How this man is reshaping the 2016 presidential election

As the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, his investigation is altering the public’s perception of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state just as voters prepare to cast their ballots in next year’s primaries. The House formed Gowdy’s committee in 2014 to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The revelation of Clinton’s exclusive use of a personal email address and private server(s) as secretary of state originated from Gowdy’s investigation. Now the FBI and inspectors general of multiple executive branch agencies have launched their own inquiries.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Gowdy eschewed recognition for anything other than his own investigation.

“What I will take credit for is we did something none of these other exhaustive congressional investigations were able to do, which is uncover this unique email arrangement,” Gowdy said. “But think for a second how sad that is. Seven congressional investigations into Benghazi and not a one of them bothered to ask for her emails? I mean, how pathetic is that?”

Gowdy said he thinks his committee’s members and staff have the motivation necessary to uncover what happened before and after the Benghazi attack, while others failed to pursue the facts.

“I think the reason that we succeeded where others did not is frankly because we gave a damn,” Gowdy said. “I don’t keep a picture of Reince Priebus or Hillary Clinton on my desk to motivate me for Benghazi. I put pictures of the four people who were killed. I mean that’s why I’m doing it.”

The Clinton campaign and the Republican National Committee, of which Priebus is chairman, declined to comment for this story. However, allies of both groups have not been quite so shy.

House Speaker John Boehner has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Benghazi Committee. Boehner decided to formulate Gowdy’s group after watching other investigatory committees fail to get results.

When House Republicans voted unanimously to create the committee with the support of seven Democratic members, Boehner took the unusual step of casting a ballot in favor of forming the committee, too. He chose Gowdy to lead the committee, and has since functioned as the committee’s chief defender.

“The speaker gave Chairman Gowdy one charge, and that was a fact-based investigation into what happened before, during and after the terrorist attack in Benghazi,” Boehner’s spokesman Kevin Smith wrote in an email. “Chairman Gowdy and his members have done that, and the speaker is confident they will produce the final, most complete accounting of facts regarding this tragedy.”

Gowdy’s skills as a prosecutor will be on full display when Clinton comes before his committee in October. He said he has no interest in 2016 presidential politics, but would love to help shape a Republican administration come 2017.

His home state of South Carolina is filled with politicians who could appear on a Republican ticket in November 2016, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott. But Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor in the Palmetto State and 7th circuit solicitor, has no intention of allowing Clinton’s hearing to be an audition for a job in a Republican administration.

Asked how he would respond if a Republican president asked him to be attorney general, Gowdy answered, “I would advise my close friends to move to New Zealand.”

“First of all I would love it for folks on my side to be picking the next AG. I would hope they would come to me and say, ‘Won’t you give me a list of five names of folks that you really respect that will treat this job in the apolitical way in which it should be treated?’ I’d love to provide those names, but my name would not be the one I provide. They can do better than me. And they should do better than me.”

Gowdy said the names on his shortlist include New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, and Reps. Pat Meehan and Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, and Susan Brooks of Indiana. Ayotte has served as New Hampshire’s attorney general, while the three congressmen have backgrounds as U.S. attorneys. Gowdy said he would go directly to Ayotte for the attorney general spot if he were “king for a day,” as he said he wants someone with the courage to challenge his or her bosses.

Gowdy appears prepared to do just that and thinks the result of the Benghazi Committee’s investigation may anger folks on both sides. He shared the guidance he sent to his staff from the onset of their investigation:

“The job is to find all the facts and then follow wherever they go. And that may disappoint people on the right and that may disappoint people on the left. And it may be at the end of your investigation everybody’s mad at you. But if you can look in the mirror and know that all you did was pursue facts and follow them, then you will have done what we were asked to do.”

Republican strategists hope his committee’s cross-examination of Clinton will produce a moment that helps define Clinton’s campaign.

“Depending on what Trey Gowdy and company do when she appears in October, one thing that might be a powerful image here is a spectacle of her becoming a witness in a House hearing,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell, a veteran of the 2008 McCain-Palin presidential campaign. “And that will continue to likely cast a cloud over her campaign and as such you will continue to hear [Vice President Joe] Biden chatter.”

Liz Mair, a Republican strategist who has advised major GOP presidential candidates including Carly Fiorina and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, said she believes Clinton’s comments on her server and private emails have changed the dynamic of the 2016 race more than the committee’s investigation.

“Had [the Benghazi Committee] not undertaken the actions they have, this probably wouldn’t be a storyline and a challenge for her to deal with,” Mair wrote in an email. “I would argue that she and her campaign are the biggest factors that explain why this has become a huge problem for her, but credit goes to folks who started the ball rolling down the hill.”

If House Republicans obtain more hidden emails, the problem could continue to snowball.

Gowdy’s committee may fail to provide a full account of the knowable facts surrounding the terrorist attack in Benghazi without access to Clinton’s hidden emails. Gowdy said he would not subpoena the FBI for Clinton’s devices, but also indicated that there is another way Republicans could end up examining Clinton’s server.

“The committee on Benghazi only has subpoena power for people and documents. We don’t have subpoena power for items,” Gowdy said. “The House as a whole may have the power to subpoena things, although that’s an open legal question; but the real investigations in life are done by the executive branch. They’re not done by the legislative branch.”

Would House Republicans support subpoenaing Clinton’s server? It’s a topic that could come up as Congress returns from its August recess. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has had an interest in the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack that predates the Benghazi Committee’s formulation in the summer of 2014. Asked whether he thought the House should consider subpoenaing Clinton’s server, Chaffetz’s office declined to comment. Boehner’s office likewise did not answer the question.

Such a subpoena, without a mechanism to enforce the House’s order, could serve only to stir criticism from Clinton surrogates who have already labeled the Benghazi Committee’s investigation a “witch hunt.” Gowdy has heard it all, and said he intends to wrap up his investigation before 2015 ends to avoid interfering with presidential politics next year.

“I would just remind folks that we’ve had several public hearings to date [and] her name has not been mentioned a single time; hasn’t crossed my lips.” Gowdy said. “Congress is not popular; I get that it’s a lot easier to blame us than it is to engage in some self-reflection and determine whether or not possibly you’re the master and creator of your own destiny. Maybe she’s wherever she is because of her own decisions and not because of a congressional committee that frankly up until March of 2015 very few people were paying attention to.”

Multiple top Obama administration officials and Clinton aides have scheduled appearances before the committee leading up to Clinton’s rendezvous with Gowdy near the end of October.

This article appears in the Sept. 8 edition of the Washington Examiner magazine.