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Sunday, September 6, 2020

The Gowdy Interview

Trey Gowdy's interview with Maria Bartiromo this morning is causing a stir. We've discussed it a bit in the comments, but I'll deal with it again here.

I just now listened to Gowdy and I think he has been misunderstood. Many took him to be saying--as a former prosecutor himself--that in his considered legal judgment Durham has no case against anyone except Clinesmith. That's not actually what he was saying. Here's what I think he means, as I just set it out in an email to a friend:

Here's what I think he's saying--and I caution that I'm trying to make sense out of some conflicting statements:


The key part is just a minute or so long, around 4:00 when Maria asks: "There's concern that Durham is dragging his feet. How come we haven't heard from Durham."

Gowdy admits that he doesn't know what indictments there will be, and beyond that he points out that John Brennan--despite his public spin through a spokesman--could yet become a target. Gowdy then says:

"With respect to Durham, my expectation" is that Durham will get access to everything he needs to write the ultimate 'report', "the definitive accounting of what happened," what went down in 2016 and beyond.

If you put those two statements together, then Gowdy can't possibly be offering a considered prosecutive opinion, since he admits he doesn't know what Durham knows. Then he says,

"Whether or not there'll be more indictments, Maria, I don't know and I'd like to assume that there will not be. ... I'm assuming that the Clinesmith indictment will be the only one." He says he knows that view puts him in a small minority. But what he's doing is, in my opinion, expressing his desire ("I'd like to assume") for what, in his view, should happen---no more than that. He offers no reason to believe, from a strictly prosecutive point of view, that his desired outcome will, in fact, be the end result. In other words, he's offering a political hope.

From that standpoint, I think this is what he's trying to communicate.

Gowdy thinks that only one minor indictment rather than a full criminal accounting would be the best solution for the country--a political accounting rather than a criminal accounting that would involve indicting all the malefactors. Presumably he thinks that that would help the country 'heal.'

To me, that's obviously totally misguided--Gowdy simply doesn't understand Leftists. Even as we speak the Left is openly contemplating stealing an election and is using street violence as a means to that end. That the Left is probably misguided in that hope is beside the point--it points to what they're willing to do. Following up on criminal lawfare and abuse of Deep State tools against the electorate's constitutional choice for president, they are now willing--as they already showed in the Obama years--to instigate outright violence to achieve their ends.

Gowdy thinks exposure--as Hillary was exposed and then defeated in 2016--is a suitable political punishment for a political crime. And so he says that, regardless who gets indicted--and he then provides a laundry list of the main malefactors--the important thing is that "the jury", the American voters, get their chance to weigh in at the polls. He obviously thinks this is all working to Trump's benefit.

IMO, that's crazy, for a number of reasons. One reason is that a "report" simply doesn't carry the weight of an indictment--not with the voters, "the jury", and not with the criminals. The Left has now metastasized like a cancer within our body politic and exposure is not a cure for a deadly disease that continues to spread throughout our institutions. They have become serial criminals. They have committed crimes against the constitution already and, unless held to account in a court, they will do it again. Only criminal accountability has even a hope of stopping this madness.

Those, I believe, are Gowdy's views, but he cites no sources to support the notion that these are Barr's or Durham's views. Commenter EZ pointed out earlier that, if it were true that there will be no more indictments, then Durham's team would be hemorrhaging prosecutors--because what prosecutor would want to waste career time on what would be, from a prosecutorial standpoint, an absolutely pointless exercise? A report? What would be in it for those prosecutors, when they could be getting convictions and building a resume? I think that makes sense.

That having been said, Gowdy does say at the very end that "narrowly avoiding indictment cannot be the only way we mete out punishment in our culture." But that statement doesn't make sense. Literally. What he seems to mean is that there needs to be accountability for people who avoid criminal indictment. But, as I said above, he offers no basis for that conclusion, and admits that he has no inside knowledge.

Again, I think the key is that Gowdy says "I'd like to assume there will not be [more indictments]. In point of fact, however, if anything it has been AG Barr's recent statements that have built up expectations for significant indictments. Gowdy is entitled to his views on what's best for the nation. I happen to disagree. But as for expactions, I haven't allowed Gowdy to govern my expectations thus far, and I'm not ready to do so now.

