Trey Gowdy to Donald Trump: If You’re Really Innocent, “Act Like It”

Senator Trey Gowdy (R-SC), previously best known for being such a hectoring conspiratorial nuisance at the Benghazi hearings that he actually pulled off the difficult feat of making Hillary Clinton look competent in a public appearance, and also for mysteriously announcing his retirement this past February, has decided on his next act: Calling out Donald Trump on TV.

In an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Gowdy took issue with Trump’s recent attacks on Robert Mueller and his collusion investigation. Per Politico:

“When you are innocent … act like it,” Gowdy said…when asked about Trump’s repeated Twitter attacks on Mueller, whose probe has become increasingly perilous to the president and his inner circle. “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you should want the investigation to be as fulsome and thorough as possible.”

He had the same piece of advice for Trump’s attorney, John Dowd: “”If you have an innocent client, Mr. Dowd, act like it.”

Trump’s weekend Twitter salvos against Mueller likely stem from the special counsel’s recent subpoena of Trump Organization records, and perhaps the same can be said for his lawyer’s public statements that the whole investigation should be shuttered.

Gowdy is right, of course, but he’s a highly dubious source, especially because he’s also on the House Intelligence Committee that concluded there was no collusion after interviewing exactly zero of the major players, and then completely overreached by making the ludicrous and easily disprovable claim that Russia may not even have been trying to help Trump in their election sabotage campaign. He also wouldn’t comment on the firing of deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe two days before he qualified for his pension (in an act of pettiness that looks remarkable even by Trump standards), so there are apparently hard limits to his newfound courage.

In other words, Gowdy is the proverbial broken clock. He may be “right,” in this instance, but his constant wrongness in almost all other major areas of policy and governing, throughout his career, has destroyed his credibility. Still, if he wants to lob bombs at the president on his way out the door, who are we to stop him?

You can watch Gowdy’s full interview with Chris Wallace below: