired high-ranking staff while the Justice Department busies itself with dismissing civil servants and prosecuting the president’s enemies. Now Gabbard’s agency, which coordinates among the different elements of the intelligence community, is advocating for legislation that would transfer significant authority over counterintelligence to her office and away from an FBI that her staff has portrayed as the home of a traitorous deep state. The legislation, introduced by House Intelligence Committee Chair Rick Crawford and tucked into a yearly bill authorizing intelligence activities, would establish the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as the lead agency in charge of counterintelligence.