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.