Twenty years after the Church reforms, the oversight mechanisms designed to create public trust and transparency in government—congressional hearings, criminal trials by juries, and news media reporting—were increasingly dismissed by large parts of the American public. In part, the suspicion was fueled by the way ATF and FBI officials covered up mistakes made during the Waco and Ruby Ridge standoffs. The primary force driving the distrust, however, was rising partisanship between Democrats and Republicans. Trafficking in conspiracy theories and portraying one’s political opponents as
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