Tag Archives: Trey Gowdy

national news

Trump aides should ‘reevaluate’ their role? Do you think?

Trey Gowdy, the lame-duck South Carolina congressman who recently worked over FBI agent Peter Strzok over his conduct in the Russia interference investigation, has taken the gloves off — more or less — with members of the Trump administration.

Gowdy made an appearance today on “Fox News Sunday” and said that members of the administration should consider quitting if Donald Trump continues to ignore their best advice on how to handle Russia and other matters.

According to The Hill: “It can be proven beyond any evidentiary burden that Russia is not our friend and they tried to attack us in 2016,” Gowdy told host Bret Baier. “So the president either needs to rely on the people that he has chosen to advise him, or those advisers need to reevaluate whether or not they can serve in this administration. But the disconnect cannot continue.”

“Need to reevaluate whether or not they can serve … “?

I’d be willing to bet real American money that those advisers already are reevaluating their future with the Trump administration. They are likely doing it privately, swearing loved ones to secrecy.

The true shocker would occur if some of them actually turned in their West Wing security badges and walked out the door.

Indeed, the president has demonstrated an astonishing capacity to ignore the advice he gets from the “best people” who are equipped with the “best minds” with whom he has surrounded himself.

Moreover, he has shown a mind-boggling willingness to blindside those advisers with tweets and other pronouncements that one might expect to have been done only with close consultation with those experts.

Exhibit A: The amazing reaction from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to news that Trump had invited Vladimir Putin to the White House for a second summit later this year. “OK,” Coats said with a tone of exasperation. “That’s going to be special.”

How can someone as accomplished and serious as Coats — a two-time Republican U.S. senator from Indiana — actually avoid “reevaluating” whether he should remain as part of the Trump national security team?

Chaos and confusion continue to reign supreme in the Trump administration.

national news

Gowdy grows a spine, finally!

Man, I certainly wish many politicians could show the spine they need before they announce their intention to retire from public life.

U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy has just joined the growing list of pols who’ve found some much-needed courage — as lame ducks!

Gowdy said on “Fox News Sunday” that there is no reason for Donald Trump to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who selected Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead the investigation into Russian meddling in our 2016 presidential election.

According to Politico: The president’s ire over the investigation into possible Trump campaign ties with Russia, which Rosenstein stepped in to oversee after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself last year, has grown considerably over the past week after Rosenstein authorized the raid in New York on longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

Gowdy is not alone among Republican lawmakers cautioning the president to avoid doing something profoundly stupid and foolish. Firing Rosenstein or Mueller — or both — would create a political earthquake that actually might register something on the Richter Scale … if you get my drift.

As Politico reports further: Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, noted that the decision to conduct the raid had to be made at the “highest level” of the Justice Department and that a “neutral, detached” federal judge “who has nothing to do with politics” had to sign off on the warrant, which was, in part, made on a referral by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Republican U.S. Sens. Flake Flake and Bob Corker are retiring at the end of the year. So is GOP U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan. Flake and Corker already have joined the list of Trump critics who keep reminding the president — and the rest of us — of the need to show restraint, decorum and judgment.

Speaker Ryan hasn’t yet weighed in and I’m unsure he will.

Gowdy, though, is exhibiting some of the “growth” that occurs when politicians liberate themselves from the pressure of holding onto public office.

national news

Gowdy poses relevant question to White House

Trey Gowdy is a South Carolina Republican U.S. House member who’s planning to leave Congress at the end of the year.

He’s not done asking relevant questions. Gowdy has one for the White House.

How did Rob Porter, the former White House staff secretary who quit after allegations of spousal abuse surfaced, operate without the proper security clearance for as long as he did?

Gowdy has posed the question to White House chief of staff John Kelly, who’s supposed to keep track of such things. Porter worked with an “interim” clearance, even though he had been accused by two former wives of beating them up.

I’ve always thought that such a rap would disqualify someone from gaining access to the kind of documents that Porter was allowed to handle. Rep. Gowdy wants to know how this happened in a White House that is supposed to run — in the words of the president — like a “fine-tuned machine.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray also has testified that the FBI knew long ago about Porter’s alleged domestic trouble, which has shot holes in Kelly’s assertion that the White House was blindsided by the allegations.

I believe Gen. Kelly has some explaining to do.

International news, national news, political news

New House chairman says ‘no’ to Russia probe

U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy isn’t going to join the hunt for the truth into the “Russia thing.”

You might not believe this, but this news doesn’t upset me.

