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In the nearly two years since Russia attacked the American democratic process, congressional Republicans have played conflicting roles in the drama: Some have pressed to impose sanctions on Russia and quietly pursue investigations, but they have been outshouted by Republicans who have obfuscated and undercut efforts to uncover the Kremlin\u2019s plot.

Now, as they grapple with the political and foreign policy fallout from President Trump\u2019s summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland, with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, all Republicans, regardless of their stance so far, are facing a charge even from within their own party that goes beyond the White House: complicity.

The Republicans\u2019 split-screen response was underscored with this weekend\u2019s release of highly classified documents underlying the F.B.I.\u2019s requests to eavesdrop on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page, who the bureau believed was a Russian agent.

Mr. Trump on Sunday doubled down on his accusation that the F.B.I. had \u201cillegally spied upon\u201d his campaign. While Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, pushed back against the president, Mr. Trump\u2019s allies in the House Republican conference backed him up, saying the documents contained revelations damaging to the F.B.I. and seeking to minimize Mr. Page\u2019s role.

\u201cPotentially groundbreaking development here,\u201d Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on Twitter. \u201cThe Carter Page FISA docs should be declassified and further unredacted (protecting only sources and methods) so Americans can know the truth.\u201d

The back and forth over Mr. Page came after nearly a week of intense focus on Mr. Trump\u2019s performance in Helsinki, where the president stood by Mr. Putin and contradicted his own intelligence agencies, only to reverse himself the next day. That prompted an impassioned speech about Republican complicity from Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona.

\u201cWe have indulged myths and fabrications, pretended it wasn\u2019t so bad, and our indulgence got us the capitulation in Helsinki,\u201d Mr. Flake said. \u201cWe in the Senate who have been elected to represent our constituents cannot be enablers of falsehoods.\u201d

The Helsinki meeting forced the collision of two conflicting impulses that have guided Republicans on Capitol Hill through the Russia episode \u2014 and even before Mr. Trump was elected. The party\u2019s deeply held skepticism of Mr. Putin and commitment to national security have clashed with a desire in some quarters to support the president at almost any cost, even as he cozies up to Mr. Putin.

That battle will be put to the test again this week, when senators have their first chance to grill Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the meeting and lawmakers begin to formally weigh enacting additional sanctions on Russia. In an interview Sunday on CBS\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation,\u201d Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, called for \u201cnew sanctions over Putin\u2019s head.\u201d

All this is playing out against the backdrop of midterm elections, where lawmakers will face Republican voters who are still wildly enthusiastic about Mr. Trump and have, in many cases, adopted his skepticism about the Russian interference. Attacks by Mr. Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill and Fox News against those investigating him have not only fired up the president\u2019s base but, polls show, substantially eroded trust in the impartiality of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and the F.B.I. itself.

Some Republicans have concluded that keeping their heads down without uttering much more than general statements about Russian hostility is the only safe course.

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing you can do to stop a president, let alone this president, from saying what he thinks or what he wants to say,\u201d said Representative Ryan Costello, Republican of Pennsylvania, who broke with party leaders to endorse proposed legislation protecting Mr. Mueller\u2019s job. \u201cI think a lot of Republicans feel it\u2019s not worth engaging because all you do is upset a lot of Republican voters.\u201d

Democrats view Russia\u2019s election interference as nothing short of an existential threat to American democracy, and have repeatedly pushed Republican leaders to take a tougher line toward Mr. Trump and stop the attacks on investigators.

\u201cThe road to the Helsinki disaster was paved by Republican inaction every time Trump overstepped,\u201d said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. \u201cTheir silence, their acquiescence to things they know are wrong have given Trump the extra jolt he needed.\u201d

Even before Mr. Trump was elected, Democrats and Republicans grappled with how to respond as Russians were hacking and leaking Democratic emails, flooding social media with pro-Trump and anti-Hillary Clinton messages, and even organizing pro-Trump rallies. In September 2016, President Barack Obama summoned congressional leaders to the Oval Office to ask them to issue a strongly-worded bipartisan letter to state and local...