Gowdy Sounds Off On Obama Administration’s Double Standard On Handling Gun Violence & Hillary’s E-Mail Arrangement Is A Smoking Gun

Chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) called into Kilmeade & Friends to talk about what he expects to hear from President Obama in his last State of the Union address, why he trusts FBI director James Comey to uncover truth behind Hilary Clinton’s use of a private server, the latest on the Benghazi committees investigation, which Gowdy explained is still ongoing behind closed doors, his thoughts on the left’s refusal to acknowledge Islamic inspired terror attacks and why he is supporting Marco Rubio for the GOP presidential nomination.

Listen here:

KILMEADE: If the Bloods or the Crips took someone out in the name of their gang we wouldn’t say ‘I’m sure they not really speaking for the Bloods or the Crips’ we would accept that. Why don’t we accept this and act on it?

GOWDY: Because there is an acknowledgement of failure. The shooter in Colorado at the Planned Parenthood clinic, how long did it take them to connect that to those of us who are prolife. It took how many years for him to acknowledge the shooting at Ft Hood was terrorism? And how long, frankly, did it take him to acknowledge the attacks in Benghazi were terrorist attacks instead of a protest that nobody saw spinning out of control. Politics dictates everything this administration does which is why, Brian, at the end people, particularly in the MSM, love to talk about what the President’s legacy is going to be. His legacy is that he won twice, but in the process he lost the house, he lost the senate, a majority of my fellow citizens think we are headed in the wrong direction and we are more divided than we have ever been. If he is looking for a legacy, that’s his legacy.

On Hillary Clinton’s email investigation…

GOWDY: I actually trust Jim Comey, whose the Director of the FBI, and I am not a trusting guy, I am not trusting of the government in general, but I think Comey is a straight arrow and if there is something to the national security or the potential criminality I trust the bureau will uncover it and we will all know about it.

GOWDY: I was hired by Bill Clinton. The thing I love about federal prosecutors and FBI agents is there is no discussion of politics. These are career law enforcement officers, and I’ll tell you this, they are all political appointees at DOJ, there are some, but a bulk of the folks who work there transcend administrations and if there is a good case presented for indictment or for prosecution by the FBI and that good case is turned down you and I and the rest of the world will know about it and then the ultimate jury will weigh in in November 2016.

GOWDY: Because we have talked for so long about this unusual email arrangement she has had with herself. We have a tendency to just gloss over the fact that for 2 years none of her emails were in the public domain, so whether it is classified or not classified, this transparent administration that wants everybody to know everything did nothing for 2 years for us to find out what happened at the state department. People want a smoking gun, I think her email arrangement is your smoking gun.

Benghazi Committee Interviewing General Petraeus and Leon Paneta behind closed doors

GOWDY: All of our interviews behind closed doors have been helpful. I mean, Petraeus himself has said it was a constructive interview. You won’t find a single one of the 66 witnesses we have interviewed that won’t tell you that they were treated respectfully and professionally. And we have learned information that no other committee in congress, that despite the ones that looked at it, has learned. I am committed that doing it behind closed doors, in private, is the right way to conduct a serious investigation. I am equally aware of the fact that if you don’t watch something happening, you don’t think it’s happening and the main stream media, the print media in particular, can talk about wanting fair investigations and bi-partisanship but they are not at all that happy that we are doing this behind closed doors. But you watched Secretary Clinton’s hearing and it’s a carnival, it’s a circus and the democrats act like petulant children. Nobody acts like that behind closed doors, they act like responsible, professional people which is why we do it that way.

KILMEADE: Elijah Cummings was turning around screaming at you guys for a while. He doesn’t do that behind closed doors?

GOWDY: Oh gosh no! He has never raised his voice. It is as different as night and day when there are no camera there. It is constructive, there is no time limit, you are not trying to rush through your 10 minute time limit, you get an hour on each side. Brian, frankly, Cheryl Mills, complimented how professional we were. There is no one in the world who is closer to Secretary Clinton than Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin and they were both complimentary of how they were treated. There are tough questions but you can ask tough questions in a fair and professional way and we are just not going to have another circus like we had with that public hearing. She wanted it in public, she had it in public but the rest of them are going to be in private because they are a lot more constructive.

KILMEADE: Huma Abedin is going to have thousands of her e-mails released, what could you possibly gain from that, potentially?


GOWDY: She was a really close advisor to the Secretary, obviously. We are supposed to already have her Libya related e-mails so if there are any that are connected to Libya and Benghazi and the State Department, in the words of my grandmother, ‘gonna have some splaining to do’.

KILMEADE: You endorsed Marco Rubio, you have a a lot of choices, 11 left, what about Rubio sold you Trey Gowdy that had you campaigning for him and are you concerned he is not leading in any of the states?

GOWDY: Brian, I want to say this, it’s a little bit unconventional but it is not my job to tell you or your listeners who to vote for, we have a participatory democracy and they have to investigate the candidates and issues for themselves. But I also get to do that. The issues that are important to me are national security, public safety and respect for the rule of law. Marco is really good on those issues, I have known him for 5 years so I have a personal relationship with him and I am envious and appreciative of his ability to communicate our message in a persuasive, aspirational way because I cannot. So I am envious of anyone who can do that and I think he is, I spent Sunday with him in South Carolina with my wife and think he is a prince of a person and that’s who we are going to vote for but you have to make up your own mind and your listeners have to make up their own mind.

KILMEADE: General Petraeus shocked many people when he referred tot the video, including a lot of our reporters, did he have a different take or did we have him wrong on first blush as CIA director?

GOWDY: are you referring to a connection he may have made to the video and what happened at the facility in Benghazi?

KILMEADE: Exactly

GOWDY: I think he would tell you if he was on the phone with you, that there was a body of evidence that supported a protest narrative. I happen to think that protest narrative is not persuasive but there was some evidence linking the protest to the video with something Susan Rice did that very few people had done, including him. So, there are really 3 camps, there is the protest camp, which I think that evidence is not as persuasive as the preplanned, premeditated camp but even in that protest camp, Susan Rice went way beyond what the intelligence would have indicated and at some point, she is going to have to explain that.

KILMEADE: She has a lot to explain

GOWDY: Which is why we are going to insist she come before our committee.