“In sum, there is nothing inherently wrong with people trying to influence electoral outcomes in nations other than their own,” argued George Mason University’s Ilya Somin in 2019. He offered the example of foreign powers openly backing a hypothetical anti-slavery campaign. He added that “electoral interference is often wrong if it involves activities like hacking and deception. But the reason why such activities are reprehensible has little to do with the nationalities of the people involved. And the moral presumption against deception can be overcome in cases where it is essential to averting a greater evil.”

That means funding anti-communist political parties in the 1948 Italian election when Soviet-backed totalitarians were seizing power across eastern Europe is perfectly defensible; that’s not far from an anti-slavery campaign, after all. But coups d’etat, which are forcible, extra-legal replacements of other countries’ governments, are a lot sketchier in the absence of important justifying context.

That’s awkward in terms of complaints about foreign interference in American elections. It’s difficult to credibly complain about Russians hacking email accounts, planting stories on social media, and favoring one candidate over another when political players like Bolton casually discuss even more aggressive interventions elsewhere. The outrage comes across as wildly hypocritical.