I hate agreeing with Vladimir Putin. Russia's president is dragging his country — the country of my birth — backward, and falsely argues that violating international law is somehow good for Russians. But the hysterical response of Americans to the Kremlin's alleged efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election has forced me to look at things from Putin's perspective.
To be sure, the U.S. intelligence agencies' allegations that Russia purveyed fake news and released hacked emails, in order to hurt Hillary Clinton's chances against Donald Trump, are not baseless. It is in Putin's character to purloin secrets and create disinformation; he was a KGB operative, after all.
Likewise, the accusations that Putin is holding a dossier of compromising material on Trump, though uncorroborated, also ring true. It would make little sense for Russia to spare Trump from its schemes. And, beyond Trump, Republican Party leaders must know that if Russia hacked the Democrats, their own servers must have been hacked, too.