There's an entire industry revolving around blaming geopolitical enemies of wrongdoing without evidence, where the intelligence community plays a key part. This is done in order to control the narrative, steer the public perception and to keep a semblance of adherence to international law, in order to justify unilateral political, economic or military hostility. The reality is always more nuanced, and it's definitely a safe bet to not believe whatever empty accusations they come out with.
Controlling the narrative like they do, the cumulative effect of it is that they are able to convince the public of quite crazy assertions, which would be rightly treated as conspiracy theories had they come from some other source. These crazy assertions of course requires equally crazy political reactions. E.g. people genuinely believe that most US geopolitical enemies are literally rogue, bandit states, requiring draconic policing by the US. It's a children's view of the world, leading people to look the other way when it harms innocents.
The intelligence community has a looong history of doing this. It's a central part of the playbook which is readily admitted in more casual contexts.