Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina is retiring. After years of flushing millions in taxpayer dollars down the drain on his Benghazi escapade, #memogate appears to have proved too much for the man. Rather than speak the truth about a crackpot document he was complicit in helping to create, Gowdy's leaving while he can expand his horizons and presumably still look himself in the mirror. In other words, just like his former colleague Jason Chaffetz, he's getting out while the gettin's good.
Gowdy—the only GOP member of the House Intelligence panel to actually view the classified materials the secret memo was based on—reportedly pressed House Intel chair Devin Nunes to let FBI Director Christopher Wray see it. Nunes acquiesced, Wray's fears were not allayed by the viewing, and Nunes proceeded with his Committee vote to release it anyway. Wray then joined Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in a futile effort to convince House Speaker Paul Ryan and finally White House Chief of Staff John Kelly that releasing the memo would both misrepresent the facts and undermine national security. Both efforts appear to have fallen on the deaf ears of two gutless GOP leaders in a position to make a difference.
But more to the point, Gowdy on the one hand and Ryan and Kelly on the other represent the two choices Republicans in Washington have concluded they are confined to: Do Trump's bidding or leave Washington. The closer GOP lawmakers are to the federal justice and national security apparatus or anything related to congressional oversight of the executive, the more they face the stress test of that ultimatum.
The third option of speaking the truth—one which actually requires the fortitude of true self-sacrifice in pursuit of a greater good—clearly isn't a risk any of these Republicans are willing to take. Even the Bob Corkers and Jeff Flakes of the GOP have fallen silent in the face of multiple reports that last year Trump pursued the dismissal of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. At present, they say, they see no urgency in protecting the special counsel from Trump. Apparently they are content to publicly air an occasional grievance without taking any concrete steps whatsoever to put the force of their words into action. The jackpots at the end of their congressional rainbow are just too tantalizing to forfeit for a truly patriotic act that might help save the republic.
And then there's Paul Ryan, who not only sided with Nunes over pleas from top FBI and Justice Department officials, he went the extra mile Tuesday and stoked the conservative appetite for the memo by pondering the possibility of "malfeasance at the FBI."
“I think disclosure is the way to go. It's the best disinfectant. And I think we need to disclose, that brings us accountability, that brings us transparency, that helps us clean up any problem we have with (the Justice Department) and FBI."
On Wednesday, Kelly also plugged transparency during a Fox News Radio interview in which he hailed Trump's embrace of it, apparently disregarding the fact that his boss is a serial liar.
“This president, again, it's so unique, Brian, that he wants everything out so the American people can make up their own minds and if there's people to be held accountable, then so be it," he said.
“Everything” except any incriminating information about his own ties to Russia or even just the Democratic response to the sham Nunes memo.
In any case, the speaker of the House ignoring the warnings of the nation's top law enforcement officials is unprecedented, but Kelly—a former Marine general—dismissing them, is unconscionable. He made a career out of protecting the country from foreign adversaries and now he's happily forfeiting our national security in pursuit of undermining the very people who are trying to protect it. Talk about throwing your reputation in the shitter.
Wray finally decided on Wednesday that he had no choice but to make his opposition to releasing the Nunes memo public.
Now here’s the question: Will any—and we really do mean any—Republicans step up to run interference now that the FBI director has publicly objected to releasing the Nunes memo? Or will they all just continue opting for one or the other of the Gowdy-Ryan Faustian bargains?