“Public hearings are a circus… I mean that’s why I don’t like to do them.”
— House Oversight Committee chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC), in an interview on Face the Nation, suggesting that congressional hearings behind closed doors were “much more constructive” than the public hearings which can be “a circus” and a “freak show.”
“There’s an old saying that justice delayed is justice denied. I think right now all of us are being denied. Whatever you’ve got, finish it the hell up, because this country is being torn apart.”
— House Oversight Committee Trey Gowdy (R-SC), quoted by The Hill, while urging Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to swiftly finish the investigation into Russian election interference.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) sided with Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) who had said that the FBI did nothing wrong by using a confidential informant to contact members of President Trump’s campaign as it investigated its ties to Russia, the New York Times reports.
And he warned that Mr. Trump should not try to pardon himself: “I think obviously the answer is he shouldn’t. And no one is above the law.”
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Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) “has been a pitbull investigator for Republicans for years. Now, he’s is in President Trump’s doghouse for daring to challenge the president’s unsupported claim that Democrats and their sympathizers in the FBI embedded a spy in his 2016 campaign,” Politico reports.
“Trump allies have been pummeling Gowdy in recent days, branding him a gullible or clueless backer of the intelligence community.”
House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) indicated he has begun inquiring into EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s activities, according to a video shot by activists on Friday, Politico reports.
Said Gowdy: “I don’t have a lot patience for that kind of stuff.”
“Gowdy didn’t say whether his committee has begun a formal investigation of Pruitt or some more preliminary review, but he said that public servants must ‘be a good steward’ of taxpayer money.”
“I don’t like the job… I don’t have a lot to show for the last seven years.”
— Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), in an interview with Vice News.
“Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on Wednesday requested that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson turn over all documents and communications pertaining to allegations by a high-ranking civil servant that she was the target of reprisals after sounding the alarm on agency spending,” Politico reports.
“I actually don’t think it is has any impact on the Russia probe.”
— Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), in a CBS News interview, rejecting President Trump’s claim that the Nunes memo “totally vindicates” him.
In a sign of Rep. Trey Gowdy’s (R-SC) “desire to step back from public life, he recently turned down a golden opportunity to become a federal judge,” Politico reports.
“White House counsel Don McGahn in recent weeks broached Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, about filling a slot on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals — a newly vacated judgeship that Gowdy has eyed before… His fellow Palmetto State Republicans, Scott and Sen. Lindsey Graham, also urged him to accept the post. But Gowdy, who’s long complained about the increasingly toxic nature of politics, turned down the position.”
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has announced he will not be running for re-election in Congress or any other political or elected office, WSPA-TV reports.
Said Gowdy: “I will not be filing for re-election to Congress nor seeking any other political or elected office; instead I will be returning to the justice system. Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system.”
[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]As of yesterday, there’s now a vacancy on the 4th circuit court of appeals which covers South Carolina. [/alert]
“As chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) used $150,000 in taxpayer dollars to settle with a former aide who alleged he was fired in part because he was not willing to focus his investigative work on Hillary Clinton,” the Washington Post reports.
House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy lashed out at the Trump administration over the “drip, drip” in the ongoing Russia controversy, sarcastically suggesting that officials get checked for amnesia about any contacts with Russia, Politico reports.
Said Gowdy: “If you had a contact with Russia, tell the special counsel about it! Don’t wait until the New York Times figures it out!”
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) is expected to become the next chairman of the House Oversight Committee, replacing Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) in the high-profile post when he leaves Congress late next month, Politico reports.
Washington Post: “Gowdy, after blowing through several previous deadlines he set, has said to expect a final report ‘before summer,’ and Republicans say they are drafting it now. In another indication that the rollout is approaching, Gowdy last month stopped giving Democrats transcripts of witness interviews. This move, ostensibly to prevent leaks, diminishes the minority’s ability respond to allegations contained in the majority report.”
“Depending on how long the declassification review takes, the Benghazi report is on track to drop by mid-July, just before Congress recesses for the conventions and at a time when Republicans will be in need of a distraction from the Trump-Cruz standoff. If the review takes longer (they typically last from a few weeks to a several months), it could come out in September, in the campaign’s homestretch.”
“Either scenario would confirm what critics of the panel have said all along (and what Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy incautiously confirmed) — that the panel is a political exercise designed to damage Clinton.”
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) is expected to endorse Sen. Marco Rubio for president when he campaigns with him in Iowa next week, Townhall.com reports.
The influential South Carolina lawmaker will attend town hall rallies on Tuesday and Wednesday during Rubio’s three-day tour through the important caucus state.
Jason Zengerle: “For all the recent evidence that careers can unspiral pretty quickly in Washington—see the soon-to-retire House Speaker John Boehner or his would-be replacement, Kevin McCarthy—you might consider as the converse the bright and rising star that is Trey Gowdy.”
“It wasn’t so long ago that the third-term Republican congressman from South Carolina was a virtual nonentity on Capitol Hill, a point he concedes himself… To the extent he was known at all, it was for his golf handicap (a 1.7, he says, the lowest in the House) and for his bewildering haircut—an ever-changing coiffure that has rotated between a faux-hawk, a slick-back, and a modified mullet. And yet, in the last several weeks, Gowdy has been pestered—at times outright begged—by his congressional Republican colleagues to take McCarthy’s place as Majority Leader and Boehner’s as Speaker of the House.”
“I would say in some ways these have been among the worst weeks of my life. Attacks on your character, attacks on your motives, are 1,000-times worse than anything you can do to anybody physically — at least it is for me.”
— Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), quoted by Politico, over accusations that his Benghazi investigation is only a political attack on Hillary Clinton.
Frustrated by a series of gaffes on the Benghazi Committee, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) told Face the Nation that his fellow Republicans to “shut up” if they weren’t directly briefed on the committee’s activities.
Said Gowdy: “These are three people who don’t have any idea what they’re talking about.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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