As my colleague Glenn Greenwald told WNYC on Monday, while there may never be conclusive evidence that the Democratic National Committee was hacked by Russian intelligence operatives to extract the trove of embarrassing emails published by WikiLeaks, it would hardly be shocking if that was what happened.

"Governments do spy on each other and do try to influence events in other countries," Glenn noted. "Certainly the U.S. government has a very long and successful history of doing exactly that."

Even so, he added, given the ease with which we were misled into war in Iraq by false claims about weapons of mass destruction — and the long history of Russophobia in American politics — it is vital to cast a skeptical eye over whatever evidence is presented to support the claim, made by Hillary Clinton's aide Robby Mook, that this is all part of a Russian plot to sabotage the Democrats and help Donald Trump win the election.