Gowdy, Trey Rep

===

pension? fox bloviator? rev dr lobbyist miller

bailed? saw blue wave coming? do we need a cat for exiting gop who grow a pair/conscience?

trend? vitter and issa gone? bengazi blowback?

former prosecutor?

===

---

politico

Gowdy joins Miller Strategies

:{By CAITLIN OPRYSKO and DANIEL BARNES :{01/06/2026 }:

With Daniel Lippman, Jasper Goodman, Sam Sutton

MILLER STAFFS UP: Former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) is joining Miller Strategies, the lobbying shop led by top GOP fundraiser Jeff Miller, as of counsel. The former federal prosecutor served four terms in the House, including as chair of the House Oversight Committee and Benghazi Committee, before retiring in 2019.

— Shortly after leaving office, Gowdy rejoined his former law firm, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, as a partner in the white collar defense and government investigations practice. He was briefly tapped to be a member of President Donald Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment, and lobbied the president for a pardon of an entertainment executive over a round of golf last year.

— More recently, Gowdy has been the host of “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy” on Fox News and is one of several political power players who works for the law firm Oberheiden P.C. It’s unclear whether he will register to lobby at Miller Strategies.

— Miller Strategies has also added another Trump White House alum to its roster. Natalie McIntyre, who most recently worked in the White House’s legislative affairs office, has joined the firm as a principal. McIntyre served in Trump’s first term as well, along with her new Miller colleagues George Caram, Ashley Gunn, Jonny Hiler, Stefan Passantino and Luke Wallwork.

---

1 26

---

OMG SEE FIASCO BENGHAZI MIKE SCHMIDT HAD HILLARY EMAIL HRD22 ? BUT ASSUMED SHE ALSO USES AN OFFICIAL ACCT? INVESTIGATTOR MIL INTEL ON 2ND TREY GOWDY SPECIAL COMM DID NOT SEE PROBLEM

THINKING MAN’S TP? BOEHNER LONGTOME PAL OF AILES; APPROVED OF 2ND BS COMM IF HE WD GET THE “CRAZIES” TO BACK OFF?!

---

AN 1 26

January 15, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

STEVE DOOCY (HOST): I'm looking at these pictures out of Minneapolis and I'm thinking man something is so messed up there, and obviously the president looking at the same things. If he does invoke the Insurrection Act, doesn't that mean that he can send in the National Guard. He is emboldened to do that by law, if there's a civil disobedience and occurrence -- and that's the definition of it, what I'm looking at right there.

TREY GOWDY (GUEST): Yeah, it's one of the few exceptions to the Posse Comitatus, where you cannot deploy military forces for domestic use and it's often done when state authorities either cannot or will not. So think back to the 1960s, southern states said, 'we refuse to integrate our schools' presidents used the Insurrection Act to say you know what, you are going to follow the law. I actually think we may be beyond this point in Minnesota. You actually have governors and mayors who are openly defying federal law enforcement. I mean they are not like ambiguous or agnostic about it. They are openly defying it. So I think he's got all the justification. I'm sure he's wanting Minnesota to get in the right hymnal themselves, but they are going the opposite direction, Steve.

---

AN 12 25

President Donald Trump's most recent "bizarre" pardon seems to have been negotiated in part thanks to his frequent golf habit, according to an analysis from MS NOW.

Trump is no stranger to controversial pardons, often appearing to hand them out to loyalists or those convicted of crimes he looks favorably upon. Even so, some of his more recent pardons have managed to turn heads, including those of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in one of the largest drug trafficking cases in US history. At least one recent pardon, that of real estate developer Timothy Leiweke, contradicts his own Justice Department, and seems to have been decided over a round of golf, according to MS NOW contributor and Rachel Maddow producer Steve Benen.

According to Benen's analysis of the situation, Trump's DOJ pursued charges against Leiweke over allegations that he attempted to rig the bidding process for a $375 million basketball arena that was ultimately built at the University of Texas. Despite his own administration launching the case, Trump issued a pardon for Leiweke last week.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that this decision was made after “a very thorough review process,” done by “qualified lawyers.” Benen, however, called this "one of the most laughable claims Leavitt has ever made" and added that, "in this administration, 'pardons' and 'utmost seriousness' clearly do not belong in the same sentence."

To back up that argument, Benen highlighted reports from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, which both noted that Trump made the decision after Leiweke's case was brought up to him by Trey Gowdy, a former South Carolina congressman turned Fox News contributor.

"While the Journal’s report has not been independently verified by MS NOW, Gowdy, who became a Fox News host after stepping down from Congress in 2019, effectively confirmed the reporting, telling the paper on the record that he played a round of golf with the president on Nov. 16, at which point Trump asked Gowdy if there was anything he needed," Benen wrote. "The former Republican congressman brought up his client, Leiweke, arguing that he’d been treated unfairly."

Gowdy reportedly suggested a nonprosecution deal for Leiweke, but Trump ultimately opted to give him a full pardon.

The president's decision flies in the face of efforts directly tied to two of his most high-profile administration officials: the investigation against Leiweke was led by an FBI official appointed by Director Kash Patel, and charges were eventually brought by a DOJ prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

---

September 5, 2024, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

TREY GOWDY (FOX NEWS HOST): This is the way I break it down Dana: So it looks like Russia likes Trump and Iran likes Harris, okay? There is a difference between interference and preference. I am more worried about the fact that if you ask most of our fellow citizens what the greatest threat to our democracy is, they wouldn't say Russia or Iran. They would say it is the mainstream media in this country, which you just proved with that previous story you did with Lindsey Graham and Amazon. Those two answers are, are baffling.

Then you combine that with Google or Meta or whatever they call themselves and this -- the Hunter Biden laptop where 50 different so-called intelligence experts countermanded what John Ratcliffe said, which was this was actually not Russian disinformation. So if I'm an American, yeah, I kind of expect Russia and Iran to want to mess with us and sow the seeds of discord. I really don't expect it to be The New York Times and The Washington Post and Politico. But I'll bet you most Americans would say they fear that more than they do foreign interference.

===

http://www.ijreview.com/2015/06/335319-rep-trey-gowdy-used-to-be-on-a-show-called-forensic-files-heres-his-highlight-reel/

===

an 9 22

**Trey Gowdy**, the former top Republican U.S. Congressman from South Carolina, head of the powerful Oversight Committee who chaired the House Select Committee investigating Hillary Clinton and the attack in Benghazi, is under fire this week for what some see as normalizing fascism.

Gowdy appeared on a **Fox News**‘ “hard news” program Monday, hosted by anchor Bret Baier, and decried how some media outlets described Italy’s election of Giorgia Meloni, a neo-fascist, who will be their new prime minister.

Meloni is also a Christian nationalistwho has praised the founder of Italian fascism, dictator Benito Mussolini. She holds far right views, including opposition to abortion, any legal rights for LGBTQ people including marriage and adoption, and is seen as xenophobic and opposed to the European Union.

During the campaign Meloni at a rally “thundered,” as the AP reported, “Yes to the natural family. No to the LGBT lobby. Yes to sexual identity. No to gender ideology.”

The Fox News panel denounced the U.S. media labeling Meloni as “far right.”

“I guess what I’m wondering is,” Gowdy, an attorney and former federal prosecutor said, “if you’re winning elections, if you are what the people want, at what point does that become the center? Who gets to say what is far right, or what is hard right?”

What Gowdy neglected to note is Italy does not have a two-party system like the U.S., so Meloni won with just a quarter of the vote. And regardless of popularity, political positions are categorized by positions on a scale, including far and center.

On social media Gowdy was highly criticized.

“How could the Nazis do the things they did? How could rational decent Germans just stand by and watch as fascism rose to power to began to murder millions? How? This is how,” retired U.S. military intelligence officer Jim Wright, who runs a popular Twitter account, wrote in response to the clip.

Quoting Gowdy questioning “who gets to say?” Wright added, “Who gets to say what’s wrong? Who gets to condemn the rise of fascism?”

“Who gets to condemn hate and intolerance and the violence of these goddamn goons? I DO. YOU DO. WE ALL DO. That’s who,” he continued.

Yale University professor of philosophy Jason Stanley slammed the media’s lackluster response to the election of a neo-fascist while the American right applauded the news.

“The burst of incredible enthusiasm for an Italian fascist leader on the American right is being ignored by the liberal media, which as usual is missing the forest and reporting on some trees,” he tweeted, in response to the clip of Gowdy’s remarks.

(NCRM did report on the right’s response to the election of the neo-fascist prime minister on Monday, highlighting criticism of the praise of the neo-fascist by the head of The Heritage Foundation, which is ranked the third most influential think tank in America.)

