Trey Gowdy is bringing his crack investigating skills, honed by years of failing to produce any new information on Benghazi, to the chair of the House Oversight Committee. Or he will if the full Republican conference approves the recommendation of the Republican Steering Committee, anyway.
House GOP leaders encouraged Gowdy to run upon learning of Chaffetz’s looming departure. He is a close ally of Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on a panel comprised of unpredictable Freedom Caucus conservatives with rocky relationships with leadership.
Is that “unpredictable” as in “might decide Trump isn’t extremist enough and investigate him for something”? Anyway, we know Gowdy will be all reliable and leak to the right reporters and do the right things to create just enough appearance of independence for people who only care about appearances.
It is unclear which direction Gowdy will take his part of the Trump-Comey investigation, which has quickly become one of the most contentious political scandals in modern American history. While the House and Senate intelligence committees have jurisdiction over Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election, questions of obstruction and how Trump may have tried to influence the probe fall more into Oversight’s purview, at least in the House.
Ha. Yeah. That’s one of the ways his predictability and ties to Paul Ryan factor in. He’ll take that investigation whichever way will make it look like he’s doing something while doing the most possible to bury it.
For his part, Gowdy demonstrated his status as a Very Serious Person by releasing a statement defining the jurisdiction of the Oversight Committee. Scintillating stuff that reveals exactly nothing about what he’ll actually do with the chair.