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As the possibility of Donald Trumps indictment becomes more apparent, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg isnt the only Democrat on Republicans minds. Evidently, some in the GOP are also thinking about the Clintons.

Rep. Andy Biggs, for example, claimed this week that he now has evidence of a two-tier justice system. His proof: Bill Clinton paid Paula Jones in a civil settlement in the 1990s. Now President Trump does something similar and the [Manhattan district attorney] wants to jail him, the right-wing Arizonan argued.

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Biggs probably shouldve thought this through a bit more because the cases arent similar at all. Unlike Trump, Clinton didnt pay hush money; he simply settled a civil case. Whats more, Clinton didnt try to keep the settlement secret, which is pretty much the opposite of what happened between Trump, Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels.

But as it turns out, the Arizonan wasnt the only one thinking about the Clintons.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke to reporters yesterday and was asked whether GOP lawmakers have concerns about whether Trump might have falsified business records to cover for hush money payments to cover up this alleged affair with an adult film actress. The California Republican responded:

Look, the thing I think about, it was interesting, someone briefed me on the use of money in a situation like this before. You probably covered this. Remember when the DNC and Hillary Clinton paid the law firm a million dollars and said that it was for something else, and we found out later it wasnt. It was all about the Russian inclusion, it wasnt for the legal part. So they went through, and they got investigated. A million dollars they spent, and you know what, at the end of the day, they didnt get arrested. They got fined.

It was at that point that the House speaker emphasized his equal justice talking point, effectively making the case that if Clinton wasnt arrested for her campaign finance controversy, then Trump shouldnt be arrested for his.

But just as Biggs didnt fully appreciate the details of his Clinton-related comparison, McCarthys pitch didnt quite work either, for reasons he shouldve understood.

Its true that Clintons 2016 campaign agreed to a civil penalty of $8,000 in the recent past stemming from an FEC investigation into how campaign money for Christopher Steeles dossier was reported. But as a Washington Post report explained soon after, This analogy isnt terribly strong, given, first, that the campaign and the Democratic National Committee faced punishment for the reporting and, second, that it centered on the mechanics of properly reporting campaign spending to the FEC.

In other words, McCarthy described Trumps hush money scandal as being a situation like the investigation into Clintons campaign finance filings, but the closer one looked, the less sense this made.

But lets also not brush past the disconnect between the question and the speakers answer. A reporter asked McCarthy about possible concerns that Trump allegedly falsified business records to cover for hush money payments to cover up this alleged affair with an adult film actress. The very first thought the California Republican had was to focus on Hillary Clinton.

The King of Whataboutism strikes again.

Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics."

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Asked about Trump, McCarthys attention turns to Hillary Clinton - MSNBC