It took some time, but here we are. After decades of minimizing the menace posed by Russia—recall Barack Obama’s gibe, in response to Mitt Romney’s suggestion that Russia was our greatest geopolitical threat, that the 1980s had called and wanted their foreign policy back—American liberals are suddenly convinced of the Russian government’s malevolence toward the United States. We’re glad to see our friends on the left take a more clear-sighted view of an adversary, even if this new conviction has taken the rather strange form of an unshakable certitude that Donald Trump’s campaign staff and its surrogates illegally collaborated with Russian operatives in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the 2016 election.

Not that we lack evidence that Moscow attempted to influence last year’s election. Mike Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, had undisclosed contacts with Russian officials; Sen. Jeff Sessions, an early Trump ally and the president’s attorney general, forgot about more than one meeting with Russia’s ambassador to the United States; and a Trump campaign adviser named Carter Page had relationships with numerous Russian officials.