Why, you ask? Well, Gowdy — the new chairman of the panel — says he is going to let special counsel Robert Mueller lead the probe. What’s more, Gowdy’s committee is only one of several congressional panels charged with looking at this matter. The others are the Senate Intelligence and House Intelligence committees, and Senate and House Judiciary committees. They appear to be on the hunt.

So, it’s fair to suggest: Who needs the House Oversight and Government Reform panel to do the same job?

The “Russia thing” deals with the Trump presidential campaign’s alleged relationship with the Russian government. Russian goons hacked into the 2016 presidential election and they have generated considerable congressional interest.

Gowdy will have a role to play anyway. He serves on the House Intelligence and Judiciary panels. He won’t remain silent.

Still, his decision to forgo any hearings is at odds with what his predecessor as chairman, former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, wanted to do. Chaffetz wanted the panel to be more active in the probe.

I am not discouraged that we’re going to root out the issues related to this matter.

You go, special counsel Robert Mueller!

national news

Benghazi boss: no evidence of wiretap

Trey Gowdy isn’t exactly a spectator sitting in the cheap seats.

The chairman of a U.S. House select committee that sought some criminality in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s handling of the infamous siege at Benghazi, Libya, now weighs in on the preposterous claim by Donald J. Trump, who accuses Barack Obama of wiretapping his Trump Tower offices.

There’s no evidence that any such thing happened, says Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican lawmaker.

I am not prone to be complimentary of Gowdy, but this fellow might know something that your run-of-the-mill congressperson doesn’t know. His Benghazi panel went after Clinton for a couple of years over that firefight at the U.S. consulate. It found nothing on which to hang on the former secretary of state. The panel, though, was privy to reams of classified information.

“I don’t think the FBI is the Obama team, and I don’t think the men and women who are career prosecutors at [the Department of Justice] belong to any team other than a blindfolded woman holding a pair of scales,” Gowdy told Fox News, referencing the Greek goddess Themis, who represents justice and trust.

The president, though, keeps insisting that his predecessor tapped his phones, looking for dirt on the Trump campaign’s alleged relationship with the Russian government. The relationship is critical, given that intelligence agencies have concluded Russia sought to influence the results of the 2016 election in Trump’s favor.

I am one who believes the president has made it up, that he has concocted a faux scandal to rile his base and to divert attention from the controversies that are dogging him.

It appears that hell has frozen over and that I agree with something that Trey Gowdy has said.

International news

‘Benghazi’ chairman admits what was thought all along

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reacts as she is introduced to speak at the Massachusetts Conference for Women in Boston, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

This item is making the rounds throughout social media.

To wit:

In the most outlandish version of this story, President Obama or Hillary Clinton ordered the military to “stand down” rather than come to the aid of the Americans who were under attack.

Earlier this week, a letter from two House Democrats to Rep. Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican who is chairing the select committee investigating the Benghazi attack, revealed that the GOP’s own chief investigator acknowledged during the investigation that nothing “could have been done differently to affect the outcome in Benghazi.”

…In an interview on Fox News today, Gowdy responded to this newly released information by acknowledging, “Whether or not they could have gotten there in time, I don’t think there is any issue with respect to that — they couldn’t.”

Chairman Gowdy, thus, has acknowledged that the four brave Americans who died in the firefight at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, were doomed from the start.

Terrorists attacked the compound. They set it afire. They exchanged fire with security personnel. Four individuals — including Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, died.

Ever since that tragic event, congressional Republicans have sought to deliver the goods on then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. They’ve accused her of lying, of covering up the events.

Her response to many of these allegations has been at times clumsy and inarticulate. There have been confusing answers regarding a video that allegedly sparked the riot at the consulate.

This entire tragedy has taken on a life of its own.

The central question, though, has been whether U.S. officials did enough to stave off the deaths of those who were killed.

Chairman Gowdy now seems to have answered that question.

They did all they could do.

 

International news, national news, political news

Benghazi boss reveals his political preference

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Trey Gowdy has endorsed Marco Rubio for president of the United States.

Not a big deal, you say?

It might be. Here’s why …

Gowdy is chairman of the House Select Benghazi Committee. He keeps saying he isn’t driven by political motives, seeking to harm former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s quest to become the next president. Clinton, of course, ran the State Department when the terrorists stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012.

But wait. Rubio is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Gowdy’s also a Republican. Clinton is a Democrat.

Is Gowdy motivated by politics? Democrats are asking that question in the wake of Gowdy’s endorsement of his buddy Rubio.

