Trey Gowdy Defends the FBI Against Trump’s “Spy” Comments

Trey Gowdy, the Senator from South Carolina who can always be counted on for some common sense in the political soap opera that is Washington, defended the FBI against Trump’s accusations of “spying” this week.

In an interview with CBS’ ‘This Morning’ on Wednesday, Gowdy said he saw no evidence there had been any wrongdoing on the part of the FBI and that Trump’s language was misleading.

“I don’t know what the FBI could have done or should have done other than run out a lead that someone loosely connected with the campaign was making assertions about Russia,” said Gowdy, who is the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“I think you would want the FBI to find whether or not there was any validity to what those people were saying,” he explained.

“Think back to what the president himself told [former FBI Director] James Comey,” Gowdy continued. “He said, ‘I didn’t collude with Russia, but if anyone connected with my campaign did, I want you to investigate it.’ It strikes me that that’s exactly what the FBI was doing.”

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When asked about Trump’s claim that a “spy” was placed in the Trump campaign, Gowdy said that was not the proper terminology for what the FBI had done.

“That is not a term I’ve ever used in the criminal justice system,” he explained. “I’ve never heard the term ‘spy’ used. Undercover informant, confidential informant, those are all words I’m familiar with. I’ve never heard the term spy used.”

“That’s an espionage term, it’s not a law enforcement term,” he added.

Gowdy, The Hill notes, is a former federal prosecutor and went on to defend the use of informants by law enforcement agencies, noting he couldn’t think of a major case he’d been involved with that hadn’t relied on confidential sources.

Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, also defended the use of informants by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, saying he couldn’t think of a major case he’d been involved in where confidential sources had not provided information. He emphasized it was up to law enforcement to decide what to do with that information.