A handful of Senate Republicans on Thursday offered support for a move by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) to get a special counsel appointed to investigate former President Obama and the 2016 election.

The Graham-Cornyn call for a special counsel comes as Republicans and the Trump administration have been upended by the controversy surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, and President Trump has attempted to pivot away from the issue.

GOP senators didn’t draw any connection between the two concerns on Thursday while offering support for the idea of a special counsel.

“It’s like a drip, drip, drip,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said. “This kind of thing has been coming out for years now, and what’s frustrating … is there’s been no accountability for it.”

Hawley’s support for a special counsel to investigate Obama is not a huge surprise. The conservative is seen as a future potential GOP presidential candidate, and calls for an investigation of Obama will likely be popular with the Republican grassroots.

Special counsels in the past have caused problems for both political parties, however, and GOP Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) offered a cautious note.

“I’m not a big believer in special counsels, really, for the most part,” Paul said.

The libertarian from Kentucky said the........

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