Trey Gowdy: FBI Was Only Following Trump's Order

Pushback came Tuesday on Fox News
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted May 30, 2018 8:03 AM CDT
GOP Rep: FBI Was Only Following Trump's Order
In this Dec. 7, 2017 file photo, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., speaks during a House Judiciary hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.   (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

If his TV was tuned to Fox News on Tuesday, President Trump surely didn't like what he heard. Rep. Trey Gowdy, a Trump ally and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, appeared on the network to poke holes in Trump's claim that the FBI planted a spy in his 2016 campaign. According to memos from James Comey, "President Trump himself … said, 'If anyone connected with my campaign was working with Russia, I want you to investigate it,' and it sounds to me like that is exactly what the FBI did," Gowdy said, referring to reports that FBI informant Stefan Halper reached out to Trump advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page before the 2016 election. Gowdy added that a Justice Department briefing last week convinced him the move had "nothing to do" with Trump.

What Politico calls Gowdy's "significant pushback against the president" then received backing from another Trump supporter, Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano. "There is no evidence" to support Trump's claims that a spy infiltrated his campaign in order to pass information to the Obama administration and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, and "I'd want to see evidence before I made an allegation that outrageous," he said, before describing Halper's actions as "standard operating procedure in intelligence gathering and in criminal investigations." Despite anchor Shepard Smith later saying much the same, Trump stuck to his "Spygate" theory at a Tuesday rally in Nashville, asking the crowd, "How do you like the fact they had people infiltrating our campaign?" per the Post. (More President Trump stories.)

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