I forgot to provide the video:




29 comments:

  1. Mark, to keep it pithier. I think there are alot of us worried and suspicious as to the motives and intentions of long term deep state players like Durham and Barr.

    But, contra Gowdy, and all of our other pessimistic nightmares, I think common sense would counsel us that William Barr didn't come out of retirement just to prosecute Kevin f'in Clinesmith...

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  2. Thanks for weighing in with your thoughts, Mark. Sometimes I wonder what planet Gowdy is residing on. Passing judgment on Brennan, Comey, and others involved doesn't work at the ballot box. There needs to be, had better be, an accounting for what was done to Trump and his administration. Gowdy's mealy-mouthed aspirations are not what is needed.

    I keep hearing about this Durham "report." Really? I thought Durham was conducting a criminal investigation, not a fact finding mission. While he may provide an overall synopsis that connects the different aspects of the treachery that took place, I don't think that will be a footnoted report per what IG Horowitz produced.

    DJL

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    1. Right. An in an interview months ago - Laura Ingraham? I forget - when asked about a “Durham report” he clarified that any report would be a “byproduct” (his word) of the process. That criminal prosecutions were the purpose of Durham’s work.

      Durham is a prosecutor, with an investigative team that was described as being “prosecutors”. He is not another IG.

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    2. Agreed. If voting alone were effective, our Leviathan administrative state would have been beaten back long ago. Furthermore, this assumption is only effective at the ballot box if the average voter is clearly aware of the depth of the corruption, which only happens when you have honest, neutral brokers in the media brothels. Unfortunately that's not even remotely the case.

      While anecdotal, I have found a near 0% success rate when I have quizzed anyone who is not heavily left or right about spygate. The only way you are informed about it is if you have obsessively followed its slow roll reveal (very much by design, I am sure) for years.

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  3. I suspect, just my own view, that Gowdy is positioning himself for a good paying media gig.

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    1. He already has one as a regular on Fox. Jason Chaffetz is another. The list rotates through Fox programs quite regularly.

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  4. As is the case with too many so-called Republicans, Howdy Gowdy has consistently demonstrated that, at best, he is woefully gullible and naïve when it comes to the malevolent machinations of the unelected and decidedly-leftist permanent bureaucracy that toils in the shadows. In fact, he is and has been part of the problem for a long time. He just doesn't realize it.

    "My mistake was relying on the word of the FBI"
    —Trey Gowdy

    183X

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    1. Indeed - any politician who still believes, after what we have seen the last couple years and last few months - that its "just politics" or that we are all going to shake and say "good game, see you next time" On November 4 should NOT be in politics right now. We seem to be careening to the end of the consent road.

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  5. "Following up on criminal lawfare and abuse of Deep State tools, against the electorate's constitutional choice for president, they are now willing--as they already showed in the Obama years--to *instigate* outright violence to achieve their ends."

    These ends being, among other things, to "reduce **whiteness to zero**".

    As I posted in another thread, Taibbi yesterday critiqued the new book (touted by NPR) glorifying *looting*.

    Key quote:
    "We’re repeatedly told stealing hurts the patriarchy and confronts whiteness — “a revolutionary movement must reduce the value of **whiteness to zero**,” the white author writes."

    So, Trey, what must these monsters do or say, to get you to face the magnitude of their spectacular degeneracy/ derangement?

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  6. Political crimes are 'dirty' tricks outside the official arena...stealing promo materials, blatant lies (like if you like your health plan...), maybe changing direction signs to a rally, stuff like that. Once one invokes the offices of DOJ and FBI and use government resources that exist only to use against criminals, terrorists, and the nations deadly enemies, a line has definitely been crossed, and the consequences should be considerable.

    Gowdy is just another political hack after his time in DC, although he clearly once was a formidable guy before that. I agree he's probably looking for a media job now or something.

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  7. Gowdy said (to the effect): Maria, I don't know whether or not there'll be more indictments.

