It took 18 months for it to fully investigate allegations of corruption following the successful Qatari World Cup bid, and it needed every single day of that to collate 430 pages of evidence, bin nine-tenths of it and then exonerate itself to the dismay of the chief investigator.
As expected, the Obama team exonerated itself, disclosing a timeline of contacts and details that critics are certain to chew on.
It attacked the corporation for declining to appear before the committee, claiming: "Instead, it chose to conduct its own internal inquiry whose findings entirely exonerated itself and its producers of any professional or legal wrongdoing".
And yet week after week it has managed to exonerate itself by dint of intentions that even its worst moments cannot render frivolous.
Public sentiment again caused the cancellation of a 1949 appointment as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, although he had been formally exonerated of accusations of Nazi complicity.
He once ran into a basketball referee at a high school game, but was exonerated of charges of wrongdoing after videos clearly showed the referee took a dive.
He has been exonerated of allegations of bullying, but his training methods were by no means popular with all of his charges.
Even though we are physically out of prison, until we are exonerated of all charges, none of us will be free".
In his subsequent court-martial, he was even accused (and exonerated) of lying about his sightings of land.
Many of those scientists were exonerated of crimes they committed or were privy to, and became fixtures of American public life.
