Gowdy Goes Off The Reservation

“When you are innocent — act like it.”

Is Trump just a cynical serial liar? Or is he something even worse?

Let’s be clear. Trey Gowdy is no friend of Democrats and progressives. And he looks kinda like the infamous “Bat Boy” of tabloid fame.

But lately he’s been an unlikely hero for the truth.

Very unlikely.

A deeply conservative House member from South Carolina, it was Gowdy who chaired the committee that spent over two and a half years and $7.8 million investigating Hillary Clinton’s role in the 2012 Benghazi embassy attack. And he barely put up any honest, objective resistance while House Intelligence Committee Chairman (and traitorous weasel) Devin Nunes turned that formerly bipartisan body’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election into a Republican whitewash of Donald Trump’s role in that affair.

But in recent days, Gowdy, who served as a federal prosecutor before he became a politician, is taking positions that few Republicans have dared to take. Of course, Gowdy is not seeking re-election to Congress, so like GOP Senator Jeff Flake and a precious few others, he no longer has to sacrifice every ounce of his integrity to satisfy the prejudices of the rabid Trump/GOP base.

Thus, unlike the vast majority of Republicans who are in the thrall of Trumpism, Gowdy is free to speak the truth.

Having been given access to classified info during the controversial May 24 meeting between GOP Congressmen and members of the Justice Department regarding an anonymous FBI informant who contacted certain members of the Trump campaign in 2016, Gowdy told FOX News that “I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.” 

Trump has been using his bully pulpit – with an accent on the word “bully” – to make wild claims that President Obama ordered the FBI to spy on his campaign. But in the days after that May 24 meeting, Congressman Gowdy has been busy throwing cold water on Trump’s spurious “Spygate” claims.

Undeterred by the facts, as usual, Trump insisted during a rally in Nashville last night that his campaign had been “infiltrated” by the FBI under Obama – as his Trumpist minions in the audience booed lustily.

But Gowdy has stated that the FBI is only following Trump’s own orders by investigating his campaign’s ties to Russia. “President Trump himself in the Comey memos said, ‘If anyone connected with my campaign was working with Russia, I want you to investigate it.’ Sounds to me like that was exactly what the FBI did.”

Gowdy’s refutation of Trump’s “Spygate” bullshit hasn’t stopped the Mango Mussolini from continuing his Goebbels-like assault on the truth. He and his bug-eyed TV lawyer Rudy Giuliani have doubled down on their “Spygate” lies – and aren’t likely to stop.

So, what are we to make of Trump as this point? Even when a loyal member of his own party goes on FOX News to tell the truth – Trump clings to (and amplifies) his disproven lies.

Is Trump just a cynical serial liar? Or is he something even worse: a delusional despot for whom the truth is whatever he wants to believe? Whatever works for him.

Either way, Trump is a clear and present danger to our democracy.

We need many more Republicans to have moments of honesty like Trey Gowdy, who has also said of Trump’s anti-Mueller antics, “When you are innocent — act like it.” 

We need more bipartisan candor in both houses of Congress – and a big turnout for Democrats in the upcoming midterms!

And, by the way, Kim Kardashian made a visit to the White House today. We’re told she was there to discuss prison reform with Trump.

Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel any better.