Squandering public money on vanity projects, from a ballroom to an Arch, is bad enough, but at the very least it’s obvious. We know the monies are being spent. We know there are other things the money could be spent on. We know a choice was made and we can either be for it, against it, or ignore it. But there is a significant difference in kind when resources are diverted from their integral purpose to unadulterated vanity out of public view.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is assigning an army of 260 investigative analysts to a “priority” investigation related to the 2020 election in Fulton County, Ga., a reflection of President Trump’s ongoing push to prove his baseless claims that the 2020 election there was rigged.

The effort is outlined in an internal memo obtained by The New York Times and confirmed by a person familiar with the investigation. The memo says that the surge is part of a “priority” effort by Kash Patel, the director of the F.B.I. The analysts will work to complete “approximately 708 records checks,” according to the memo. The type of records being checked is unknown.

The effort to find or manufacture some cognizable claim that Trump won the 2020 election, and that it was stolen from him, is purely a matter of Trump trying to overcome the humiliation of being a loser. As I’ve written since Trump 1.0, he has two, and only two, motivations: Self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement. His corruption of the presidency is revealed in the 900 pages of his financial disclosure, reflecting how he had openly and notoriously used the position to enrich himself and his family. Apparently, this doesn’t offend the people who pray at his golden statues. As Trump explained, nobody gave him the FIFA Integrity Prize when he restrained his graft during his first term, so why not pocket as much as he can during Trump 2.0?

Putting his name and grimace on everything he can, from passports to currency to airports, is one way to puff his legacy of insignificance so that the name Trump is remembered, for better or worse. But the utter failure to win against Sleepy Joe is a brutal humiliation that he just can’t stand. He had all the opportunity in the world to come forward with evidence that the election was rigged and failed every time. He persists in claiming  that it’s now been proven, and proven conclusively, and everybody knows it, that the election was stolen, but it’s a total lie and he knows it. No one outside of the MAGA faithful believes him. Then again, the MAGA faithful believe he weighs 220 pounds, too, and doesn’t cheat at golf.

Since the start of his second term, he’s had the opportunity to make the case he claims he could have made all along. After having the FBI under the inexplicable lead of Tulsi Gabbard, seize the Fulton County voting records last January, the ones he told Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to find another 11,780 votes, he’s still got nothing. All these months later and he’s shooting blanks. It’s almost impossible believe they couldn’t cobble together some lie to push his claim, and yet there remains no evidence whatsoever to save Trump from his abject failure.

And so the adoring Ka$h Patel has marshaled the forces of the FBI to find something, anything, to salvage Trump’s pretense at dignity by sending a massive cadre of agents to Atlanta to dig and dig.

Few presidential contests in modern American history have been as thoroughly investigated as the 2020 election. Over more than five years, every conspiracy theory from Mr. Trump and his allies — including false claims about election workers, mail ballots and election machines — has been investigated and debunked by election officials from both political parties and, in many cases, by members of Congress, judges and law enforcement.

That hasn’t stopped Mr. Trump or his allies from continuing to try to prove their many baseless claims. In the process, they have sowed doubt and distrust in American elections, and called for the passage of federal election legislation known as the SAVE America Act, which voting rights advocates say would make it harder for many Americans to vote.

While people can well appreciate the cost associated with the salaries, the pre-approved overtime, and days, nights and weekends these agents will spend searching for anything derogatory, what may not be as apparent is that these 260 agents will not be doing the job for which the the FBI exists. Who is doing the counterespionage work? Who will defend the nation from terrorists? Who is preventing the hacking of America? Who is stopping the corporate scams and thievery that will eventually result in a huge donation to the Trump cause and a wink and a pardon?

Sure there are other agents, although nowhere near as many as there were before the FBI was purged of experience and expertise of those who were tasked with the investigation of Trump’s criminal conduct, for which the evidence was not merely blatant but overwhelming. But there were not a few hundred FBI agents sitting in the office drinking Monster and playing spider solitaire for lack of anything to do until being ordered to go to Georgia.

The cost of these agents isn’t just the salaries, benefits and overtime, but the services not being provided to the United States of America just to save Trump from the stench of losing. It’s bad enough to pay for golden doodads on the walls of the White House, but the failure to interdict espionage and terrorism is a price too high.