The FBI had an “obligation” to chase leads on possible foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election said Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., casting aside concerns expressed by President Trump that a “spy” was scoping out his aides for political purposes.
In interviews Tuesday and Wednesday, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee who attended a classified briefing with officials from the Justice Department and the FBI last week on the FBI informant, offered the clearest and most authoritative indication yet from the Republican side on what they gleaned.
“I am even more convinced 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 said Tuesday evening on Fox News.
When asked about Trump’s tweets on the topic, in which he has suggested reports of an informant meeting with at least aides from his campaign could be “bigger than Watergate!”, Gowdy suggested that the president could be giving special counsel Robert Mueller a reason to ask about them.
“If I were his lawyer, and I never will be, I would tell him to rely on his lawyers and his comms folks,” Gowdy told Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum.
Gowdy also noted that Trump himself originally stated he wanted the FBI to find out if anyone in his campaign colluded with Russia.
Gowdy has been closely involved in the search for information about the informant and the genesis of the federal Russia inquiry, amid a wider look at potential wrongdoing at the DOJ and FBI. The briefings with a bipartisan group of lawmakers last week came after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., demanded documents about the source. Afterward, Republicans who were briefed were largely mum on what they learned, though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. did concede last week that there was “nothing particularly surprising.”
Democrats, led by House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said after the meetings that they were shown “no evidence” of a spy in the Trump campaign. Trump and his allies allege that a “spy” — which by definition is different than a confidential source.
[Related: Media insist: FBI’s source on Trump was an ‘informant,’ not a ‘spy’]
Several news outlets have identified the FBI’s source as Stefan Halper, a former University of Cambridge professor. Previously, law enforcement officials warned it would not reveal who the source because doing so could put national security and lives at risk.
Though Trump again brought up “spygate” again during a rally in Nashville, Tenn., Tuesday evening, exclaiming to boos “they had people infiltrating our campaign,” Gowdy told “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday that the FBI was just doing its job.
“When the FBI comes into contact with information of about what a foreign government may be doing in our election cycle, I think they have an obligation to run in out,” he said. “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.”
Asked why Trump insists to complain about a spy in his campaign, Gowdy also noted that he has never spoke to or met with the president. “I don’t know. I’ve never met or talked to the president,” he said.
