If President Trump was colluding with or compromised by Russian President Vladimir Putin, how would his behavior be any different?

So it has been asked countless times, phrased in various ways, since Helsinki. Trump deserves the lumps he has taken for his supine press conference performance and weak subsequent clarification, but he is not the only one whose conduct raises questions.

If recent former heads of the FBI and CIA were partisan opponents of Trump abetting or even inciting a "deep state" revolt against the president of the United States, how would they behave any differently?

Fired former FBI Director James Comey literally became a partisan opponent of Trump when he endorsed a Democratic takeover of Congress Tuesday night.

[More: Ex-Clinton spokesman to James Comey: ‘Democrats don’t want your endorsement’]

Judging the Republican Congress incapable of checking the president, Comey took to Twitter to proclaim, “All who believe in this country’s values must vote for Democrats this fall. Policy differences don’t matter right now. History has its eyes on us.”

This use of the ballot box to rebuke Trump is mild compared to former CIA Director John Brennan’s implicit call for impeachment. Brennan tweeted — do important national figures communicate any other way? — that Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors, crossing the Constitution’s threshold for removal from office.

“It was nothing short of treasonous,” Brennan fumed. “Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin.”

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had already called Trump a Putin/KGB “asset” and written that Russian interference clearly swung the election in the president’s favor, which is stronger than the judgment national intelligence agencies have publicly rendered.

Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, a former CIA and NSA chief, tweeted out emojis depicting himself laughing at Trump and reminded his followers to vote in November.

What is it about Trump that drags even his fiercest critics down to his level?

All these men have a right to their opinions. Now that they are out of government service, they are also freer to express them publicly. And none of them are tweeting intemperately from the White House, as their target routinely does.

But given the growing partisan divide and deepening distrust of our national institutions, they should possess a bit more self-awareness and restraint than they are displaying here. If Trump is conforming to Resistance expectations of Putin perfidy, these tweets are straight out of the MAGA imagination of "deep state" resistance — no pun intended — if not a conspiracy against the president.

This is especially true of Comey, whose actions post-firing helped precipitate the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel for the Trump-Russia probe — and whose decisions in the Hillary Clinton investigation both parties rightly questioned.

It is understandable to want to defend one’s agencies and one’s honor. And few people have warm feelings for the boss who relieved them of their duties.

Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last year that he had a friend leak a memo detailing a conversation the cashiered FBI head had with Trump “because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”

Thus Comey encouraging votes for Democrats and selling books to Michael Moore’s target audience has at least as much potential to taint that investigation with partisanship as anything Peter Strzok did. He at least confined his anti-Trump missives to text messages and pillow talk.

Not only does it play right into Trump’s hands as he tries to dismiss the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt” and the handiwork of “13 angry Democrats.” It arouses the suspicions of millions of Americans that this is a partisan pursuit from the very start, originating under these same officials under an administration of a different party, further undermining trust in the investigators’ work.

“When the heads of the FBI and CIA under Obama tweet partisan messages, you can’t blame Trump for thinking they acted like partisans during the transition,” tweeted — again with the Twitter! — former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. “Especially when they briefed him on the dossier — which then leaked.”

The same can be said for tens of millions of Trump voters.

This is not “whataboutism” or moral equivalence. Trump must be held accountable where guilty, even if his only offenses turn out to be insecurity about his election and naivete about dictators, no matter how Comey and company tweet.

But if they want the eventual verdict to be accepted as legitimate by the widest cross-section of the country as possible, these former public servants must comport themselves with more dignity than quarreling, social media-addled high schoolers and trust in the professionalism they regularly impute to Mueller, the FBI, and the Justice Department.

The truth will come out.