House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., backed calls by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Tuesday for an investigation into President Trump's ties to Russia and the possibility that he has been compromised by the Russians.

Hoyer told reporters during his weekly pen and pad that it would be a "dereliction of duty" on the part of House Republicans not to investigate the alleged ties to the Russians, pointing to Republican-led investigations from the 1990s into the Clinton administration and into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's role in the Benghazi terror attack in 2012.

"Let me say that I think it's very important for us...to investigate allegations that the president of the United States might be compromised in some way," Hoyer said, calling also for investigations into Russia's role in the election and the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia. "I think those are all legitimate objectives for the Congress, as the representative of the American people, to pursue."

"One need not look back more than 20 years to see the Republicans vigorously investigated almost every tangential allegation, which did not rise to the importance of the three prongs that I just mentioned," Hoyer said. "Mr. Chaffetz and his predecessors have been unceasingly in their investigation and expenditure of money on investigations, which clearly were not worthy of such investigation."

The longtime Maryland Democrat also said that he has "no idea" how valid the claims made in the dossier, which made unverified allegations claiming ties between Trump and the Kremlin. However, he argued that Republicans would be quick to launch an investigation if the same thing had happened to Clinton.

"I have no idea of the truth of the...dossier allegations at all," Hoyer continued. "But there is no doubt in my mind — zero — that if those allegations had been made about Mrs. Clinton and she had been elected president of the United States, that Mr. Chaffetz and Republicans, generally in the Congress of the United States, would be unceasing in their investigatory zeal."

Pelosi made her original comments on Sunday, telling "Meet The Press," telling host Chuck Todd "I want to know what the Russians have on Donald Trump."

"I want to know what the Russians have on Donald Trump. I think we have to have an investigation by the FBI into his financial, personal and political connections to Russia and we want to see his tax returns so we can have truth in the relationship [with] Putin, whom he admires," Pelosi said.