House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., slammed Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Tuesday for doing the country a “disservice” in portraying President Trump as a “target” of the special counsel’s Russia investigation yet conceded that the FBI’s use of an informant falls short of what the president has described as “Spygate.”
[Adam Schiff: Trump knows it’s ‘patently untrue’ there was spy on campaign]
“It was President Trump himself who said, No. 1, ‘I didn’t collude with Russia but if anyone connected with my campaign did, I want the FBI to find that out,'” Gowdy said during an interview with Fox News.
“It looks to me like the FBI was doing what President Trump said. He is not the target. So, when Schiff and others don’t make that clear, they are doing a disservice to our fellow citizens,” he continued, referring to the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
Gowdy’s comments come days after meeting with Justice Department and FBI officials on Capitol Hill about the alleged informant interacting with Trump’s 2016 campaign and echoes statements from Democrats that there has been no evidence of an illegal spying effort waged against the campaign.
In recent days, Trump and his allies – specifically his lawyer in the Russia probe, Rudy Giuliani – have said the FBI’s informant delegitimizes the special counsel’s investigation.
Gowdy additionally predicted Tuesday night that Trump would not encounter any problems with various probes looking into potential ties between his campaign and the Kremlin, but he could become a target if statements witnesses provide to the special counsel’s team provide new incriminating evidence.
“He is going to be glad that we have an FBI that took seriously what they heard. He was never the target. Russia is the target,” he added.
Gowdy has repeatedly called for Trump to sit down with Mueller in a voluntary interview, which he repeated in Tuesday’s interview.
The special counsel is investigating whether the Trump campaign collaborated with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign and if any obstruction of justice took place.
