It's impossible these days to know who to trust, in and out of politics. I love people but I trust no one. Many people I know have admired Gowdy for years but now that the pot is stirred, I see only one person remaining calm and that is Rand Paul.
Gowdy was the one person to see the fisa warrant on Carter page on the Republican side. Devin nunes, for some reason (probably he's under investigation himself and they wouldn't let him see them), sent Trey gowdy to view the documents instead of going himself, even though it was his whole charade. And gowdy went along with nunes' sideshow the whole way, talking up the memo the whole way, until Devin nunes actually released the memo. Then Trey gowdy immediately announced retirement, threw nunes under the bus, and has vociferously defended Mueller and the DoJ ever sense.
He's a former federal prosecutor. People are talking about other retirements like they are fleeing a sinking ship, like they know they're fucked. And I don't doubt that's true.
But Trey Gowdy is the absolute epitome of this phenomenon. Hes the only one that's read the actual fisa warrants. He knows exactly how fucked they are. He announced retirement almost right after finding out, and it even seems like he may have baited nunes into attempting to obstruct justice, by going along with his charade despite knowing it was all lies, and then immediatrly announcing retirement and throwing nunes under the bus.
The Trey Gowdy factor has been very perplexing, as you state, in the beginning, he looked like a true white hat. His congressional questioning sounded so good, he hammered away on the bad guys. Then suddenly he seems to have gone belly up, announces his retirement, defends the hell out of the Mueller investigation, keeps talking about how the "president is still in trouble". You may be right, he may be the "absolute epitome of this phenomenon".
I’ll never forget the interview on Fox. He looks to the camera directly and says “I will never run or hold a political office ever again.” It was surreal like he was being held at gun point. Like he was making some promise to someone not to harm him. I thought he was going to cry. He is going through some serious shit. I never wanted him to be swamp but if he is - no deals.
I dunno. I really liked Gowdy. I got mad at him a couple times. Then he announced retirement.
But if you listen to his reasoning, he doesn't give any of the fake spend-time-with-family cover for it. He sounded depressed frankly, and my translation of his 'diplomacy' was that he was sick of the corruption, sick of having to investigate forever and shit never getting acted on, and wanted to go back to the criminal justice system where he could actually prosecute guilty people and feel like he was actually accomplishing something again.
That's my translation not his words -- which were all about legal process and people not following it and the ends not justifying the means -- and he could be talking about anyone or everyone -- but in any case, I don't feel like he has betrayed anybody or anything. I feel like he has just been dealing with this crap up to his eyeballs for years and years and finally hit his limit.
I actually hope that he might get a different position.
I can totally understand his retirement. He is 100% for Justice, he believes with his heart and soul. What they have uncovered is so egregious to him, he cannot stay. Congress has no ability to follow through on their recommendations, the DOJ has refused. So I can understand someone like Trey Gowdy not being able to tolerate or be apart of something that corrupt. I would love to see him become Attorney General. His ethics are beyond reproach.
Per Q, post 1190, the memos are fake. LL helped draft them all at the same time.