Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., broke with President Trump on Sunday, saying he does not believe the official investigation of possible campaign collusion with Russia is a “witch hunt.”
“I don’t think it’s a witch hunt. I have never thought it was a witch hunt,” said Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“We now have two series of indictments against Russians, one for social media the other for the unlawful intrusions. Russia attacked this country in 2016,” the South Carolina Republican said.
Gowdy, who is retiring at the end of his term, said that he was concerned with “what did Russia do? And that’s not a witch hunt. That’s an attack on our country.”
Earlier in the day, CBS broadcast an interview with Trump ahead of his Monday meeting in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump used the term “witch hunt” to describe the investigation into his campaign.
“I think we’re greatly hampered by this whole witch hunt that’s going on in the United States — the Russian witch hunt, the rigged situation,” Trump said.
Gowdy offered advice for Trump ahead of his meeting with Putin, focusing on extradition of Russian citizens accused of illegal social media advocacy during the campaign and 12 Russian officials indicted last week for allegedly hacking Democratic emails.
“I would ask the president to give some serious consideration. Your first request of Vladimir Putin needs to [be], ‘Tell us which airport we can pick up the 25 Russians that tried to interfere with the fundamentals of our democracy. If you really claim you had nothing to do with it, then you should be as shocked as we were that your military was being used to impact our election. Tell us where you’re going to extradite those folks, because an American grand jury indicted them for undermining our democracy,” Gowdy said.
Trump told CBS he “might” ask Putin to send indicted Russians to the U.S. for trial but that “I hadn’t thought about that.”
