Republicans Threaten to Investigate Clinton’s Emails Again if Democrats Don’t Drop Russia Scandal

Amidst a fresh Trump-Russia scandal ironically involving Donald Trump, Jr.‘s emails with a Russian national, Republicans have somehow found a way to circle us all back to Hillary Clinton‘s emails.

After learning that Trump Jr. communicated with Russians for “dirt” on Clinton, was told outright that the Russian government backed his father’s campaign, and then with his father vouching for him, lied that these meetings were about U.S.-Russia adoption laws, Republican Rep. Steve King from Iowa is threatening to open up a Congressional investigation into Clinton’s emails.

In an interview with CNN from Wednesday, King said, referring to Democratic uproar over the scandal involving Trump Jr.:

“If this continues  —  this immobilization of the presidency over these kind of things   it’s going to force Congress to do an investigation, a complete and thorough investigation, and that means go back all the way to the 650,000 emails of Anthony Weiner and look at [former FBI Director James] Comey and his activities.”

If you’re racking your brain to find the connection between Hillary’s private email server as secretary of state and Trump Jr.’s clandestine meetings with Russian nationals to help his father’s campaign, that’s because, put simply, there is no connection.

King, also desperate to absolve Trump, his family, and his advisers of any responsibility and wrongdoing, also pivoted and called the alleged friendship between special counsel Rob Mueller and fired FBI director James Comey the “real” collusion scandal.

“What I’m saying is this, that the Comey investigation — now him picking the special counsel on top of it — on its face, appears to be collusion,” King said, despite how special counsel Mueller was actually appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. 

Other House Republicans have similarly lambasted the Russia scandal as Democratic sensationalism meant to “immobilize” the Trump presidency, and have never missed an opportunity to deflect serious questions and concerns with irrelevant references to Clinton’s emails. All of this ought to raise the question of what it will actually take Republicans to make Trump and those working with him take responsibility for their highly suspicious actions, what it will take to actually seek answers about what went down between the Trump campaign and Russia.

In recent years, the increasingly partisan, polarized state of American politics has raised concerning questions about the consequences of putting party before country. And with Republicans poised to put on yet another show to distract and defend President Trump, we could soon learn the hard way what those consequences are.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.