Senators who accuse President Trump of “treason” over his comportment following his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin “have become political hacks,” the nation’s top diplomat suggested Monday.

“I actually looked back at some of the senators’ statements when Obama was — the president was Barack Obama,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Christian Broadcasting Network. “They were talking about the need for important and good relationship between somehow — somehow they have either changed their mind or they’ve become pure political hacks. I suspect it’s the latter and not the former.”

['A very bad guy': Trump rips ex-CIA Director John Brennan for 'treasonous' remark]

Pompeo, a Kansas Republican lawmaker before joining the Trump administration as CIA director, was responding to a question about “the media and the liberals ... hammering this president on open treason.” The denunciation of Trump reached a fever pitch following his joint press conference with Putin, as the U.S. president cast doubt on Putin’s responsibility for the 2016 election interference and blamed the United States for the deterioration of U.S.-Russia ties.

"There is no sugarcoating this,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. “It is hard to see President Trump siding with Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence community and our criminal investigators as anything other than treason."

Smith added later that “treason might have been a little bit of hyperbole.” But other colleagues raised the specter of blackmail to explain Trump’s comments.

“It was the act of a man who seems incapable of distinguishing between his own narrow, personal interests and the interests of American national security,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the floor of the upper chamber. “There’s seems to be no rational explanation for President Trump’s behaviors and so millions of Americans are left wondering if Putin indeed has something over the president.”

One Republican even hinted at the “treason” charge. “By choosing to reject object reality in Helsinki, the president let down the free world by giving aid and comfort to an enemy of democracy,” retiring Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., one of Trump’s most ardent GOP critics, said last week in an echo of the constitutional definition of treason.

Pompeo mocked those charges. “Yeah, it’s silly,” he said.

“This administration has been incredibly tough on Russia,” he also maintained. “We’re proud of that, and I’m confident we’ll have to continue to do so as there is still Russian behavior that is inconsistent with a good relationship between our two countries.”

Just days after the summit, the Defense Department announced the provision of $200 million for Ukraine’s military, which is engaged in a running war with Russian-backed military forces.

For his part, Trump generally has avoided criticizing Putin or Russia directly, in keeping with his practice on the campaign trail. But although Trump’s posture towards Russia is most controversial against the backdrop of the 2016 election interference, Putin isn’t the only authoritarian to enjoy Trump’s flattery in the context of high-level talks. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was also spared any criticism during their Singapore summit. Trump went so far as to claim that Kim “loves” the North Korean people, despite the brutality of his regime.

“He’s a funny guy, he’s very smart, he’s a great negotiator,” Trump told Voice of America. “He loves his people, not that I’m surprised by that, but he loves his people.”

He stood by that compliment when asked for a message to deliver directly to the North Korean people. But he paired the praise, it seemed, with an explanation about his efforts to develop a personal relationship with the dictator.

“He wants to do right by them, and we got along really well,” Trump said. “We had a great chemistry — you understand how I feel about chemistry. It’s very important. I mean, I know people where there is no chemistry no matter what you do you just don’t have it. We had it right from the beginning. I talked about that, and I think great things are going to happen for North Korea.”

Trump sounded a similar note when defending his Helsinki performance last week. “I got severely criticized by the Fake News Media for being too nice to President Putin,” he tweeted. “In the Old Days they would call it Diplomacy. If I was loud & vicious, I would have been criticized for being too tough. Remember when they said I was too tough with Chairman Kim? Hypocrites!”

Pompeo maintained that the outreach wouldn’t undermine U.S. defenses against Russia. “It is this administration’s mission to raise the costs for Russian activity of that kind to attempt to deter them,” he told CBN. “We’re eyes wide open about Russia’s efforts to undermine western democracy. We’re going to do our level best to stop them. And when we don’t stop them, we will call them out for it and make sure they understand that that type of behavior is unacceptable.”