Outgoing Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) caused quite a stir when he said on TV that he found no evidence that the FBI spied on President Donald Trump’s campaign after he received a briefing from the DOJ and FBI.
Now reports have emerged that Gowdy and others at the meeting did not see any documents or subpoenas they requested.
On Tuesday night, Gowdy told Martha MacCallum on Fox News that the meeting he attended convinced him “that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.”
Gowdy appeared on CBS This Morning the next day and said (emphasis mine):
“When the FBI comes into contact with information about what a foreign government may be doing in our election cycle, I think they have an obligation to run it out,” said Gowdy on “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday.He added, “Based on what I have seen, I don’t know what the FBI could have done or should have done other than run out a lead that someone loosely connected with the campaign was making assertions about Russia, I would think you would want the FBI to find out whether there was any validity to what those people were saying.”—Gowdy said he thinks the president would have a different perspective if he was shown classified documents he and his colleagues were shown last week. “I think his lawyers have an obligation to share with him what Devin [Nunes] and Paul [Ryan] and I saw last week, I’m convinced when he sees it, he’s going to say ‘you know what, that’s what I told [James] Comey I wanted the FBI to do.”
He also said that he believes the FBI “would tell you that Russia was the target and Russia’s intentions toward our country were the target.”
Over at The Federalist, Mollie Hemingway wrote that a spokeswoman for Gowdy told the publication “that the congressman doesn’t even know what documents and records were subpoenaed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).”
Hemingway said her publication asked the spokeswoman if Gowdy “had seen all the documents Congress requested,” but but she “repeatedly declined to say what, if any, subpoenaed records Gowdy had reviewed during the roughly hour-long briefing.”
Other reports back up Hemingway’s article:
(HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes, WH Chief of Staff John Kelly, Trump attorney Emmett Flood)
I reached out to Gowdy’s office and asked for clarification. It’s important to remember that this was a confidential meeting. We also don’t know what they TALKED about.
I will update this once (or if) I receive a response from Gowdy’s office.
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