title:  Republicans Go Back To Basics: ‘Stop Asking About Russia Or We’ll Investigate Hillary Again!’
text: House republicans have vowed to fight fire with fire, with Steve King, Republican Representative from Iowa, stating that they are willing to begin a new investigation into Hillary Clinton s emails unless Democrats stop fanning the flames of the scandal involving the President Trump s potential collusion with Russia during his election campaign. If this continues this immobilization of the presidency over these kind of things it s gonna 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,  King told CNN s Alisyn Camerota.When pressed by Camerota to elaborate farther, King went as far as to paint Comey and the special counsel burdened with the task of investigating Trump s possible Russia ties as the ones that are truly guilty of collusion. 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 added, however, there s just one small problem with that statement  Special Counsel Robert Mueller wasn t appointed by James Comey, rather by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.This has been a common pattern by the Republican party when dealing with any controversy or scandal involving the President during his six-month tenure in power; just try and distract the media as well as the public from the real issues at hand by trying to create new ones involving Hillary Clinton s campaign.This very technique was what they turned to in May during a Senate hearing that featured testimony from former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; rather than focussing on the task at hand, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruise just spent his time asking Clapper about Clinton s emails. Another Texan Republican Senator, John Coryn, did the exact same thing last month during James Comey s Senate testimony. Even Republican Senator Lindsay Graham from South Carolina recently told Fox News that now that Robert Mueller is investigating President Trump, Congress should ditch their own investigations and resume looking into Clinton s emails.It is a simple fall back plan the GOP keep using and it has been reasonably effective. It seems far easier, not to mention extremely more effective, to draw the attention away from your wrongdoings than try to explain or justify them.Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images