    Since Durham and Barr have leaked nothing, I'll take him at his word. The rest is the opinion of a guy who it seems more than likely knows no more than we do.

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  8. Wasn't it Trey Dowdy and Paul Ryan who put the kibosh on Republican majority issuing subpoenas 2016-2018? Squishy Rowdy lip servicing squishy Fox. Yuck.

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    1. Ryan was the guy who controlled that. Whether he got any pushback from Gowdy is another story.

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    2. Mark, you have it exactly right with the media gig or other payoff for Trey. Old small town policy wonk Paul Ryan moved his family from Janesville, WI to DC to cash in on his service to the country. He screwed Trump on the immigration issue when it could have been passed and slow walked the investigations. Quite the disappointment
      and clearly not what he seemed.

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    3. Ryan was seriously disappointing long before he moved his family home from Janesville. He lived in his House office. Quite the everyman. /s His antipathy toward Trump was palpable. He worked at thwarting Trump at every turn. He saw big bucks ahead in the private sector (Anthem Health was once said to be his biggest contributor). He is no country boy. And his wife’s a Democrat.

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    4. Wolves in sheeps' clothing more dangerous than wolves.

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  9. I'm still trying to figure out what Gowdy sees as his future career path. His choice to quit the House in 2018 at a time possibly designed to hurt President Trump the most was ostensibly because he yearned to return to private practice.

    However, he's been on Martha McCallum's show practically every night since he quit and has begun appearing as an analyst on non-McCallum shows, as a guest on Gutfeld (where guests are supposed to be at least amusing!) and as host on other Fox shows. He's written a book - a common precursor to running for higher office.

    When does he have time for his private practice?

    He's obviously not running for an SC Senate seat or he would have primaried Miss Lindsey this spring. That just leaves president. That, IMO, is a no-hope-r, Rooster. He can't even decide on a hair style.

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    1. He has - since retirement - been a Fox regular. They call them “contributors”. On retainer or just in a directory, they are seen on Fox and Fox Business regularly and often. Gen. Keane is another. Chaffetz.

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  10. Gowdy is a scumbag -- he sat there and chaired the Benghazi hearings, obstructing, running interference, all the while acting "as if" he was conducting a legitimate hearing. Gowdy is a Clinton-enabling RINO.

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  11. Americans deserve men like Mr. Nunez, not cesspool creators like gowdy.

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  12. Howdy Gowdy - all hat and no cattle.

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  13. O/T.

    Sure hope that Secret Service agent goes public whose wife got felt up by Biden during photo with them.

    Then again, whatever happened to Tara Reade?

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  14. I consider Gowdy, a former prosecutor, willfully naive in the ways of leftist/Democrat DC politics. He is amongst many of the right//Republicans.

    George W Bush was publicity stabbed in the back by Democrat Ted Kennedy darn near the day after W and Ted passed the Medicare Part D drug law.

    W prefers Hillary and Democrats.

    Maybe it is not naïveté, but purposeful the .

    TexasDude

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  15. The Benghazi hearings were a huge letdown.

    Be nice to know the real reason he did not run for re-election. His successor is / was gop.

    He strikes me like the dog that did not bark. Most curious.

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  16. One of the talking heads on Fox or Fox Business comes up with a topic, needs an “analyst”. Better call Trey. Or Jason. Or ??? depending upon the topic. Trey or Jason or ? have to show up and sound pithy. I have seen little breaking news when this happens so don’t get too excited when I see these “regulars” announced…
    Our desperation for “news” feeds them.

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  17. Forty people were prosecuted in the Watergate caper. Can't believe this can end with one plea bargained deal.

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  18. TGP is linking Paul Sperry and Adam Housely posts saying Brennan was running a secret CIA task force before the FBI probe launched in 2016. No evidence, just statements...

    DJL

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    1. Yes. They're probably working off a 2017 article in The Guardian. IMO there are two things--possibly three--at work there: the two, the campaign against Flynn, and Brennan spreading the dossier in DC. The other possibility, the Alfa Bank hoax. I believe that that much is true, but with The Guardian you have to be careful.

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