On Tuesday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) appeared on Fox News’ “The Story” with Martha MacCallum. During his segment, MacCallum asked Gowdy why the FBI didn’t brief then-candidate Trump regarding any alleged informants around the campaign:
MACCALLUM: You were one of those who saw some of the background documents related to this issue of whether or not there was a “spy” or an informant in the campaign late last week. Anything that you can share on a broad scale about what went down there?
GOWDY: I think there are two things important to understand. Number one – the source of President Trump’s frustrations. Brennan said he should be “in the dustbin of history”; Comey said impeachment’s too good of a remedy; Clapper doesn’t like him; Loretta Lynch said, call it a matter, not an investigation; Schiff said he had evidence of collusion before we even began the investigation; and 60 Democrats have voted to impeach him before Bob Mueller has come up with a single solitary finding. That’s what’s got him frustrated.
What should have him heartened is the fact that Chris Wray, Rod Rosenstein, and all the senior folks at DOJ now were all Trump appointees. So here’s what’s fair to ask. What did the FBI do? When did they do it? What was the factual predicate upon which they took whatever actions they took? And against whom where they directed?
But remember, Martha, it was President Trump himself who said, number one, I didn’t collude with Russia, but if anyone connected with my campaign did, I want the FBI to find that out. It looks to me like the FBI was doing what President Trump said I want you to do – find it out. He’s not the target.
So when Schiff and others don’t make that clear, they’re doing a disservice to our fellow citizens. He’s not the target.
MACCALLUM: But this raises the question that the president raised in one of those tweets – there were a lot of them – which we talked about quite a bit here last week is, if that were the case, why didn’t they give him a little briefing? So here’s what we found out. We do have somebody who asked some questions of George Papadopoulos; we do have somebody who’s asked questions of Carter Page. Here’s what you need to know.
GOWDY: I think defensive briefings are done a lot, and why the Comey FBI didn’t do it, I don’t know, but Chris Wray and Rod Rosenstein have at least made it clear to us [that] Donald Trump was never the target of the investigation; he’s not the current target of the investigation. Now, keep in mind, that can all change depending on what a witness says, but as of now, I think Chris Wray and Rod Rosenstein are stunned whenever people think that Trump is the target of the investigation. I’ll leave it up to them how to brief the president, or how to brief his lawyers.
MACCALLUM: Was that point of view that you’re talking about right now, was that strengthened when you went into this briefing last week?
GOWDY: Yes, 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.