Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs, said Sunday he wants the two FBI officials whose anti-Trump text messages were revealed to testify before lawmakers. He also dropped some hints about what's in the secret FISA memo.
To start, Gowdy commented on the FBI officials' messages that showed they “hated” then-candidate Donald Trump. He wants answers as to whether their positions were powerful enough to have actually affected the election.
“I can’t prove that they were the final decision makers,” Gowdy told “Fox News Sunday.” “But I don’t have to. Two really important people hated (Trump); would have done anything to protect” Hillary Clinton.
Noting that Peter Strzok interviewed the former secretary of state about her use of a private email server and took out language about her being “grossly negligent” from the final FBI report on the investigation, Gowdy wondered how much influence he had.
“Did they have the power to protect her?” he asked. “The decision not to charge (Clinton) was made even before they interviewed her. How would you like that deal?”
Gowdy did not speculate about whether there was actually an FBI “secret society” as one text revealed, or if it was a joke.
“Republicans are better served by letting the texts speak for themselves,” he said. “These witnesses need to come in and tell us what they meant by it.”
As for the secret memo on government surveillance abuses, Gowdy said he wants it released and gave some clues at what the four-page document contains.
“If you think your viewers want to know whether or not the dossier was used in court proceedings, whether or not it was vetted before it was used, whether or not it’s ever been vetted. If you are interested in who paid for the dossier. If you’re interested in Christopher Steele’s relationship with Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, then, yes, you’ll want the memo to come out,” Gowdy explained.
“Do you want to know that the Democratic National Committee paid for material that was never vetted, that was included in a court proceeding?” he continued.
“Do you want to know whether or not the primary source in these court proceedings had a bias against one candidate? Do you want to know whether or not he said he’d do anything to keep that candidate from becoming president?”
Gowdy was supportive of the FBI and Department of Justice reviewing the memo before it's released, but said those agencies are aware of the information in it.
“There’s nothing in this memo the Department is not already aware of,” he said.