As news breaks that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan told reporters Tuesday morning, in a breakfast before Trump’s first State of the Union address later that evening, that the controversial House Intelligence Committee should #ReleaseTheMemo, it’s useful to understand just why that kind of transparency is important.

Ryan told reporters the FBI may be in need of a cleansing.

“Let it all out, get it all out there. Cleanse the organization,” Ryan, R-Wis., said.

He added: “I think we should disclose all this stuff. It’s the best disinfectant. Accountability, transparency — for the sake of the reputation of our institutions.”

And he’s right. If the memo actually does detail abuses by the Obama FBI and DOJ to slander a political opponent on behalf of a preferred candidate — in this case, Democrat Hillary Clinton — that is information the American voter should know and get comfortable with. And here’s why:

Because, whether a majority of the popular voters like it or not, Donald Trump was elected president of this country in what’s looking more and more like a fair and accountable electoral process via the popular vote and the electoral college. In other words, via the established legal channels one uses to assume that office.

And that is simply the will of the people using the processes the Republic established to ensure voters are represented fairly.

If the FBI and the DOJ, under the direction of the party that just left office — in this case the Democrats — tried to subvert that will because they think they know better what the Republic — and the people who reside in her — need than the voters themselves, well then we’ve left the concept of Democracy out on the doorstep and have moved into a rule by elites who have little troubling breaking the law and justifying it as “for the good of the people.”  (But more likely they’ll have done it simply to retain the power they’ve grown accustomed to.)

And that is a sad and frightening state of affairs.

If the scuttlebutt about the memo is correct, it will prove that this subversion of the will of the people was exactly the plan by the party of the woman who was applauded at the Grammys for reading a passage from yet another salacious and untrue piece of writing.

It’s really that simple. It comes down to asking yourself a question: do you want a political party deciding for you who should be leading the country, especially if you’ve just gone to cast a vote toward helping to make that decision?

The answer likely determines how you feel about #ReleaseTheMemo. Because I’m fairly certain we all know what’s in it, and I’m fairly certain most people have already decided there may be some truth to the allegations.