Media Matters for America’s Kat Abu, who posted the video, commented, “Think of any far-right or fascist regime. Now think of how many of its citizens justified these beliefs during the regime’s rise to power. This tweet is a bright-red, ear-splitting alarm bell and I am begging everyone to listen to it.”

Willamette University Professor of History Seth Cotlar observed: “This might be an appropriate time to recall that the 2nd KKK in the 1920s had around 4 million members nationwide. In some localities the majority of white men joined the organization. They described themselves as ‘patriotic Christian Americans’ who supported law and order.”

Esquire’ Jack Holmes, pointing to the clip said, “these are the same people who blast Joe Biden, who won 7 million more citizens’ votes than his opponent, as an out-of-touch far-left extremist.”

Reuters Global News Desk editor Gerry Doyle mocked Gowdy, asking, “truly, whomst among us can say whether fascism is bad or good.”

Novelist Jason Miller, appearing to mock Gowdy’s famous hairstyles, tweeted, “Fascist Supercuts here is really giving away the game.”

Journalist Tim Mullaney corrected Gowdy: “Call me crazy, former Congressman. Six million Jews later, we can confidently say the German People got it wrong.”

Lincoln Project senior advisor Jeff Timmer, paraphrasing Gowdy, tweeted: “‘If the people want Nazis, we should give them Nazis. And be happy about it.’ – Trey Gowdy, sort of.”

Monique Camarra, a researcher/analyst on Russian capture, influence and information warfare in Italy and Europe, and co-host of the Kremlin File warned the clip is “Normalisation.”

Scholar of fascism, authoritarians, and propaganda, NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, possibly stunned, responded with merely one word: “what.”

Watch Trey Gowdy below or at this link.

===

contrast benghazi bs to lack of 1/6 comm]

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-fueled-rise-new-host-trey-gowdy

matt g

Trey Gowdy, a former Republican congressman turned Fox News contributor, joins the ranks of the network’s hosts on Sunday night with the debut of his creatively named weekly program, Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy.

Fox looms large in the career ambitions of Republican politicians thanks to its large audience of GOP primary voters and its prominent, kingmaking hosts. It has been a launching pad for the party’s rising stars over the years, from Sen. Marco Rubio and former House Speaker Paul Ryan to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. And those who leave office or lose elections, from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to Rep. Liz Cheney, have sought out a Fox landing spot as a way to collect a steady paycheck, stay in the network’s spotlight, and plan their next move.

But even with the network’s historic intertwining with Republican politics in mind, Gowdy’s rise is remarkable.

As a South Carolina congressman during President Barack Obama’s tenure, Gowdy gained prominence by stoking Fox’s obsession with the2012 Benghazi attacks, ultimately becoming chairman of a select committee that House Republicans formed at the network’s urging to investigate them.

After his Fox-fueled committee failed to find much new information (but succeeded in the GOP goal of defeating Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid), he turned to defending President Donald Trump in Congress and in Fox appearances, before leaving office to do the same thing on the network’s payroll.

And now he has his own show, a platform he can use to promote his ideas and make money while he waits to see if a return to politics is worthwhile.

Fox launched Gowdy to prominence as Benghazi prosecutor

Fox spent years obsessively trying to turn the deadly 2012 terrorist attacks on U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, into a political scandal for Obama and Clinton. Gowdy became one of the network's go-to congressional guests to discuss the attacks, using his regular appearances to push the same dishonest claims about the administration’s response to the attacks that Fox’s hosts championed.

Then in the spring of 2014, Fox seized on a newly released email from an Obama national security aide, distorting it to falsely suggest that the administration had lied about the attacks for political gain. The network’s commentators began demanding yet another congressional probe of the administration’s response based on this manufactured scandal, and then-House Speaker John Boehner obliged, with House Republicans voting to form a select committee to investigate the attacks.

Appointed to chair the committee was none other than Fox’s Benghazi favorite, Gowdy. He used the role to hold a series of high-profile hearings on the network’s preferred topic -- and garner more Fox airtime.

Gowdy’s committee shed little new light on the already extensively investigated attacks and found no new evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton, who had been secretary of state at the time. But it did achieve what both Fox hosts and Republican leaders had admitted was its real goal -- damaging Clinton’s political strength as she ran for president, particularly through its focus on her much-maligned use of a private email server.

The overwhelming press fixation on Clinton’s emails, particularly in the waning days of the campaign, ultimately helped ensure Trump’s 2016 victory.

Gowdy cuts political career short for Fox gig

Gowdy didn’t have to wait long to reap his rewards for helping to elect Trump.

He took over the chair of the House Oversight Committee in 2017, using that post largely to conduct oversight of Obama’s administration while defending Trump’s. But in late January 2018, he announced that would not seek another term in office and was returning to practicing law in South Carolina. A few days later, Fox announced that it had hired him as a contributor. He joined former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, his predecessor as Oversight Committee chair, who had similarly left office for a slot at the network in 2017.

Gowdy’s role, according to Fox’s press release announcing his new job, was offering “political and legal analysis.” In practice, that meant that when he appeared on Fox to defend Trump and his allies from investigations into their various scandals, his paycheck came from the network instead of Congress.

That brand of commentary apparently captured Trump's attention. Fox briefly cut ties with Gowdy in October 2019 amid reports that he had been hired as an outside legal counsel to the then-president, who was fighting his first impeachment (the arrangement quickly fell apart and Gowdy rejoined the network that December).

It also caught the eye of Fox’s brass. Gowdy did multiple stints earlier this year as one of the revolving guest hosts on Fox News Primetime, the network’s new 7 p.m. EST show.

Gowdy was apparently not ready for Primetime. But Fox is happy to give him a chance on Sunday Night.

===

an 121

Gowdy rattles Fox News host by saying Trump incited riot: 'Did you listen to the president's speech?'

David Edwards Raw Story

Former U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) seemed to catch Fox News host Sandra Smith off guard on Thursday after he blamed President Donald Trump for a violent insurrection

===

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/trey-gowdy-sides-with-house-democrats-100-percent-over-former-republican-colleagues-on-holding-secret-hearings/

Gowdy: Pelosi's shift on prosecuting rioters only took '10,000 ...

www.foxnews.com › media › gowdy-pelosi-prosecuting-r...

1 day ago - Fox News contributor Trey Gowdy joins 'The Story with Martha MacCallum.' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned violent protesters from the ...

Anti-cop rhetoric from Dems is having an effect on people's ...

www.foxnews.com › media › gowdy-blasts-democrats-arr...

4 days ago - Former House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said Wednesday that anti-cop rhetoric from Democrats and the media is ...

===

Inside Trump's Botched Attempt to Hire Trey Gowdy - The New ...www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics

Oct 13, 2019 - Gowdy's name began circulating on Twitter as the new Trump defender, prompting a number of aides to the president to claim credit privately for ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/us/politics/trey-gowdy-trump-legal-team.html

no lnx

Trey Gowdy, Who Led Republicans in Investigating Benghazi, Joins Trump Legal Team

ImageTrey Gowdy of South Carolina served four terms in the House before resigning in January.

Trey Gowdy of South Carolina served four terms in the House before resigning in January.CreditCreditErin Schaff for The New York Times

By Maggie Haberman

Published Oct. 9, 2019

Updated Oct. 10, 2019, 7:16 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Trey Gowdy, the former South Carolina congressman who led the committee that investigated the terrorist attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, will join President Trump’s legal team as an outside adviser.

The move — which had been widely anticipated — was announced Wednesday night by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow.

“I have known Trey for years and worked with him when he served in Congress,” Mr. Sekulow said in a statement. “His legal skills and his advocacy will serve the president well. Trey’s command of the law is well known and his service on Capitol Hill will be a great asset as a member of our team.”

Mr. Gowdy, a former prosecutor who served four terms in the House before resigning in January, met with Mr. Trump for lunch on Tuesday at the White House.He is expected to be a presence on television defending the president.

As chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Mr. Gowdy led a two-year investigation into the 2012 attack in Libya that was sharply criticized by Democrats as a vehicle for Republicans to investigate Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time and went on to become the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee. Among the members of the committee was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then a Republican congressman from Kansas.

Mr. Gowdy was particularly critical of the State Department for not complying with requests for documents, and those past comments about the importance of responding to document requests are likely to resurface in any defense of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump’s legal team is not expected to expand substantially. Another of his personal lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, is himself at the center of a controversy over Mr. Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president asking for an investigation into Hunter Biden, the younger son of one of his leading 2020 Democratic rivals, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

In addition to Mr. Sekulow, the president had relied heavily on a small group of lawyers with experience as federal prosecutors to deal with the investigation led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian election interference.

