Gowdy defended the FBI on multiple television appearances for spying on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, arguing “the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.”
Levin, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Ed Meese, dismantled the congressman’s Spygate apologetics point by point.
On his media tour defending the FBI insists the Russia probe and the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign was never about targeting Trump, but was merely to investigate Russia and Russian infiltration.
“Chris Wray and Rod Rosenstein have made it clear to us, Donald Trump was never the target of the investigation, he’s not the current target of the investigation. Keep in mind, that could all change depending on what a witness says. But as of now, Chris Wray and Rod Rosenstein are stunned whenever people think that Trump is the target of their investigation. I’ll leave it to them how to brief the president,” the South Carolina congressman told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum Tuesday.
Levin slammed Gowdy’s assessment, arguing that counter intelligence agencies would have assigned informants to the Clinton campaign and DNC after they claimed the Russians hacked their server.
“Now where is the easiest place to try and find the Russians? Is it in Trump world? No. It’s at the DNC. Didn’t the Russians hack the DNC emails? Didn’t we hear this over and over again?” he said. “Did they have an informant, aka a spy, at the DNC to chase down the Russians who were hacking the DNC’s emails? No. If they are trying to protect us and the candidates and the election from the Russians, as we pointed out last week, why weren’t there informants in Jill Stein’s campaign, or Hillary Clinton’s campaign, or Bernie Sanders’ campaign?”
Contrary to Gowdy’s assertion, Levin argued, the entire purpose of the FBI”s spying on Trump and the ongoing Russia probe is to frame the president.
“Now [Gowdy’s] telling us look, Trump was never the target of this investigation. That’s very slippery, like a slip and fall lawyer. Of course Trump was the target of the investigation. They just haven’t found anything on Trump,” he said. “You think Manafort was the target of the investigation? Or Gates? Or Papadopoulos? Or Lieutenant General Flynn. When we talk about Trump world, the Trump campaign, the Trump transition, the Trump presidency, who the hell do they think the target is? That’s said, there’s nothing on Trump. But they’d like nothing more than to get something on Trump.”
Why do you think they are taking Manafort to the gallows day in and day out? Why do you think Mr. Gowdy, Mr. former federal prosecutor, they’ve interviewed virtually every single person that’s ever worked for Donald Trump – whether in the campaign, in the transition or in his administration?” he continued. “Why did Trump Inc. have to turn over hundreds of thousands of pages of information if they are not trying to get Trump — it has nothing to do with him now because they didn’t find anything. But they sure as hell have been trying. That special counsel who wants to take this to the brink of a constitutional crisis, with 49 areas of questions that he wants to ask Donald Trump ‘has nothing to do with Donald Trump and only has to do with Russia.’”
Gowdy told CBS News that he had seen no evidence to support Trump’s claims that a “spy” was improperly inserted into his 2016 campaign.
“That is not a term I’ve ever used in the criminal justice system,” Gowdy said. “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.”
Levin was aghast by how Gowdy, the former House Oversight Chairman, is apparently unaware that the FBI’s surveillance of Trump was a “counter intelligence investigation” in which the term “spy” is regularly used, not a “criminal” investigation,
“What does he mean he’s never heard the word ‘spy’ used? Is this a joke? It’s the proper nomenclature that people like me and others who have heard the term used, apply to somebody who is used by the FBI and other federal department or agencies, to spy on other individuals and provide information to the government,” he said. “Hey genius, it is a counter intelligence investigation, it was not a criminal investigation. Hello Trey, former federal prosecutor, that is a word that they use, however on the counter intelligence side of the ledger, and it was a counter intelligence investigation. FISA is not part of a criminal investigation, its part of a counter intelligence investigation. The informant, a word that you do use, spy a word you don’t use – spy is often used in counter intelligence investigations.”
We are not talking about the criminal justice context,” he added. ” This guy sits on the damn intelligence committee and I have to educate him? No wonder he is retiring.”
“The Left has what it wants” thanks to Gowdy, Levin concluded, “Another putative Republican, retiring so he’s free to ‘speak his mind,’ such as it is.”
“All these phoney civil libertarians, all these phoney quasi slip and fall lawyers. How easy it is for them to dismiss the tyranny out of government control – its unbelievable when you put this stuff together, the unmasking that took place. The FISA application. The dossier, with Hillary Clinton and the DNC funding it. The endless leaks. — ‘this is what the American people would want, don’t ya know.’”
DeSantis said such activity was “not normal” and the proper course of action would have been for the FBI to notify Trump himself of the possibility of Russian involvement directly.
“The way the FBI and potentially other agencies did that was not trying to protect then-candidate Donald Trump,” DeSantis said. “If you had a problem with somebody on the periphery of the campaign, the obvious thing to do is to go brief the campaign and brief Donald Trump. And guess what Donald Trump would have done — if it was some tangential figure, he would say ‘OK, we will not have them involved in the campaign.'”
“Instead, they deployed this informant to spy on the campaign, and he was trying to manufacture contact with Papadopoulos, with Sam Clovis, you know, with these people,” he added. “And he was doing it over and over again. He may not have been the only one, Brian. So, when you are deploying surveillance powers, counterintelligence powers, against an opposition party’s campaign, that is not normal, and I think that is not what Americans want the FBI to be doing.”
