Attorney General William Barr is saying the right things about U.S. Attorney John Durham’s criminal investigations into the deep state over the Russia-collusion hoax. For the moment, that’s all he can do.

“My own view is that the evidence shows that we’re not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness,” Barr said. “There is something far more troubling here, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. And if people broke the law, and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted.” He added, “I think the president has every right to be frustrated, because I think what happened to him was one of the greatest travesties in American history. Without any basis they started this investigation of his campaign.”

However, it takes more than words to get the one thing we’ve been looking for from Spygate: Accountability.

The fact of the matter is that the spying on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign during 2016 and the later Russiagate probe that proved to be a big nothingburger with a side order of dubious convictions on process crimes may prove to be one of the most massive abuses of power we have ever seen in this country’s history. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was used to spy on the political campaigns of the opposition party. Action must be taken to ensure it never happens again.

Imagine if George W. Bush had turned the FBI on the “Gitmo Bar.” How would the same press outlets that rushed to defend the likes of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and others have reacted? Somehow, we doubt the press would have been defending Bush’s efforts — even with the clear evidence that al-Qaida was receiving a level of aid and comfort that makes Hanoi Jane’s North Vietnamese photo-op look like peanuts.

If intelligence investigators had come up with concrete evidence of what had been claimed by the likes of lead Democrat witch-hunter Adam Schiff, it would have been a completely different story. Had such proof emerged, it would have been evidence of serious wrongdoing. The problem was, after all the hype and the phony claims, there was no evidence of collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign.

Turning the FBI on political opponents should not happen unless there is an exceptionally grave threat to national security. Yet the only “evidence” was a DNC-funded dossier — tainted by Russian disinformation, no less. Worse, those investigating knew it, but the investigation still continued.

The FBI spying on Trump was not the only deep-state abuse. We can look at Lois Lerner and the IRS targeting the Tea Party. There were the “John Doe” investigations in Wisconsin. We can look at the threats from Democrat state attorneys general to use RICO on opponents of the Left’s environmental agenda. We also cannot forget the actions of Andrew Cuomo and Letitia James against the NRA. In none of these cases have those abused seen any measure of justice for the wrong inflicted on them.

If that is not bad enough, here’s what is really frightening: Joe Biden is running to defeat Donald Trump. Does anyone seriously think Biden was out of the loop on the misuse of the FBI’s counterintelligence powers during his time as vice president? We wouldn’t be surprised if the abuses of the Obama administration come back — only this time on steroids.

(Updated.)