On Monday, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Charity Clark launched her bid for re-election as Vermont’s Attorney General. In the process, she touted her role in protecting Vermonters from the excesses of big corporations and presented herself as a shield against “any immoral, illegal or unjust action taken by Donald Trump” should he become president again.

I have no problem with any of that. But while Clark does good work defending our interests against threats from outside Vermont, she is constitutionally constrained from doing the same when it comes to the actions of our own state government. When the state is challenged in court, the AGO acts as the state’s lawyer. Like, for instance, on the previous business day when the AGO was in court defending Gov. Phil Scott’s crappy shelter program against a challenge by Vermont Legal Aid.

And yay, they won the case. Yippee. Congrats on helping keep hundreds of Vermonters unsheltered. Drinks all around.

The contrast between Friday’s defender of an indefensible state policy and Monday’s champion of justice couldn’t have been more stark. Good thing for Clark that nobody seemed to notice. Well, I did, and I kinda wish she’d postponed her campaign announcement by a few days at least. Put a little distance between the two separate and often contradictory roles that our AG must perform.

It’s hard to blame Clark or her predecessors for this bait-and-switch routine because it’s baked into the constitutional definition of the office. But it’s also hard to ignore the inherent conflicts — and wonder what effect it has on one’s personal moral compass — when we see the AGO defending a mass unhousing or, say, blocking public disclosure of documents in the EB-5 case and negotiating an out-of-court settlement in a lawsuit that would have forced current and former public officials to testify under oath about the state’s role in that massive fraud. And we, the people whom Clark so valiantly defends, will have to pay the $16.5 million cost of that settlement. Insult to injury, I calls it.

The AGO’s role in the EB-5 scandal has been, at the same time, an offense against the public interest and an unavoidable part of the job. It’s the kind of moral contortionism that might send a person on a journey from boy-wonder prosecutor to highly-paid shill for an ethically iffy corporation.

If it’s not obvious, I’m talking about Clark’s predecessor TJ Donovan, last seen decamping to California to take an executive position at Roblox, a gaming firm that profits heavily from the addictive behavior and unpaid labor of its underage customer base. One could easily imagine Attorney General Donovan filing suit against such a predatory company. That is, before he started accepting its generous paychecks.

There are questionable aspects to the consumer-protection agenda pursued by most state attorneys general. In the absence of robust white-collar crime enforcement, it’s not a bad way to make big corporations pay for their misdeeds. And it also allows AGs to position themselves as defenders of the people (plus add millions upon millions to public treasuries, which is why Republican AGs are often as ardent as Democrats in pursuing corporate excesses). The ever-underwhelming Bill Sorrell endlessly touted his credentials as a fighter against corporate chicanery. He never stopped bragging about leading the charge against Big Tobacco when, in fact, the multi-state lawsuit against cigarette makers was in its closing stages when he became attorney general.

(If you want to see these multistate lawsuits in a whole different and unflattering light, check out the New York Times’ 2015 series of reports on the connections between big-money law firms and state attorneys general. These firms actively troll for AGs willing to sign onto lawsuits that they themselves originate and profit from, and they are generous donors to AGs’ political organizations.)

Clark has done some praiseworthy things in her first term as attorney general. But I have to wonder if the office has a corrosive effect on its occupants. You must be a willing cog in the machine of state government. Hell, more than that: You have to be a willing participant in state malfeasance if push comes to shove. That’s already happened twice to Clark in her brief year-plus as attorney general. She seems quite capable of handling the white-knight half of her position. She also seems quite comfortable with the moral and ethical gymnastics required of the state’s top lawyer.