If the FBI had investigated President Barack Obama for more than two years on the false allegation of conspiring with or being an agent of a foreign power, Democratic leaders would rightfully demand a full inquiry. It would set a dangerous precedent for liberals to now reject an effort to get answers only because those answers would not be politically expedient. If left unchecked now, the same intelligence services that involved themselves in domestic politics in 2016 could do so again against progressive candidates on similarly spurious grounds.

The unfortunate reality is that under Trump, Democratic leaders and intelligence officials used the Russia investigation as a political weapon against his presidency. Now that it has proven baseless, Trump and his supporters have legitimate grounds to uncover how it began. The fact that Trump will use Russiagate’s failure as a political weapon is exactly why us skeptics on the left warned that its evidentiary holes would help him. Rather than complaining, those who brought us Russiagate should accept responsibility for handing Trump that opportunity, and work to ensure that the national security state does not receive opportunities to intrude again.