Where the Russians got lucky was in Trump’s response to the 2016 effort. His sympathy for Russia and for Russian President Vladimir Putin was obvious well before Election Day that year. (In retrospect, it’s probably not a coincidence that Russia’s efforts in 2014 followed surprisingly sympathetic responses from prominent Republicans after Russia’s initial Ukraine incursion that year.) It was Trump’s vanity, though, that proved most useful to the Russians.

In the weeks after the election, reporting slowly began to detail what Russia had been up to. Having won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote, Trump was sensitive about any suggestion that his victory wasn’t a mandate proving his popularity. So he forcefully rejected the idea that Russia had aided his campaign, though reporting (and common sense) suggested that this had become one of the country’s aims. He even repeatedly rejected the idea that Russia had tried to interfere in the election at all.

The issue lingered because of a federal investigation seeking to determine whether people on Trump’s campaign or the candidate himself had worked with the Russian actors. Some had: His son and campaign chairman met with a Russian attorney who promised dirt on Trump’s opponent; that same campaign manager later passed internal polling data to a person linked by a bipartisan Senate investigation to Russian intelligence. It also documented the breadth of Russia’s influence effort, including that trip taken by Krylova and Bogacheva a decade ago. But the investigation was ultimately unable to prove direct coordination between Trump and Russian actors.

Trump proclaimed this to be a complete exoneration, proof that (as he had claimed since early 2017) the Russia probe was “a hoax.” Over the years, he and his allies responded to any report about Russia’s efforts with this same simplistic rejoinder: All that Russia stuff was a hoax! This narrative was helped by occasions on which commentators on the left embraced dubious or debunked claims (like that there was a nefarious connection between Trump’s company and a Russian bank, which there wasn’t). But it was more broadly a catchall aimed at waving away any claim about Russian activity as a Democratic fever dream.

The new indictment reinforces that it wasn’t. Russia began trying to influence American politics a decade ago, ultimately finding a sympathetic ally in Trump. Now, instead of trying to make fake personalities who can elevate contentious issues to Russia’s benefit, there’s a stable of Trump-allied voices who already are.

It’s useful to note, too, that Russia’s efforts to move the needle are often even less subtle. On Thursday, apparently in response to the new indictments, Putin announced his endorsement of … Vice President Kamala Harris.