Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi debacle isn't over, not by a long shot. The Benghazi Committee staffer who publicly accused Gowdy and his cronies of targeting Hillary Clinton for partisan reasons has now filed a wrongful termination and defamation lawsuit against Gowdy. Rachael Bade reports:
Air Force Reserve Maj. Brad Podliska in his court filing alleged he was fired from his post in June because he took leave for active duty. He also says he was singled out because he refused to focus his investigative work on Clinton and the State Department. [...]
The panel says he was fired for misbehavior and mishandling classified information, both of which Podliska denies.
But Gowdy appears to have gotten himself in a little trouble by publicly attacking his former employee's “lousy” performance as the reason for his ouster, which is where the defamation claim comes in.
In his suit, Podliska alleges that Gowdy’s accusation that he mishandled sensitive material has damaged his reputation. And he says that the information he received was from “publicly available sources from the Internet."
“Chairman Gowdy, personally and through his agents, tied these defamatory statements to Podliska’s firing to damage Podliska’s reputation and his ability to seek or secure employment in his chosen field, depriving Podliska of his rights under the Constitution,” the filing says.
Well, this should be fun. What once looked like it might just be a staff-level consideration has been taken straight to the top, and Gowdy has no one to blame but himself.