The GOP Just Can't Quit the Clintons

Democrats have broken up with the Clintons, but Republicans won't let go.

By Susan Milligan, Senior Writer | Dec. 29, 2017, at 6:00 a.m.

For Democrats, the breakup was a long time coming, a political romance with the Clintons that started with a heady, upstart 1992 campaign, was tested during Bill Clinton's impeachment, and finally ended when the couple's home state senator said the former president should have resigned over sexual misconduct allegations.

But President Donald Trump and the GOP just can't seem to quit the out-of-power Clintons. Trump tweets frequently (and accusingly) about the woman he beat out for the White House in 2016, while Capitol Hill Republicans are mounting their own Clinton investigations and demanding that the Department of Justice do the same. In October, House and Senate Republicans announced formal inquiries into two matters involving the former first couple: an Obama-era uranium deal involving Russia that accusers charge was tied to support for the Clinton Foundation, and a separate investigation of how the FBI handled then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server.

Some congressional Republicans have gone further. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wants a special counsel to look into how the FBI decided not to charge Clinton for her handling of classified information while using the private email server. That's in spite of the fact that Hill Republicans, after exhaustive, campaign-season hearings and investigations of the matter, could not come up with evidence of wrong-doing by the Democratic presidential nominee.

Trump himself has demanded formal inquiries into a slew of matters related to the Clintons, ranging from the email controversy to what he calls a "fake dossier" of Trump misconduct. (The dossier was funded by both Republicans and Democrats.)