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If there's potency to Clinton's close guard of her emails, using a personal address on a private server to keep strict control of what's made public, it's that the ordeal makes her look secretive and untrustworthy -- exactly the line of attack Republicans have been employing against her for decades.

READ: Bill Clinton declines to weigh in on Hillary's emails

But House GOP investigators' eagerness to put Clinton in their crosshairs and keep the details of her latest scandal front-and-center is a reminder that they face a risk, too: Turning Clinton into a sympathetic figure, instead of allowing her to do the damage herself.

Over the years, Congress and the Clintons have gone a number of rounds. And while the Clintons have endured, past congressional Republicans have been burned.

Newt Gingrich was at the top of the political world when he became speaker of the House in 1994. Four years and a Monica Lewinsky investigation and Bill Clinton impeachment later, Gingrich was done.

More recently, the GOP's unchecked desire to attack its least-favorite Democrats has backfired with President Barack Obama in office, too -- most recently when a push to use Department of Homeland Security funding as leverage to undercut Obama on immigration failed. Facing self-imposed political fallout, House Republicans were forced to concede just hours before the key anti-terrorism agency was to shut down.

That the right was champing at the bit to go after Clinton over her private emails was evident this weekend.

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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Saturday in Iowa that the Justice Department should "absolutely" investigate whether Clinton broke the law by exclusively using a personal email address on a private server.

The attacks continued on Sunday news programs. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, chairman of the House panel investigating the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that "there are gaps of months and months and months" in the Clinton emails the State Department has turned over.

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Hillary Clinton emails: Some in GOP resist overreach