Fox News anchor Sean Hannity ripped into House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., for casting doubt on President Trump’s claims an FBI “spy” may have been embedded in his 2016 campaign for political purposes.
“Gowdy apparently doesn’t get it. He’s actually defending the FBI’s use of spies in its overall investigation into Russian collusion,” Hannity said during the opening of his show Wednesday evening.
“This phony narrative. And frankly, I’ve always liked Trey Gowdy. Shame on Trey Gowdy,” Hannity continued later in the program.
On May 20, Trump demanded that the Justice Department investigate whether the U.S. government infiltrated his campaign for political reasons following reports a Cambridge University professor acting as an FBI source sought meetings with campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, and campaign co-chair Sam Clovis.
But Gowdy gave a number of interviews on Tuesday and Wednesday this week in which he said the FBI had an “obligation” to chase leads on possible foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“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 told Fox News on Tuesday.
Gowdy has been closely involved in congressional inquiries for more information regarding the informant and what prompted the federal Russia investigation, amid a wider look at potential wrongdoing in the Justice Department and the FBI’s handling of the matter.
Meanwhile, congressional Democrats thanked Gowdy for his comments defending the FBI.
“I’m grateful that Congressman Gowdy, a Republican of South Carolina, stepped forward and made this important statement,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., told CNN Wednesday. “In this matter, I think he’s stepping forward and putting to rest the baseless allegations by President Trump.”
