Before the word “resignation” became a euphemism for being fired, it connoted a sense of public integrity and personal honor. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, showed both qualities when they resigned from the Nixon administration during the Saturday Night Massacre in 1973.

Assuming Mike Pompeo and John Bolton have their own senses intact, they too should resign following the epic disgrace of the U.S.-Russia summit in Helsinki. So should their senior staff.

I don’t suggest this lightly. I’ve known both men for years, respect them, and wrote friendly columns when they took their current jobs. I share many of their views.

I’m also cognizant of two factors weighing against resignation. First, Cabinet members and other senior White House officials owe a president deep loyalty whatever their policy differences.

Second, whoever succeeds Pompeo or Bolton could be worse.

Those considerations don’t relieve Pompeo, Bolton and their staffs of three higher duties: the Constitution; the country; and their conscience. Let’s take each in its turn.

The Constitution. No, Donald Trump is not guilty of “treason.” Treason is narrowly defined in the Constitution for a good reason, and its promiscuous misuse only helps the president’s defenders paint opponents as hysterics.

Trump’s behavior in Helsinki is, however, another vivid reminder of his manifest unfitness for office. The president’s pathetic suggestion Tuesday that he misspoke by failing to use a double negative also reminds that he’s a congenital liar.

By continuing to serve the president, Pompeo and Bolton and their top aides are not cleaning up after him. They are covering up for him.

The country. In 2016, Bolton denounced Trump’s penny-wise approach to NATO for “encouraging Russian aggression.” Last year, he wrote that Russian interference in the U.S. election was “a true act of war,” and that Putin’s denials were “insulting.”

Those views remain true. Yet Trump has repeatedly gone out of his way to mollify Putin. To the extent that his administration has been tough on Russia, it has been over Trump’s personal objections.

The GOP’s pro-Russia caucus continues to gain ground, with the percentage of Republican voters with a favorable view of Putin more than doubling since 2015.

Bolton and Pompeo should be leading the conservative charge against the Putin appeasers. In office, they are effectively complicit with them.

Conscience. On Wednesday, I spoke by phone with Cy Vance’s son, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., about his father’s decision to resign. “If he could not in good conscience support the president’s views publicly, he felt he had a duty to the president and the country to step away,” Vance recalls. “He went out in a very painful personal way, but faithful to his views.”

No adviser to a president is going to get his way all of the time, but that adviser should be able to defend the tilt of an administration’s policy as if it were his own. If not, he should make room for those who can.

Right now, Bolton and Pompeo are parties to a Russia policy they would never otherwise advocate and cannot possibly defend in light of their public views. This means that they are either violating their principles, or had none to begin with.

If it’s the latter, by all means they should stay put and enjoy the aphrodisiac of power for however long it may last. If the former, the only decent course is to resign. The sooner they do it, the more they can preserve of their honor.

— Bret Stephens is a columnist for The New York Times.