I think it’s fair to ask why Gowdy chose to endorse a Republican candidate so early in the nominating process.

It’s also fair to wonder whether the chairman has developed a political tin ear to how this kind of endorsement might look to those who have been wondering all along whether the Benghazi hearings were tainted by more than just a touch with politics.

All those congressional hearings and the many hours of testimony have failed to prove a coverup by Clinton, as has been alleged by Republicans … including, by the way, Sen. Marco Rubio, Chairman Gowdy’s preferred choice for president of the United States.

Politics? Nahhh …

 

national news, political news

Clinton was up, down, now she’s way up

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Hillary Clinton’s roller-coaster ride to the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination has taken an important turn.

The once-invincible Democratic front runner got scuffed up, battered and a bit bruised over all the chatter leading up to the House Benghazi committee hearing this week.

Then came some good news for the Clinton camp: Vice President Joe Biden decided he wouldn’t run for president in 2016; then the Republican-led Benghazi panel came apart at the seams as it sought to tar and feather the former secretary of state over her role in the tragic events that transpired at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

It’s pretty accurate to say that the Benghazi panelists didn’t land a single telling punch on Clinton.

As I wrote in an earlier blog post, Clinton — to my eyes — looked like the only grownup in the congressional hearing room.

In the hour after the hearing adjourned, Clinton’s campaign set some kind of fundraising record. Money began pouring in.

Even pundits who tilt Republican, such as former GOP U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough, said the hearing was a bad day for the GOP and for Benghazi committee chairman Trey Gowdy.

I am thinking at this moment that Hillary Clinton is officially back on track to claiming the Democrats’ presidential nomination.

At this moment …

Tomorrow, of course, is another day.

 

national news, political news

Gowdy to GOP colleagues: ‘Shut up’ about Benghazi

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I love the comment from House Select Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy to his Republican colleagues.

“Shut up” about things about which you know nothing, says the South Carolina Republican.

They know nothing? Or do they know, um, too much?

Hillary Clinton is going to testify this week before the House panel about the fire fight in September 2012 at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Four brave Americans died in the melee, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

Republicans have been trying like the dickens for more than three years to find enough dirt on Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, to pin something on her. They’ve accused her of covering something up.

They’ve come up empty … so far.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy then popped off about the reason the committee was formed, noting that Clinton’s poll numbers have plunged since the panel began its work; his comments seemed to most observers to suggest the motive for the committee being formed in the first place was to torpedo Clinton’s presidential campaign.

And then came Rep. Richard Hanna, another GOP colleague, to say the same thing that McCarthy said. D’oh! There’s another one: Bradley Podliska, a former GOP staffer — who worked for the Benghazi committee — also said the same thing. He doesn’t know, Mr. Chairman?

Clinton’s testimony could sink her campaign. It could lift it to new heights. As some folks have noted, the Benghazi hearings have gone on longer than the House Watergate hearings and the Warren Commission hearings looking into JFK’s assassination.

One of these days, hopefully before the presidential nominating conventions next year, the Benghazi panel will wrap this up, publish its findings and then we can move on.

 

 

national news, Uncategorized

Rep. Issa gets schooled by Benghazi chairman

Comeuppance at times can be the real pits.

Isn’t that right, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa?

The former chairman of the House Oversight Committee tried Tuesday to crash a closed-door hearing into — yes, that’s right — the Benghazi matter. You’ll recall that incident and the interminable congressional hearings that Issa, R-Calif., chaired when he led the Oversight Committee.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/16/rep-issa-visits-blumenthal-deposition-on-benghazi-escorted-out-by-rep-gowdy/

The Benghazi matter has been handed over to a House select committee, chaired by Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.

So, Issa showed up at the closed deposition being given by former Hillary Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal. Issa  entered the hearing room, but then was escorted quickly into the hallway by Gowdy.

Issa then stormed off. I guess he didn’t like being told he didn’t belong there.

Too bad, Darrell.

Gowdy’s committee, I must point out, is replowing ground that Issa’s committee already turned over. It’s still looking for something — anything — that will implicate former Secretary of State Clinton in the Benghazi matter, the firefight at the U.S. consulate on Sept. 11, 2012 that left four Americans dead, including he U.S. ambassador to Libya.

To be candid, I believe the select panel will come up just as empty as the Oversight Committee did. That means Clinton’s presidential campaign will proceed.

I have to chuckle a bit, though, at the spectacle of Issa — who at times conducted his Oversight hearings on  Benghazi with an extra-heavy hand — getting some of what he dished while he was embarking on his own congressional fishing expedition.