In the wake of John Durham’s largely pointless special counsel investigation, some Republicans’ thoughts turned immediately to a familiar name from the recent past. “The Russian hoax was a figment of Hillary Clinton’s imagination,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn declared within hours of Durham’s report reaching the public.
In reality, of course, the far-right Tennessean’s comment was absurd: The Russia scandal obviously wasn’t a “hoax,” and Clinton wasn’t responsible for exposing it. In fact, as a Washington Post analysis explained last week, given all of the available evidence, there’s now “even less reason to blame Clinton“ for the investigation into the controversy.
But Blackburn’s comment was a timely reminder that the former secretary of State remains very much on Republicans’ minds. Indeed, just yesterday, Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo interviewed House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, and the host asked the Ohio Republican whether he wants to see “another investigation” into Clinton. He didn’t say no.
“[W]e’re going to talk with our lawyers. We’re going to talk with Speaker McCarthy on where we proceed from here. In fact, are there people that were highlighted in the Durham investigation and the Durham report that we need to talk to on the Judiciary Committee? We’re going to give that a good, hard look. But nothing is off the table.”
In fairness, it was the host, not the guest, who brought up Clinton, but it would’ve been easy for Jordan to dismiss the idea of yet another investigation into the former Democratic presidential candidate. He didn’t. In fact, as a video from the on-air interview helped show, Jordan seemed quite animated about the prospect.
Time will tell, of course, whether the Ohioan bothers to pursue Clinton again, but one of the striking things about his reaction to the question was the familiarity of these circumstances.
As regular readers probably recall, in Donald Trump’s first year as…
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