SLYLY and without warning, on January 2nd Republican congressmen announced as their first major initiative of the new year a scheme so crassly self-interested as to suggest they had learned nothing from the old one. Denizens of a reviled institution, and a party railroaded by Donald Trump’s populist insurgency, the Republicans planned to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE): an independent investigative body designed to root out corruption among them. Less than 24 hours later, after a hail of condemnation, they turned tail; even so their bungling was damning.

The OCE was founded by the Democrats in 2008 after a run of scandals—including a big one concerning the Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff—highlighted the impunity with which some lawmakers were abusing their office in exchange for campaign contributions. The office is empowered and equipped to investigate any allegation of impropriety.  It may then report its findings to the House Ethics Committee and, even if that body decides to take no further action, publicise them. Anti-corruption campaigners consider it an exemplary bulwark against official corruption. But many congressmen consider it over-zealous, meddlesome and wasteful.

Several who have been subject to the office’s enquiries were involved in the effort, at a closed-door meeting of Republican congressmen, to nobble it. They included Blake Farenthold of Texas, who was investigated and exonerated by the office over an allegation of sexual harassment. The plan was to put the OCE under congressional control and limit the scope of its investigations and its ability to publicise its work. Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, warned against this; the plan was nonetheless approved, by a vote of 119 Republican congressmen to 74. And Mr Ryan then suggested he would allow the congressional vote needed to bring it into effect.

Donald Trump, no doubt aware of how badly this was playing in the media, offered a measured criticism of the congressmen’s initiative. In a tweet, he called the OCE “unfair” but suggested his Republican colleagues had bigger things to be getting on with. A deluge of negative comments received at their district offices made that point more forcefully. So did Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who called the attempted takedown of the OCE “the dumbest frickin thing I’ve ever heard”. On January 3rd, the opening day of the new Congress, the plotters hastily agreed to leave the OCE alone after all.

There are two important takeaways from this farrago. First, it delivered an easy triumph to Mr Trump, whose tweet was credited by many headline writers with having persuaded the congressmen to change course, albeit without much evidence. Second, it has shown those lawmakers to lack self-awareness to an amazing degree. If the OCE is not working well, they should start a debate—in and with the public—about how better to investigate and prevent their abuses. To avoid an unnecessary partisan fight, they also plainly need Democrats to be involved in that debate. In a time of deep anti-establishment feeling, this is basic politics. The Republicans should really learn how to do it.