The I.G.’s move came as stories surrounding the leak of the infamous dossier on Trump and Russia, prepared by a former agent of the British intelligence agency MI6, were making their way into the press. According to one British newspaper, the former MI6 agent and an American colleague were convinced that a clique of FBI agents sat on their information on the Russian hack in order to keep the public’s focus on Clinton’s emails. There is a solid case that these bureaucratic shenanigans in the FBI, which led to Comey’s announcement of a quasi-reopening of the email investigation on Oct. 28, swung the election to Donald Trump. Why members of the FBI worked in a way that may have undermined the will of the voters is another strand of the story that deserves unraveling.

In short, while Trump supporters may want to claim there is no fire here, there is a hell of a lot of smoke. Which is why these two investigations should only be the start. Congress needs to consider all options, up to and including appointing an independent counsel with full subpoena power, to investigate the alleged Russian meddling. And that counsel should have the full resources of the federal government at his or her disposal.

The thought of investigations already does not sit well with a lot of people who are flailing for justifications to ignore the allegations. As best I can tell, the arguments against a full-scale investigation of the extent of any Russian-led disinformation campaign to influence the election boil down to the following reasons:

• Russia says rumors of such a campaign are not true.
• We have not actually seen solid evidence of Russian hacking. Stop this McCarthyism at once!
• Russia is not responsible for Hillary Clinton failing to campaign in Wisconsin.
• Republicans never questioned Obama’s legitimacy, so Democrats should not question Trump’s.
• Democrats are just sore losers. Get over it, Clinton-loving snowflakes.

Of these arguments, only the second and third address the issue in any serious way. (The others are worthy of no more than a sarcastic “LOL.”) The second can be dismissed by noting that even with the lack of technical information in the ICA report released by the government two weeks ago, there are plenty of members of the intelligence community and the government – including a few Republicans – who were concerned about Russian interference months before the election.