"McCarthyist" is a very good term for the rhetorical sputum the WaPo, and NY-Times have been coughing up since the DNC primary put a certain neo-con Washington Mil/Intel complex friendly candidate in front and center.

"Suspicious timing" is a perfect term for the distinct election-cycle correlate ratcheting-up of verbal belligerence coming from certain Washington Mil/Intel sectors of unproven allegations involving Russians and just about every malfeasance in current existence... (the dog ate my homework)

I'm no Trump supporter, nor Republican supporter in general, but let me make absolutely clear that the Democratic party is as tied to the American War-n-Empire machine as the Republican party.
Kennedy, despite his youthful charm, sent as many(or more) men of his own age or less to their death in Vietnam (to say nothing of Vietnamese casualties) as Nixon did.
Clinton, Kerry, Feinstein, et al (the Senate Intel committee members certainly) are in lockstep march with the military machine, and indeed partially constitute it, on the political support side. Make no mistake: "liberals" who beat the war drum have blood on their hands, despite the domestic spin that their social policies provide.
The total lack of global perspective and introspection regarding this Washington Insider fake left, fake humanitarian (LGBQT-friendly cluster bombs anyone?) pseudoliberal establishment fools very few people outside of the American Media Bubble.

Clinton, Kerry, Feinstein, et al, also voted for both the Patriot Act (granting various nefarious and secret powers, totally unconstitutional on many levels...) and the Iraq War resolution...

Let me be very clear: The WaPo and the NY-Times were some of the primary news sources spouting the WMD in Iraq nonsense that led to G.W. Bushs ill-advised 2003 invasion.
They are a source of fake news.

Let's cut the crap: Our Nobel-Peace-Prize winning president has us bombing 7 countries currently, that we have no declared wars with, by the way. He has not returned any of his predecessors ill-gotten powers, but rather has expanded them. In a way, it's fitting that Trump, as an impulsive dangerously juvenile "man", is the one to inherit the car keys as it's a perfect example of WHY we shouldn't be granting absolute power and "total informational awareness" to our already "out of check/balance" executive branch.

I'm not one of those "constitutional fundamentalists", but its obvious as the nose on my face that the executive branch today has far more power than it was intended to:
1) every single armed force
2) every single intel agency foreign and domestic (and they don't stick to one or the other anymore)

TL;DR:
America is still behind it's cold-war "golden curtain" and continues to prosecute global empire and domination-based policies using foreign bogeymen to sway the populace into action they otherwise would be too comfortable to support.

As an American currently residing in Europe it is clear to me that the snarky spin bubble created by hipster-friendly approaches to media is still part of the same propaganda machine. You can hire some PR specialists to California-up the image, but its the same stinky bastard at the controls...