Trey Gowdy said President Trump should consider opening himself up to being indicted for obstruction of justice.
During a Fox News interview, the former Republican congressman and federal prosecutor argued that a trial and jury would be a more fair than a 14-month impeachment investigation helmed by House Democrats.
“I’d take my chances with 12 reasonable minded fellow citizens than I would the House Democrats,” he said.
“You can waive any right you have. You have the right to remain silent, but you can talk to the police if you want to,” Gowdy said. “You have a right to a jury trial, but you can plead guilty if you want to. I’ll bet the president has a right to say, go ahead, indict me. If you have enough — the Supreme Court’s never said that I can’t be indicted. This is DOJ. I’m the head of DOJ. I run the executive branch. If you have enough to indict me, go ahead and do it. At least you’ll have some clarity.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller delivered a statement on Wednesday and explained that he never considered charging a sitting president with a crime because of a Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion against it. Still, after laying out 10 instances of possible obstruction in his report, Mueller appeared to signal to Congress it would be up to them to take up the investigation when he said, “the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”
Gowdy said doing this would be treacherous for the president because Democrats long ago determined he was guilty. “What you’re going to have now, for the next 14 months, is an impeachment investigation by folks who have already made up their mind,” he said.
On this topic of evidentiary thresholds, Gowdy acknowledged that this case would be “above no evidence,” but determined “the jury is never going to convict him.”
“I don’t think there’s a prosecutable case for obstruction,” he said.
