[bold emphasis added:]
The same thing goes for the prospects of anything actually being done to or about any intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, Mossad, etc.), in contrast to the prospects of anything actually being done to or about any particular individuals (to whom IM refers as "protect[ed] elites"). However small and marginal the chances of the latter coming to fruition may be, the chances of any of the former ever being held accountable in any significant way are even smaller and more marginal - vanishingly so.
At least some of the "protected elites" might end up being "thrown under the bus" as cover-your-ass damage-control scapegoats. ("See? We did something about those scumbags! Justice has been done. Now shut up about it and move along ..."). However unlikely that may be, the intelligence agencies are not even remotely as likely to suffer any consequences, regardless of what comes out about them. At most and best, some heads might roll in the form of ended careers or the like (and this can be filed under "CYA damage control", too) - but the institutional machines themselves and their manners of operation will just roll right on, unperturbed in any significant way. (That is one of the many perks inherent in the nature of official covertness.)
Hence, in addition to the salacious shenanigans of various august public personages being of greater prurient interest to many than the duller and drier comportments of officially covert spookdom, any relative indifference to the involvement of intelligence agencies can be understood as a pragmatic expression of "rational ignorance" - even if most people would concede to or agree with the suspicion that intelligence agencies are "eyeballs-deep" in it. Those of us who give more of a damn about that kind of stuff are outliers in this regard.
