March 26, 2017

Rep. Trey Gowdy told CBS' Face the Nation host John Dickerson that he hadn't seen any of the intelligence Rep. Devin Nunes says he has, but defended the House Intel Committee chairman's highly unusual actions because Trump is the president.

Republicans, including Trey Gowdy, went nuts when former president Bill Clinton had an impromptu meeting on an airline runway with then-AG Loretta Lynch, blaming that meeting for shielding Hillary Clinton from being prosecuted for something, when there was no evidence of that at all.

Dickerson asked, "Has he shown you any of what caused him to suggest that Obama officials are doing surveillance, captured some Trump campaign associates and then unmasked them in the process of investigating?"

Gowdy replied, "He has not shown it to me...I am vaguely familiar with it, no more, no less familiar with it than Adam Schiff is."

Rep. Gowdy has no information, though presumably, as the ranking Democrat on the committee, Adam Schiff does. The only thing Gowdy has is Nunes' word about why he had to break protocol, and dashed away without even alerting his fellow Republicans on the Intelligence Committee to brief Trump on intel he didn't possess in hand.

Gowdy continued with his sophomoric defense, saying, "I will just tell you this. My understanding is Chairman Nunes briefed the Commander-in-Chief on matters unrelated to the Russian investigation, so if that is big deal in Washington, then we have sunk to a new low."

Say, what? How does questioning Chairman Nunes' bizarre actions last week mean we've "sunk to a new low?"

Gowdy knows from lows. After seven separate committees were formed by Republicans to investigate Benghazi, coming up with nothing, Rep. Gowdy chaired another committee to investigate the same thing.

The House Intelligence committee is in the middle of a highly sensitive investigation and Rep. Nunes, uncharacteristically runs to the media and then to Trump, after mysteriously ditching his staff and disappearing the night before and that's not surprising to Rep. Gowdy?

Dickerson replied, "I guess Congressman Schiff would say, but the president is the one that is a part of this investigation being done by the committee, so the chairman shouldn't be talking to him."

That is correct. Rep. Nunes acted like a Trump surrogate and not an independent representative chairing an impartial investigation.

Gowdy repeated what he said about Nunes not discussing Russia with the president and then said, "So if the Commander-in-Chief cannot be briefed by the chairperson of the House Intel Committee on a matter that has nothing to do with the FBI investigation, then I don't know what they can talk about, John."

We have no verification of that at all and Chairman Nunes went to the media in the middle of a very bad week for the Trump administration to try and justify Trump's wacko claims that President Obama wiretapped him. Just like a Trump transition teammate would do.

Gowdy then shot down the idea of an independent prosecutor even though Chairman Nunes has destroyed his reputation by mixing all the different aspects of what is being investigated and said, "Independent commission, thank goodness we have one. It's called the FBI. The FBI has counterintelligence jurisdiction and they have criminal jurisdiction."

"And what we learned on Monday, and it's about the only thing we learned on Monday, was that the FBI is investigating both."

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