September, 2016.

The Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump campaign is in full gear. And Newsmax TV’s Steve Malzberg, host of “America Talks Live,” has a scoop. And for some interesting reason in July of 2017, that Malzberg scoop from months ago seems to have gotten lost in the swirl of Trump-Russia stories. Lost most particularly in the latest gusher of gasping stories over Donald Trump Jr.

Again. This was a Newsmax scoop — from months ago. The headline:

Dick Morris: Bill Clinton Advised Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996

Key parts of Newsmax reporter Jason Devaney’s reporting read as follows:

President Bill Clinton meddled in Russian affairs in the 1990s and helped Boris Yeltsin get elected to a second term, political analyst Dick Morris told Newsmax TV.… “Hillary [Clinton] on Saturday gave a speech warning [Russian President Vladimir] Putin against interfering in the U.S. elections. The FBI has talked about foreign interference and Obama has warned about it,” Morris said. “This goes back to something that happened in 1996.” “When I worked for Clinton, Clinton called me and said, ‘I want to get Yeltsin elected as president of Russia against Gennady Zyuganov, who was the communist who was running against him. Putin was Zyuganov’s major backer.… “We, Clinton and I, would go through it and Bill would pick up the hotline and talk to Yeltsin and tell him what commercials to run, where to campaign, what positions to take. He basically became Yeltsin’s political consultant. “I think that Putin resented that, hated it, thought that it was an inappropriate intervention by Bill Clinton and I think he’s determined to take his revenge out on Hillary Clinton.”

In other words?

Forget Donald Trump — either President Donald Trump or Donald Trump Jr. The reason Morris ascribes to Putin’s outrage at Hillary Clinton isn’t about Hillary Clinton at all. It’s about… Bill Clinton. And then-President Bill Clinton’s decision to directly and personally intervene in the Russian presidential election.

Take a look here in this January, 2010 issue of the UK’s Telegraph. The headline is of one Tatyana Yumasheva — Boris Yeltsin’s daughter. It reads:

Boris Yeltsin’s daughter attacks Vladimir Putin

The essence? Once upon a time Yeltsin, the Russian president, and acolyte Vladimir Putin were allies. Yeltsin favored Putin as his successor. But problems arose. And the Telegraph article goes on to say of Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana Yumasheva:

She also makes clear that her father was uneasy with the direction in which Mr Putin took the country in later years. “Some things (that Putin did) embarrassed and annoyed him,” she told Russia’s Medved magazine in an interview. One example she cited was the Soviet national anthem, which Mr Yeltsin abolished as a Stalinist-era relic — only for Mr Putin to partially resurrect it. “Of course, he (Yeltsin) would have done certain things differently from Vladimir (Putin),” she added. “I know for sure and Papa told me many times that he thought that the next president should be a politician from a new generation with democratic views.”

Which is to say, as can happen, there was tension between mentor Yeltsin and mentee Putin. And to bring the tale back around to the Malzberg interview with Dick Morris, there was no less than the President of the United States himself — Bill Clinton — personally meddling in the Russian presidential election. Aided and abetted by one of his top aides — pollster Dick Morris.

Note that Morris quote again:

“I think that Putin resented that, hated it, thought that it was an inappropriate intervention by Bill Clinton and I think he’s determined to take his revenge out on Hillary Clinton.”

So. What do we have here?

What we have here is a President of the United States — Bill Clinton — who deliberately, willfully and personally intervened in the election of a Russian president. That president — the winner — was Boris Yeltsin. Who was eventually to sour on his acolyte, Vladimir Putin.

Fast forward to 2016.

There is the now all-powerful Russian President Vladimir Putin, mentor and ex-President Boris Yeltsin having long passed on to history. And who does now-President Putin see as the potential next-President of the United States? None other than Hillary Clinton — the wife of the American president who humiliated Russia by personally meddling in the Russian presidential election. And Putin’s instinct is all too easy to believe: revenge.

The essence? Once upon a time Yeltsin, the Russian president, and acolyte Vladimir Putin were allies. But Putin favored the Communist Zyuganov over Yeltsin. And Bill Clinton had gone out of his way to collude with Yeltsin. Where was Donald Trump in all of this? In New York real estate. Ditto young son Don Jr. The hit Trump series The Apprentice was still eight years distant. Not within a country mile of President Clinton’s personal meddling in a Russian presidential election.

Which is to say?

There is that caution out there that one should always be careful of what one wishes for. Democrats are demanding an investigation of Trump-Russia ties. Now? Now, with the laughable suggestion that Don Trump Jr.’s actions somehow prove collusion with the Russians? It’s time for the GOP to open wide the doors to investigate the Clinton-Russian collusion. Not just all the shenanigans surrounding the Clinton Foundation or Hillary as Secretary of State or the ties of Clinton aide John Podesta.

No. It’s time to call in former President Clinton himself. And Dick Morris. And ex-President Obama and Susan Rice and all the rest.

Again, as the saying goes? Be careful what you wish for.

Every single move to investigate Donald Trump, Jr. must mean the expansion of the investigation into the Bill Clinton meddling in a now-long ago Russian presidential election. And the consequences for America in 2016 that resulted.

Or, in the famous words of the Senate Watergate Committee’s late Tennessee Senator Howard Baker?

It is clear that President Clinton colluded with the Russians to manipulate a Russian presidential election. So? So….

What did President Clinton know — and when did he know it?