Calls from Congress for a special prosecutor to investigate alleged foreign meddling in U.S. elections aren’t all that new.

Back when the old independent counsel law was still in effect, Republican senators called for just such an appointment to probe alleged efforts by the Chinese to influence President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, and House Republicans, as recently as last year, pushed legislation to make it easier for Congress to empower independent prosecutors.

The Senate actually held a party-line floor vote in 1997 on a resolution for such an appointment, with all 55 GOP senators in office at the time voting in the affirmative. That includes current Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley.

Dan Coats, now President Donald Trump’s nominee to be director of national intelligence, was in his first tour of duty as Indiana senator back then. He called the allegations of Chinese influence and a fundraising scandal involving the Democratic National Committee and Clinton White House offices “arguably a crime against democracy itself.”

“The need for this investigation should be beyond question, proven on the front page of the newspaper every morning,” Coats said. “Was the executive power of the White House abused to improperly influence the outcome of an American presidential election? Were foreign governments invited by the Democratic Party and the Clinton administration to corrupt American elections?”