But the impeachment inquiry, announced last month by House Democrats, might require a lawyer who can aid with a Senate trial.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Gowdy Joins Legal Team For President As an Adviser.

mofo

https://theintercept.com/2019/08/23/monsanto-republicans-cancer-research

EMAILS SHOW MONSANTO ORCHESTRATED GOP EFFORT TO INTIMIDATE CANCER RESEARCHERS

Lee Fang

August 23 2019, 3:00 a.m.

IN 2015, the World Health Organization’s cancer research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, classified glyphosate, an active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, as a “probable carcinogen,” setting off a global debate about the world’s most popular weedkiller.

Over the last four years, Republicans in Congress have excoriated and pushed to defund the IARC, casting their defense of the chemical as a quest on behalf of small American farmers. Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has written that his outrage over the cancer research is on behalf of the “farmers and food manufacturers who rely on traditional farming methods to produce the food that fuels America — and the world.”

But according to a recent trove of documents, the ongoing political assault on the IARC has been scripted in part by Monsanto, the St. Louis-based chemical and seed conglomerate that produces Roundup and Roundup-resistant crops.

Roundup has been cash cow for the company since the 1970s, fueling billions of dollars in annual profits. Its use has skyrocketed in recent decades since the company developed genetically modified corn and other crops that are resistant to it; it is now the world’s leading herbicide.

A growing number of individuals say that Monsanto failed to warn consumers of the dangers of using Roundup and had marketed the chemical spray as harmless to humans, while internally recommending that its own employees use gloves and protective gear. Critics say that the Roundup formula used in the U.S. also contains a surfactant that makes the herbicide far more toxic than the variation of the spray sold in the European market.

Monsanto, which merged with German multinational pharmaceutical company Bayer AG last year, is facing as many as 11,000 cases relating to glyphosate. Last year, Dewayne Johnson, a former groundskeeper now dying of cancer, was the first to win his jury trial in San Francisco state court against Monsanto, alleging that years of using Roundup contributed to his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Johnson was awarded $289 million by a jury, though a judge later reduced the amount to $78 million. Another plaintiff, Edwin Hardeman, also alleged that he spent decades spraying the glyphosate-based weedkiller with little to no protective gear and developed the same blood cancer, won a similar case in federal court this year.

[Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson after hearing the verdict in his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court of California in San Francisco on Aug. 10, 2018. Photo: Josh Edelson, Pool/AP]

The newly disclosed files, released by a plaintiff’s law firm, Baum Hedlund, include company emails, documents, and deposition transcripts showing that Monsanto lawyers and lobbyists guided lawmakers, coordinating efforts to question the IARC’s credibility and slash U.S. support for the international body.

The company has denied claims that its products cause cancer, and Monsanto lawyers have declared that Environmental Protection Agency’s designation of glyphosate as safe should clear the company of any legal liability. In a recent marketing campaign, Bayer touted its friendly cooperation with regulators as a sign that the public should have nothing to fear from its products.

But the documents also suggest that the firm has used its influence with lawmakers to antagonize regulators, applying pressure and investigative threats to shape the science used to research glyphosate and other controversial chemical compounds, as part of a larger campaign to silence critics and discredit the IARC.

IN JUNE 2015, Michael Dykes, then serving as Monsanto’s vice president of government affairs, laid out the company’s strategy for “managing the IARC issue,” following the cancer research center’s determination that March.

The company, he wrote in an email, had dispatched its team of lobbyists to brief “key staff at EPA, USTR, USDA, and the State Department as well as members of Congress” to raise concerns with the IARC’s scientific process, and with how the decision could impact agriculture as well as international trade. Lobbyists also met with an official at the Department of Health and Human Services; they saw the agency’s support as key “to secure a WHO clarification.”

Later in the year, Dykes updated the Monsanto team with plans to push back against the IARC, including the possible placement of advertisements — in the form of letters from third-party groups — in Capitol Hill newspapers, as well as preparation to use a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing as a venue to get the EPA to reaffirm support for glyphosate. “We will make sure Committee members ask EPA the glyphosate safety question,” Dykes wrote.

[Roundup weed killing products on May 14, 2019. Photo Illustration: Scott Olson/Getty Images

The following year, FTI Government Affairs, one of several consulting firms guiding Monsanto’s political response to the IARC decision, assisted GOP lawmakers with an effort to investigate U.S. support for the IARC.

In one email sent by Todd Rands, a former Monsanto attorney working with FTI, sent a draft of a letter ostensibly written by Rep. Rob Aderholt, R-Ala., a senior lawmaker on the House Appropriations Committee,addressed toDr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes for Health. NIH is the government agency responsible for most federal public health research and is the largest funder to the IARC. The letter, in fact, had been written by FTI consultants, along with Rands’s edits, according to his deposition testimony.

The FTI-written letter declared that glyphosate “does not cause cancer,” accused the IARC of peddling “bunk science,” and threatened a reassessment of the NIH budget to ensure that the agency is “committed to only funding organizations that produce information and conclusions based on sound science, robust processes, and credible methodology.”

During his deposition, Rands said that he believed it appropriate for Monsanto to draft a letter on behalf of a lawmaker toNIH, calling such ghostwriting a “common practice in Washington.”

It’s not clear what Aderholt’s office did with the FTI-authored letter. Aderholt’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Intercept. On June 2, 2016,Aderholt sent a letter to NIHto request a briefing on the IARC’s designation of glyphosate as a probable carcinogen and “the standards that NIH places on research funded by the U.S. taxpayers,” a letter that mirrored many of the demands in the FTI letter, though it used different language.

More GOP letters and demands for investigation over NIH’s funding for IARC followed. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, then-chairman of the House Oversight Committee,Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., Chaffetz’s successor as Oversight chair,and Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, then-chair of the House Science Committee, all called for inquiries into IARC funding and the designation of glyphosate as a carcinogen.

The Monsanto lobbyists closely conferred with the committees as they honed in on the IARC’s funding. Drew Feeley, an attorney for the GOP staff of the House Oversight Committee, emailed an FTI consultant to explain that his office was working to attach a line to a government budget bill designed “to apply to IARC” in order to slash its funding over the glyphosate issue. “Thanks again for coordinating,” Feeley wrote to the Monsanto consultant. Feeley, notably, is now serving as an attorney with the Council on Environmental Quality, the White House office that oversees environmental policy.

“We expect the House OGR investigation about IARC to expand as they move into the new administration,” wrote Rands, in an update to Monsanto colleagues.

Last year, under Smith, the House Science Committee devoted an entire committee hearing into questioning the IARC, with a focus on its conduct around glyphosate. Smith subsequently sent more letters to cancer researchers in Norway, demanding they “correct the flaws in IARC.” The House Appropriations Committee followed up by cutting $2 million in funding to the IARC, a symbolic move to distance the U.S. from the international body, which relies on a budget of around $40 million from a range of member countries.

THE CONGRESSIONAL OUTREACH was only part of a multifaceted effort to control the backlash sparked by the IARC designation.

In recent years, a great deal of new information has come to light around Monsanto’s work to conceal the potential health risks around glyphosate. Earlier this month, new documents revealed that Monsanto operated a “fusion center” to discredit critics of the company, including former Reuters journalist Carey Gillam, who has written extensively about glyphosate. The operation even monitored and considered legal action again singer Neil Young, a critic of Monsanto.

Le Monde, the French newspaper, published an award-winning investigation on the controversy, referring to the Monsanto-run campaign to discredit the IARC as an effort to “intimidate” the cancer research center.

A separate cache of litigation files, released in May, revealed that Monsanto also contracted with Hakluyt, a corporate intelligence firm, to keep close tabs on political elites in Washington. The company consulted with senior Trump and EPA officials, and confirmed that the administration would support Monsanto on glyphosate issues. “We have Monsanto’s back on pesticide regulation,” a domestic policy adviser in the White House told Hakluyt.

[pixA building on the campus of Monsanto headquarters in St. Louis on May 23, 2016. Photo: Michael B. Thomas/AFP/Getty Images

The last year has exposed other cloak-and-dagger tactics. The company was criticized for ghostwriting scientific studies on the safety of glyphosate, which were presented as independent research. At the San Francisco civil trial over glyphosate, an FTI consultant working for Monsanto was caught posing as a journalist working for the BBC and another British outlet.

And in 2017, one of the most stunning disclosures revealed that a senior EPA staffer, Jess Rowland, had quietly tipped Monsanto off to the fact that federal agencies had sought to reevaluate the safety of glyphosate, boasting to the company that he could “kill” federal investigations into glyphosate. Shortly before a crucial European Union vote on glyphosate products, the EPA suddenly released a report declaring the safety of the product. The document was later taken down because it had not yet been completed. One Monsanto official relayed to a colleague that Rowland had told him, “If I can kill this I should get a medal,” in regards to the glyphosate review conducted by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a department of Health and Human Services.

After leaving the EPA, Rowland went to work in the private sector, consulting for chemical companies.

There’s also a revolving door between lawmakers supporting Monsanto and professionals working on behalf of the company. Shortly after retiring from Congress this year, following his investigation of the IARC, Lamar Smith took a job at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, a lobbying firm that represents Bayer-Monsanto’s interests in Washington.

Harold Watson "Trey" Gowdy III (born August 22, 1964) is an American attorney, television news personality, politician and former federal prosecutor who served as the U.S. Representative for South Carolina's 4th congressional district from 2011 to 2019. His district included much of the Upstate region of South Carolina, including Greenvilleand Spartanburg.

Before his congressional career, Gowdy served as a federal prosecutor in the District of South Carolina from 1994 to 2000 and then as the solicitor (district attorney) for South Carolina's Seventh Judicial Circuit, comprising Spartanburg and Cherokee counties, from 2000 to 2010. From 2014 to 2016, Gowdy chaired the United States House Select Committee on Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi which was partly responsible for discovering the existence of Hillary Clinton's private email server.^[1] His investigative committee spent over two and a half years and $7.8 million investigating the events surrounding the 2012 Benghazi attack, ultimately finding no evidence of specific wrong-doing by then-Secretary of State Clinton.^[2][3][4] Gowdy pressed for the prosecution of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.^[5]From 2017, he chaired the House Oversight Committee.

On January 31, 2018, Gowdy announced he would not seek re-election in 2018 and that he intends to pursue a legal career instead of politics.^[6][1] He has since joined Fox News as a contributer.^[7]

Early life and education

Like Jason Chaffetz before him, former Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy has jumped from the House to Fox News.

Matt Gertz explains: "Gowdy was one of the Republican members who benefited the most from Fox’s spotlight. ... Gowdy made dozens of appearances on the network, often using the Fox platform to push long-debunked myths about the Benghazi attacks. When then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) gave in to a Fox campaign demanding the formation of a special committee to re-investigate the attacks, he naturally turned to Gowdy to lead the effort. ... With President Donald Trump in the White House, there were plenty of opportunities for an aggressive investigator who truly cared about public corruption to dig in. But Gowdy spent his two years as head of the oversight committee doing everything he could to ignore rampant criminality and malfeasance in Trump’s campaign, company, and administration. ... That’s the Trey Gowdy you can expect to see on Fox -- someone willing to go to the mat to attack Democrats while doing his best to protect Republicans."

House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) on Wednesday sent a request to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson for information related to his purchase of a $31,000 dining set for his office.

Gowdy’s request, which featured three categories of documents related to Carson’s expensive taxpayer-funded redesign, was issued “to help the [Oversight] Committee determine whether HUD adhered to the applicable spending limitations while redecorating your office.”

In addition to the revelation of the dining set, which was purchased last December while HUD cut their homeless assistance budget, The Guardian reported that Carson intends to spend an additional $165,000 on a “lounge set” for his office.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/even-republican-congressman-trey-gowdy-openly-questioning-ben-carsons-lavish

===

http://www.alternet.org/environment/republicans-rush-monsantos-aid-industry-biased-reuters-report

In their latest attempt to shield Monsanto from accountability, House Republicans have seized upon the flawed and biased reporting of a Reuters journalist whose work has emerged as a key lobbying tool for the embattled agrichemical companyas it faces lawsuits, regulatory threats and a wave of awful press coverage about allegations of improper influence over research.

On Tuesday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy demanded answers about “possibly withheld information” that “could change” a cancer panel’s decision to list glyphosate, the main chemical in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, as a probable human carcinogen. Gowdy’s letter was heavily referenced with one source: a June 14 Reuters article by Kate Kelland.

But the Kelland article that drove Rep. Gowdy’s lobbying was deeply flawed and contained errors Reuters has refused to correct.

What’s more, as I reported last month in FAIR, the flawed Reuters-article-turned-lobbying-tool was only the latest in a series of biased articles Kelland has written about the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) since the agency listed glyphosate as a Class 2 carcinogen.

The IARC working group of scientists—now the chief target of Monsanto’s “war on science,” as the French newspaper Le Monde reported—did not conduct new research, but reviewed years of published and peer-reviewed research before concluding there was limited evidence of cancer in humans from real-world exposures to glyphosate and “sufficient” evidence of cancer in studies on animals. IARC also concluded there was strong evidence of genotoxicity for glyphosate alone and for Roundup herbicide, whose use has skyrocketed alongside Monsanto’s genetically engineered “Roundup Ready” crops.

In her stories about the IARC decision, Kelland has ignored much of the published research backing the classification and has instead parroted industry’s criticisms of the scientists. Her reporting has relied heavily on pro-industry sources, failed to disclose their industry connections and presented cherry-picked information out of context from documents she did not provide to readers.

Raising further questions about Kelland’s objectivity as a science reporter are her close ties to the Science Media Centre, a controversial nonprofit PR agencythat connects scientists with reporters and gets its largest block of funding from industry groups.

Multiple researchers have accused SMC, which launched in 2002 partly as an effort to tamp down news stories driven by groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, of downplaying the environmental and human health risks of controversial products and technologies that are important to its funders.

Kelland’s bias in favor of SMC is evident; she appears in the PR agency’s promotional video and promotional report, regularly attends SMC briefings, speaks at SMC workshops and attended meetings in India to discuss setting up an SMC office there.

Neither Kelland nor her editors at Reuters would respond to questions about her relationship with SMC or to specific criticisms about her reporting. SMC Director Fiona Fox said her group did not provide Kelland with sources for her IARC stories beyond those included in SMC’s press releases.

It is clear, however, that Kelland’s reporting on glyphosate and IARC mirrors the views put forth by SMC experts and industry groups on those topics—and also raises serious concerns about bias and fairness in science reporting.

Reuters takes on cancer scientist

On June 14, 2017, Reuters published a special report by Kelland accusing Aaron Blair, an epidemiologist from the U.S. National Cancer Institute and chair of the IARC panel on glyphosate, of withholding important data from its cancer assessment.

Kelland’s thesis that Blair withheld crucial data was at odds with the source documents on which she based her story, but she did not provide readers with links to any of those documents, so readers could not check the veracity of the claims. Her bombshell allegations were then widely circulated, repeated by reporters at other news outlets (including Mother Jones) and immediately deployed as a lobbying tool by the agrichemical industry.Kelland’s story went so far as to suggest that the information supposedly withheld could have changed IARC’s conclusion that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic. Yet the data in question was but a small subset of epidemiology data gathered through a long-term project known as the Agricultural Health Study (AHS). An analysis of several years of data about glyphosate from the AHS had already been published and was considered by IARC, but a newer analysis of unfinished, unpublished data was not considered, because IARC rules call for relying only on published data.

After obtaining the actual source documents, Carey Gillam, a former Reuters’ reporter and now research director of U.S. Right to Know (the nonprofit group where I also work), laid out multiple errors and omissions in Kelland’s piece.

The analysis provides examples of key claims in Kelland’s article, including a statement supposedly made by Blair, that are not supported by the 300-page deposition of Blair conducted by Monsanto’s attorneys, or by other source documents.

Kelland’s selective presentation of the Blair deposition also ignored what contradicted her thesis—for example, Blair’s many affirmations of research showing glyphosate’s connections to cancer, as Gillam wrote in a Huffington Post article.

Kelland inaccurately described Blair’s deposition and related materials as “court documents,” implying they were publicly available; in fact, they were not filed in court, and presumably were obtained from Monsanto’s attorneys or surrogates. (The documents were available only to attorneys involved in the case, and plaintiff’s attorneys have said they did not provide them to Kelland.)

Reuters has refused to correct the errors in the piece, including the false claim about the origin of the source documents and an inaccurate description of a key source, statistician Bob Tarone, as “independent of Monsanto.” In fact, Tarone had received a consultancy payment from Monsanto for his efforts to discredit IARC.

In response to a USRTK request to correct or retract the Kelland article, Reuters global enterprises editor Mike Williams wrote in a June 23 email:

We have reviewed the article and the reporting on which it was based. That reporting included the deposition to which you refer, but was not confined to it. The reporter, Kate Kelland, was also in contact with all the people mentioned in the story and many others, and studied other documents. In the light of that review, we do not consider the article to be inaccurate or to warrant retraction.

Williams declined to address the false citing of “court documents” or the inaccurate description of Tarone as an independent source.

Since then, the lobbying tool Reuters handed to Monsanto has grown legs and run wild. A June 24 editorial by the St. Louis Post Dispatch added errors on top of the already misleading reporting. By mid-July right-wing blogs ,were using the Reuters story to accuse IARC of defrauding U.S. taxpayers, pro-industry news sites were predicting the story would be “the final nail in the coffin” of cancer claims about glyphosate and a fake science news group was promoting Kelland’s story onFacebook with a phony headline claiming that IARC scientists had confessed to a cover-up.

Bacon attack

This was not the first time Kelland had relied on Bob Tarone as a key source and failed to disclose his industry connections in an article attacking IARC.

An April 2016 special investigation by Kelland—“Who Says Bacon Is Bad?”—portrayed IARC as a confusing agency that is bad for science. The piece was built largely on quotes from Tarone, two other pro-industry sources whose industry connections were also not disclosed, and one anonymous observer.

IARC’s methods are “poorly understood,” “do not serve the public well,” sometimes lack scientific rigor, are “not good for science,” “not good for regulatory agencies” and do the public “a disservice,” the critics said.

The agency, Tarone said, is “naïve, if not unscientific”—an accusation emphasized with capital letters in a sub-headline.

Tarone works for the pro-industry International Epidemiology Institute and was once involved with a controversial cell phone study, funded in part by the cell phone industry, that found no cancer connection to cell phones, contrary to independently funded studies of the same issue.

The other critics in Kelland’s bacon story were Paulo Boffetta, a controversial ex-IARC scientist who wrote a paper defending asbestos while also receiving money to defend the asbestos industry in court; and Geoffrey Kabat, who once partnered with a tobacco industry-funded scientist to write a paper defending secondhand smoke.

Kabat also serves on the advisory board of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a corporate front group.

The day the Reuters story hit, ACSH posted a blog item bragging that Kelland had used its advisor Kabat as a source to discredit IARC.

The industry connections of her sources, and their history of taking positions at odds with mainstream science, seems relevant, especially since the IARC bacon exposé was paired with a Kelland article about glyphosate that accused IARC advisor Chris Portier of bias because of his affiliation with an environmental group.

The conflict-of-interest framing served to discredit a letter, organized by Portier and signed by 94 scientists, that described “serious flaws” in a European Union risk assessment that exonerated glyphosate of cancer risk.

The Portier attack, and the good science/bad science theme, echoed throughchemical industry PR channels on the same day the Kelland articles appeared.

IARC pushes back

In October 2016, in another exclusive scoop, Kelland portrayed IARC as a secretive organization that had asked its scientists to withhold documents pertaining to the glyphosate review. The article was based on correspondence provided to Kelland by a pro-industry law group.

In response, IARC took the unusual step of posting Kelland’s questions and the answers they had sent her, which provided context left out of the Reuters story.

IARC explained that Monsanto’s lawyers were asking scientists to turn over draft and deliberative documents, and in light of the ongoing lawsuits against Monsanto, “the scientists felt uncomfortable releasing these materials, and some felt that they were being intimidated.” The agency said they had faced similar pressure in the past to release draft documents to support legal actions involving asbestos and tobacco, and that there was an attempt to draw deliberative IARC documents into PCB litigation.

The story didn’t mention those examples, or the concerns about draft scientific documents ending up in lawsuits, but the piece was heavy on critiques of IARC, describing it as a group “at odds with scientists around the world,” which “has caused controversy” with cancer assessments that “can cause unnecessary health scares.”

IARC has “secret agendas” and its actions were “ridiculous,” according to a Monsanto executive quoted in the story.

IARC wrote in response (emphasis in original):

The article by Reuters follows a pattern of consistent but misleading reports about the IARC Monographs Programme in some sections of the media beginning after glyphosate was classified as probably carcinogenic to humans.

IARC also pushed back on Kelland’s reporting about Blair, noting the conflict of interest with her source Tarone and explaining that IARC’s cancer evaluation program does not consider unpublished data, and “does not base its evaluations on opinions presented in media reports,” but on the “systematic assembly and review of all publicly available and pertinent scientific studies, by independent experts, free from vested interests.”

PR agency narrative

The Science Media Centre—which Kelland has said has influenced her reporting—does have vested interests, and has also been criticized for pushing pro-industry science views.Current and past funders include Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont, Coca-Cola and food and chemical industry trade groups, as well as government agencies, foundations and universities.

By all accounts, SMC is influential in shaping how the media cover certain science stories, often getting its expert reaction quotes in media stories and driving coverage with its press briefings.

As Kelland explained in the SMC promotional video, “By the end of a briefing, you understand what the story is and why it’s important.”

That is the point of the SMC effort: to signal to reporters whether stories or studies merit attention, and how they should be framed.

Sometimes, SMC experts downplay risk and offer assurances to the public about controversial products or technologies; for example, researchers have criticized SMC’s media efforts on fracking, cell phone safety, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and genetically engineered foods.

SMC campaigns sometimes feed into lobbying efforts. A 2013 Nature article explained how SMC turned the tide on media coverage of animal/human hybrid embryos away from ethical concerns and toward their importance as a research tool—and thus stopped government regulations.

The media researcher hired by SMC to analyze the effectiveness of that campaign, Andy Williams of Cardiff University, came to see the SMC model as problematic, worrying that it stifled debate. Williams described SMC briefings as tightly managed events pushing persuasive narratives.

On the topic of glyphosate cancer risk, SMC offers a clear narrative in its press releases.

The IARC cancer classification, according to SMC experts, “failed to include critical data,” was based on “a rather selective review” and on evidence that “appears a bit thin” and “overall does not support such a high-level classification.” Monsanto and other industry groups promoted the quotes.

SMC experts had a much more favorable view of risk assessments conducted by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which cleared glyphosate of human cancer concerns.

EFSA’s conclusion was “more scientific, pragmatic and balanced” than IARC’s, and the ECHA report was objective, independent, comprehensive and “scientifically justified.”

Kelland’s reporting in Reuters echoes those pro-industry themes, and sometimes used the same experts, such as a November 2015 story about why European-based agencies gave contradictory advice about the cancer risk of glyphosate. Her story quoted two experts directly from an SMC release, then summarized their views:

In other words, IARC is tasked with highlighting anything that might in certain conditions, however rare, be able to cause cancer in people. EFSA, on the other hand, is concerned with real life risks and whether, in the case of glyphosate, there is evidence to show that when used in normal conditions, the pesticide poses an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment.

Kelland included two brief reactions from environmentalists: Greenpeace called the EFSA review “whitewash,” and Jennifer Sass from the Natural Resources Defense Council said IARC’s review was “a much more robust, scientifically defensible and public process involving an international committee of non-industry experts.” (An NRDC statement on glyphosate put it this way: “IARC Got It Right, EFSA Got It From Monsanto.”)

Kelland’s story followed up the environmental group comments with “critics of IARC…say its hazard identification approach is becoming meaningless for consumers, who struggle to apply its advice to real life,” and ends with quotes from a scientist who “declares an interest as having acted as a consultant for Monsanto.”

When asked about the criticisms of pro-industry bias of the SMC, Fox responded:

We listen carefully to any criticism from the scientific community or news journalists working for U.K. media, but we do not receive criticism of pro-industry bias from these stakeholders. We reject the charge of pro-industry bias, and our work reflects the evidence and views of the 3,000 eminent scientific researchers on our database. As an independent press office focusing on some of the most controversial science stories, we fully expect criticism from groups outside mainstream science.

Expert conflicts

Scientific experts do not always disclose their conflicts of interest in news releases issued by SMC, nor in their high-profile roles as decision-makers about the cancer risk of chemicals like glyphosate.

Frequent SMC expert Alan Boobis, professor of biochemical pharmacology at Imperial College London, offers views in SMC releases on aspartame (“not a concern”), glyphosate in urine (no concern), insecticides and birth defects(“premature to draw conclusions”), alcohol, GMO corn, trace metals, lab rodent diets and more.

The ECHA decision that glyphosate is not a carcinogen “is to be congratulated,” according to Boobis, and the IARC decision that it is probably carcinogenic “is not a cause for undue alarm,” because it did not take into account how pesticides are used in the real world.

Boobis declared no conflicts of interest in the IARC release or any of the earlier SMC releases that carry his quotes. But he then sparked a conflict-of-interest scandal when news broke that he held leadership positions with the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), a pro-industry group, at the same time he co-chaired a U.N. panel that found glyphosate unlikely to pose a cancer riskthrough diet. (Boobis is currently chair of the ILSI Board of Trustees, and vice president ad interim of ILSI/Europe.)

ILSI has received six-figure donations from Monsanto and CropLife International, the pesticide trade association. Professor Angelo Moretto, who co-chaired the U.N. panel on glyphosate along with Boobis, also held a leadership role in ILSI. Yet the panel declared no conflicts of interest.

Kelland did not report on those conflicts, though she did write about the findings of the “U.N. experts” who exonerated glyphosate of cancer risk, and she once recycled a Boobis quote from an SMC press release for an article about tainted Irish pork. (The risk to consumers was low.)

When asked about the SMC conflict of interest disclosure policy, and why Boobis’ ISLI connection was not disclosed in SMC releases, Fox responded:

We ask all researchers we use to provide their COIs and proactively make those available to journalists. In line with several other COI policies, we are unable to investigate every COI, though we welcome journalists doing so.

Boobis could not be reached for comment, but told the Guardian lnx, “My role in ILSI (and two of its branches) is as a public sector member and chair of their boards of trustees, positions which are not remunerated.”

But the conflict “sparked furious condemnation from green MEPs and NGOs,” the Guardian reported, “intensified by the [U.N. panel] report’s release two days before an EU relicensing vote on glyphosate, which will be worth billions of dollars to industry.”

And so goes it with the tangled web of influence involving corporations, science experts, media coverage and the high-stakes debate about glyphosate, now playing out on the world stage as Monsanto faces lawsuits over the chemical due to cancer claims, and seeks to complete a $66 billion deal with Bayer.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., as Bloomberg reported on July 13: “Does the World’s Top Weed Killer Cause Cancer? Trump’s EPA Will Decide.”

A version of this story originally ran in Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

Stacy Malkan is co-director of U.S. Right to Know,

http://www.salon.com/2015/09/30/another_one_bites_the_dust_a_look_at_trey_gowdys_worst_moments_as_new_reports_suggest_his_retirement_is_near/

Just as the Republicans’ rising Benghazi star nears his apex with the testimony of Hillary Clinton before his congressional committee and some of his conservative colleagues clamoring for his ascent into House leadership, Rep. Trey Gowdy curiously finds himself at the center of reports about his impending retirement from the Congress.

From The Hill:

The South Carolina Republican stood up in the room and gave an emotional speech, telling his colleagues he loved them all but that he would not be a candidate for leadership. Instead, Gowdy said he’s staying focused on leading the committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, testifies before his panel next month.

“When I’m done with that, I’m going to return to South Carolina where my heart is,” Gowdy told his colleagues, according to a source in the room.

“Trey wants to go back to South Carolina, and God bless him for that,” Louisiana Republican Congressmen John Fleming saidduring a CSPAN interview this morning. “At the end of his term, yes,” Fleming said of Gowdy’s plans to return his home state, presumably to be featured in future “Forensic Files” episodes. “He plans to go back home, and he wants to finish his work on the Benghazi special committee. But he loves South Carolina and he loves his family, and he wants to go back and spend the rest of his life there.”

Nevertheless, Gowdy’s office denies any such announcement was made.

“No, he is not announcing anything regarding 2016,” spokesperson Amanda Duvall told reporters today.

Still, whether or not Gowdy’s on his way out, here are a couple of reasons why we’d be happy to see him gone on the heels of news that his House Select Committee on Benghazi just bested Watergate to become the longest running special congressional investigation in American history:

1. Raising money off Benghazi

Gowdy promised to bring prosecutorial gravitas to the Benghazi investigation (Gowdy is a former federal prosecutor) but he’s only kept the accusations of a political charade alive with his fundraising habits.

The fundraising arm of House Republicans, the National Republican Congressional Committee, welcomed Gowdy as chairman of the special Benghazi select committeewith an email the day after his appointment encouraging supporters to “become a Benghazi watchdog” by donating to the NRCC.

The group’s website still encourages visitors to “help fight liberals” and “stand with Congressman Trey Gowdy, the Benghazi Select Committee, and House Republicans as we fight for the truth about what happened with the Benghazi terrorist attack.” The website prominently features a button to contribute below.

Gowdy has since publicly denounced efforts to fundraise off Benghazi yet somehow regularly finds himself in the middle of such efforts. “I cannot and will not raise money on Benghazi,” Gowdy said after backing out of a Virginia fundraiser titled, “Beyond Benghazi” earlier this year. “I also advise my colleagues to follow suit, and I think I did so in a pretty unambiguous way.”

uch an admonish did little to stop the Stop Hillary PAC from collecting nearly 470,000 signatures in support of Gowdy’s “pursuit of the truth and justice.” And just as recently as this month, Gowdy found himself forced to cancel a fundraiser on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio at the home of a prominent Texas art collector who housed paintings by Hitler in his home.

Selectively leaking information to the press

The ranking Democrat on Gowdy’s Benghazi committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, has blasted Gowdy for overseeing reckless leaks to the press in an effort to tarnish Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, citing a misreported story about Clinton’s emails in Politico.

“It now appears that someone who was given access to the Select Committee’s documents leaked doctored information to the press in order to make unsubstantiated allegations against Secretary Clinton,” Cummings wrote in a strongly worded letter addressed to Gowdy earlier this year.

Again, Gowdy denied the accusations then, insisting that his investigation was aboveboard. “Serious investigations do not leak information or make selective releases of information without full and proper context,” Gowdy said at the time.

His bill allowing the House of Representative to sue President Obama

Benghazi is not Gowdy’s only beat. After he took a seat on the House Government Oversight Committee in 2010 he immediately vowed to conduct “seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks” in an effort to thwart President Obama.

When that plan didn’t work out as hoped, Gowdy introduced a bill that would allow the House or the Senate to sue President Obama or any executive branch employee for allegedly failing to enforce a law. The cases would be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court under Gowdy’s legislation.

“The Constitution says the president has a duty to faithfully execute the law, so for the health of the republic, it would be nice to debate what that phrase means,”Gowdy argued in defense of his farcical proposal.

Making us miss Darrell Issa

Admittedly, if Gowdy were to have a saving grace validating his worth on the Hill, it would have to be this glorious performance as Benghazi hearing bouncer — booting Congressman Darrell Issa from closed-door deposition.

Issa, who conducted his own notably lengthy and fruitless investigation into Benghazi when he was chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, set the tone for outlandish GOP antics so when Gowdy barred the San Diego republican from crashing former Hillary Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal’s deposition it really made us miss the fellow:

http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/11/17/pro-koch-cbs-analyst-received-15-million-from-t/206918

MSNBC reported that former House Benghazi Select Committee investigator Brad Podliska, is suing the committee for defamation after allegedly facing retaliation for claiming the committee was "hyper-focus[ed]" on Hillary Clinton.

Podliska was fired in late June after working for almost ten months as an investigator for the committee partly for, according to Select Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC), mishandling classified information. On October 11, during an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on State of the Union, Podliska called the committee's investigation "partisan" and claimed the focus shifted almost exclusively to Clinton after it was reported that she utilized a private email serverwhile serving as Secretary of State.

Gowdy and the committee denied the allegations, and said Podliska was "terminated for cause." A committee spokesperson issued a statement accusing Podliska of his own bias in his work, claiming he participated in an effort to direct committee resources to create a "'hit piece' on members of the Obama Administration, including Secretary Clinton." The statement said the committee would not be "blackmailed into a monetary settlement for a false allegation." Gowdy also issued his own statement, claiming he never spoke directly with Podliska and was confident no one on the committee instructed him to focus on Clinton. This occurred just weeks after HouseMajority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) bragged to Fox's Sean Hannity that Clinton's "numbers are dropping" because of the Select Committee's work.

The Benghazi Select Committee is largely a creation of Fox News and other members conservative media, who endlessly called for Congress to investigate Clinton over the Benghazi attacks. After McCarthy acknowledged the partisan nature of the committee, Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Bill O'Reilly and Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume conceded that the purpose of the investigation was political.

MSNBC reported that Podliska is not seeking monetary compensation from the defamation suit, but rather for Gowdy to release a statement admitting his allegation Podliska mishandled classified information was false. He is also asking for an injunction to prevent Gowdy from repeating the claim:

===

10'15 carl pope:

...It’s easy to blame the ideology, or the temperament, of the Freedom Caucus, for the melt-down, or even the overall competence of the Republican party, as conservative columnist David Brooks has done. “This anti-political political ethos produced elected leaders of jaw-dropping incompetence. Running a government is a craft, like carpentry. But the new Republican officials did not believe in government and so did not respect its traditions, its disciplines and its craftsmanship.”

But there are also deep structural sources of the malady. Consider the primary election that gives the Freedom Caucus its leverage over the more mainstream majority of the House Republicans; the defeat of Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014. Cantor’s successful Tea Party opponent, Eric Brat, received only 36,000 votes, just 8 percent of the registered electorate in Virginia’s 7th district. That’s less than a quarter of the registered Republicans. Indeed, in that fall’s general election, the Democratic candidate for Congress who Brat faced, Jack Trammel, received 91,000 votes, almost three times as many as Brat received in unseating Cantor, even though in the General Election Brat crushed Trammel.

So it’s almost certain that if Virginia, like California and Louisiana, let the two biggest vote getters in the primary contest the general even if they are of the same party, that in Round 2 Cantor would have gotten more than enough votes to keep his seat.

And Cantor’s defeat is no anomaly. Consider South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District, in which Trey Gowdy, the Chair of the Banghazi Frenzy Committee, defeated four term conservative Republican Bob Inglis. Gowdy charged that Inglis, by conceding the existence ofglobal warming, had forfeited his conservative credentials in spite of a 93.5 percent American Conservative Union rating. Gowdy stomped Inglis in the primary—but again, look at the numbers. Gowdy got only 54,000 votes, a tiny fraction of the registered voters. Once again in the general election the Democratic congressional candidate, in an overwhelmingly Republican district, received more votes than Gowdy in the primary. There are enough other examples that most House Republicans now live in fear of such a primary defeat—which is why mainstream Republicans couldn’t stand up Boehner against the Tea Party.

Applying this 40,000 votes needed to win a contested Republican primary, and considering that the average Congressional district has 330,000 registered voters, a determined and disciplined “faction” (as Madison would have put it) of far fewer than 5 percent of the American public could dominate the nominating process of the Republican party and capture it. (The same math holds true for the Democrats—it’s just harder to imagine such a disciplined faction of Democrats).

Effectively, an even tinier group now exercises dominating power of intimidation over the Republican caucus in the House.

How did this happen? Low turn-out primaries are nothing new—they are standard fare, and over the decades hundreds of primary victors have been chosen by even smaller segments of the electorate than Brat. It didn’t threaten to shut-down the government. Nor is the presence within one or both parties of small caucuses of members of Congress with view strikingly out of step with the American majority. During the Civil Rights era, the 1965 Voting Rights Act was opposed by 65 House Democrats, a much larger number than the Freedom Caucus.

But three basic changes in American politics, blended with low turn-outs created this toxic brew.

First, American political parties were traditionally ideological grab-bags of regional factions. The Democrats lumped Northern urban liberals with rural Southern conservatives, and rural Protestant Conservatives caucused with up-scale suburban moderates among Republicans. After Barry Goldwater’s defeat in 1964 conservatives decided that they needed a “pure” conservative party, one with a clear and conservative ideology. They chose the Republican party. Aided by the civil rights induced migration of southern whites out of the Democratic party, this project proved fabulously successful. With the 2010 defeat of most of the Blue Dog Democrats in the House, and the loss of most of the remaining conservative Democratic Senators in 2014, both parties now stand solidly on either the right or the left.

Second, having created European style ideological parties, Congressional Republicans then embraced European style parliamentary politics, imposing discipline on individual Senators and Congressman with strong sanctions if they voted their districts or their consciences on key legislation. This trend culminated in the 1995 promulgation of the Hastert rule, that the Speaker would schedule only legislation which enjoyed majority support in the Republican caucus, and its corollary, that Republicans would uniformly provide such legislation with enough votes to pass.

The Supreme Court provided the third kicker. One of the main barriers to a broadly unpopular ideology successfully plucking off 30-40 Congressional seats was that fringe factions lack an obvious mass funding base. But by repealing all of the legal limits on how much money the super-rich and corporations could pump into campaigns, the Court allowed a single patron to turbocharge policy objective held by a tiny minority of Americans and enable them to black-mail the entire national political system by shutting down Congress.

And how does the U.S. political system get out of this hostage taking dynamic? A few years ago many main-stream Republicans (David Brooks among them) argued that the nomination of a genuinely extremist Presidential nominee followed by a decisive drubbing in the general election would “break the fever” which had taken hold of the party. But that strategy assumed that business elites and the Republican establishment still held the loyalty of hierarchical Republican voters. Donald Trump and Ben Carson’s domination of the Presidential polls seems to have illustrated that this loyalty can no longer be counted on, and that the Tea Party, until it enacts its widely unpopular agenda, may well refuse to bow to the pragmatic counsels of “we need to win the Presidency.”

There is another pathway—it’s what Madison would have wanted—and if I had to bet, it’s the likely outcome. Mainstream Republicans will realize that if a relatively small number of them form cross-aisle alliances with the Democrats on those issues on which everyone except the Tea Party agrees (highway funding for example), they can govern, even if minimally because President Obama will eagerly sign such legislation. The business community will have to provide those who cross the aisle with protection in their primaries—which means that only bills with strong conservative and business credentials will be viable. But if Speaker Ryan is forced into such a strategy, and his consent would be essential, the fury of the hard core of the extreme right will make Catherine de Medici look like a pussycat.

So I don’t think it ends well for Speaker Ryan. But perhaps I am misreading the Tea Party. I hope so.

===

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/91251/dc-autonomy-gowdy

http://prospect.org/article/meet-trey-gowdy-gop-benghazi-attack-dog

Since House Speaker John Boehner announced the creation of a select committee to investigate the Benghazi affair, Republicans have been saying it will be a serious investigation, while Democrats have been saying it will be a partisan circus. To get a sense of who might be right, I spent some time watching YouTube videos of Rep. Trey Gowdy, the heretofore obscure second-term Tea Party congressman from South Carolina whom Boehner named to lead the committee.

There are a lot of these videos of Gowdy in congressional hearings, posted by conservatives, with titles like "Gowdy DESTROYS Obama Admin Stooge!" He's obviously very popular among the base. To call Gowdy prosecutorial would be an understatement. Uniformly angry and outraged, these videos show Gowdy always seemingly on the verge of shouting, he's so damn mad. Like any good lawyer, he never asks a question to which he doesn't already know the answer. But when a witness gives him an answer other than the one he expects, he repeats his question at a slightly louder volume and angrier pitch, as though the question hadn't actually been answered.

This is a good example, in which Gowdy blasts the director of the National Park Service for closing national memorials during the government shutdown, thereby allowing Republicans to stage a photo op in which they proclaimed their solidarity with veterans wanting to go to the memorials. You'll recall that it was Tea Partiers like Gowdy who pushed for the government shutdown in the first place; this was a lame attempt to somehow shift blame onto the Obama administration for the shutdown, one that didn't work. Instead of thanking the director for making their photo op possible, Gowdy angrily demands that the director tell him the statute that allows him to put barricades around the memorials and prevent our fine veterans from entering them. The director cites the statute that covers the procedures the Park Service is supposed to follow during a shutdown. Gowdy was apparently expecting the director to say, "I have no idea" or evade the question, so he asks the question a couple more times as though it were being evaded. If you didn't speak English, you'd probably think this tough prosecutor has really got this witness on the ropes:

Which tells you why Gowdy got picked for this job. John Boehner is doing this for the base, and the base wants someone who will channel the anger and contempt they feel for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the rest of the administration. Gowdy, a former prosecutor, is already referring to this enterprise not as an investigation but as a "trial," making clear that he sees his job not as finding the truth but as convicting the accused. And for someone who has supposedly been obsessed with Benghazi, he doesn't seem to have much of a grasp on what the multiple investigations of the issue have already revealed. So what we're likely to see is a lot of desk-pounding, a lot of "Answer the damn question!", and not much (or any) wrongdoing actually uncovered.

latest chapter in the anti-Hillary Clinton vendetta known as the House Select Committee on Benghazi showed its hand this past week with its surreal questioning of Sidney Blumenthal. The longtime Clinton confidante spent nine hours answering more than 549 questions, fewer than 20 of them concerning the fate of American diplomats killed in a terrorist attack.

“They have been operating for months like this. I think this is probably the most visible example," said James Cole, a former deputy U.S. attorney general under Eric Holder who is Blumenthal’s attorney. “Here’s a guy who know nothing about Benghazi whatsoever, and he’s there for almost nine hours. And they’re asking him questions mostly about things that have nothing to do with Benghazi.”

Both Cole and the committee’s Democrats have asked that a transcript of the session be released. As their ranking member, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-MD, said Friday, “Over the past week, the Select Committee has become a sieve, with anonymous ‘sources’ repeatedly leaking selected excerpts of Mr. Blumenthal’s e-mails out of context. It’s time to end this circus. The Committee should immediately release all of Mr. Blumenthal’s emails and his full deposition transcript together.”

In preparing that transcript for release—which will not happen if the Committee’s GOP Chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-SC, refuses—Cummings' staff compiled extraordinary statistics revealing how this supposedly serious committee looking into a diplomatic tragedy has instead became the latest version of an anti-Clinton inquistion on the Hill. They counted and categorized the questions put to Blumenthal, finding that less than 3 percent of the 549 queries concerned “security in Benghazi.” Their statement said:

“The transcript of Blumenthal’s deposition includes hundreds of questions posed by Republicans during the day-long session, including the following:

Blumenthal’s relationship/communications with the Clintons—more than 160
Benghazi attacks—less than 20

The Clinton Foundation—more than 50
Security in Benghazi—4

The U.S. presence in Benghazi—0

David Brock, Media Matters and affiliated entities—more than 45
Ambassador Stevens and other U.S. personnel in Benghazi—0

Blumenthal’s attorney Cole sat through the charade and said Republicans did not start asking questions about Benghazi until more than seven hours into the process.

“He started testifying at 10:30 in the morning and it wasn’t until six o’clock at night that the Republican side asked him the first question about Benghazi,” he said. “It is truly just a political maneuver on their part. If Sidney was not a friend of Hillary Clinton’s, he would have no reason to be in front of the committee.”

Cole and the committee’s Democrats both noted how Blumenthal was intentionally given a rough treatment by the Republicans, saying they did not ask him to come in and testify, but instead treated him like a witness in a criminal trial.

“They never had a deposition before,” Cole said. “Sidney is the first person ever to be subpoenaed and deposed. He was never offered the opportunity to appear voluntarily, which he would have. The first encounter that he had with the committee was when two marshalls came to his door and served his wife with a subpoena for him... In the past, the chairman of the committee has said he sees no reason to subpoena people if they’re willing to be cooperative. They never even asked him.”

To date, according to the committee’s Democrats, House Republicans have spent more than $3.5 million on this inquisition, which has gone on longer “than the investigations of Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination, Iran-Contra and Hurricane Katrina.”

“The Select Committee on Benghazi continues to squander millions of dollars and has nothing to show for it other than a partisan attack against Secretary Clinton and her campaign for president,” the Democrats’ webpage said. “This calculation does not include the costs of: the independent Accountability Review Board; the eight previous reports by seven congressional committees; the time, money, and resources consumed by federal agencies to comply with Select Committee requests; or the opportunity cost of not spending this money elsewhere, like improving security for our diplomatic officers abroad.”

“It’s a vehicle to attack Hillary Clinton,” Cole said. “There’s nothing to restrain them.”

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting" (AlterNet Books, 2008).

arold Watson "Trey" Gowdy III (born August 22, 1964) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for South Carolina's 4th congressional districtsince 2011 and is known for his awkward hairstyles that make it appear as if he has had his hair done by a lawnmower. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district includes much of the Upstate region, including Greenville and Spartanburg.

Before his election to Congress, Gowdy was the solicitor (district attorney) for the state's Seventh Judicial Circuit, comprising Spartanburg and Cherokee counties. From 1994 to 2000, he was a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina.

In 2014, Gowdy became chairman of a House Select Committee to investigate the 2012 Benghazi attack.

[hide]

Early life, education, and family:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

Gowdy was born in Greenville, and grew up in Spartanburg. He considers Spartanburg his home. He is the son of Novalene (née Evans) and Dr. Harold Watson "Hal" Gowdy, Jr.^[1][2] Trey graduated from Spartanburg High School in 1982. He earned a B.A. in history from Baylor University in 1986. He was a member of Kappa Omega Tau, a service/social Fraternity while at Baylor University. He earned a J.D. degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1989. In law school, he was a member of the scholastic honor society "Wig and Robe."

Gowdy and his wife Terri have two children: Watson and Abigail. Watson is a senior at Clemson University studying Philosophy, Political Science, and Law, as well as a lifelong avid golf enthusiast. Abigail is a 12th grader. His cousin Joey Paul Gowdy^[3] is an actor and producer in the entertainment business who is related to sportcasterCurt Gowdy^[4] and actress Karen Morris Gowdy. Terri Dillard Gowdy is a teacher's aide in Spartanburg School District.

Legal career:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

Following law school, he clerked for John P. Gardner on the South Carolina Court of Appeals and United States District Court Judge Ross Anderson. He then went into private practice before becoming a federal prosecutor in April 1994. He was awarded the Postal Inspector’s Award for the successful prosecution of J. Mark Allen, one of “America’s Most Wanted” suspects.

In February 2000, he left the United States Attorney’s Office to run for 7th Circuit Solicitor. He defeated incumbent Solicitor Holman Gossett^[5] in the Republican primary. He ran unopposed in the general election. He was reelected in 2004 and 2008, both times unopposed. During his tenure, he appeared on “Forensic Files” twice, as well as Dateline NBC and SCETV.^[6] He prosecuted the full gamut of criminal cases including 7 death penalty cases.

When the state faced a budget crunch that forced many employees to go on unpaid furloughs, Gowdy funneled part of his campaign account into the solicitor's budget so his staff could keep working.^[7]

Congressional elections:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

2010:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in South Carolina, 2010 § District 4*

In the summer of 2009, Gowdy announced that he would challenge incumbent Republican U.S. Congressman Bob Inglis in the Republican primary for South Carolina's 4th congressional district. Inglis, who got a 93% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, angered the conservative wing of the Republican Party by taking stances that were perceived to be more moderate than those he'd taken when he'd first represented the district from 1993 to 1999.^[8] For instance, he'd angered conservatives in his district when he supported cap and trade as a result of his belief that global warming is man made.^[9] He drew five Republican challengers, and Gowdy was one of them. Like most of the challengers, Gowdy ran well to Inglis' right.^[8] In the June 2010 primary, Gowdy ranked first with 39% of the vote, short of the 50% majority threshold to win outright and avoid a run-off. Inglis received 27% of the vote. Jim Lee got 14%, State Senator David L. Thomas got 13%, and former Historian of the United States House of Representatives Christina Jeffrey was last with 7% of the vote.^[10][11]

In the run-off election, Gowdy defeated Inglis 70%–30%.^[12] The 4th is so heavily Republican that it was widely presumed Gowdy had assured himself of a seat in Congress.^[13] Gowdy defeated Democratic nomineePaul Corden 63%–29%.^[14]

2012:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in South Carolina, 2012 § District 4

Gowdy ran for reelection to a second term against Democrat Deb Morrow.^[15] The original remap of the district cut part of Gowdy's home county, Spartanburg County, out of the district while leaving all of Greenville County in the district. Gowdy was initially "disappointed" with this version, even though it would have left the 4th as reliably Republican as its predecessor. However, the final map moved part of Greenville County to the 3rd and left all of Spartanburg County in the 4th. Gowdy was pleased with this version, since Greenville and Spartanburg counties remained together. Roll Call rated his district as Safe Republican in 2012.^[16]Gowdy won re-election to a second term, defeating Morrow 65%–34%.^[17]

2014:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in South Carolina, 2014 § District 4

Gowdy ran for reelection again in 2014. His only opponent was Libertarian Curtis E. McLaughlin.^[18] He was reelected with 85.2% of the popular vote.

U.S. House of Representatives:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

Tenure:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

In August 2011 during the 2011 United States debt ceiling crisis, Gowdy opposed Speaker John Boehner’s debt limit bill, and he voted against the final debt ceiling agreement.^[19] He also opposed the 2011 defense authorization bill, citing concerns about the prospect of Americans being detained without trial on national security grounds.^[20] In December 2010, he told Congressional Quarterly that he would support a measure only if its sponsor could demonstrate that the Constitution gave the government the power to act in a particular realm.^[7]

Gowdy worked on the Committee on Judiciary, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the Committee on Education and the Workforce. Gowdy frequently speaks on the floor of the House on issues ranging from Fast and Furious to his support for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

In 2012, he received the Defender of Economic Freedom award from the fiscally conservative 501(c)4 organization Club for Growth. The award is given to the members of Congress who have the year's highest ranking, according to the Club for Growth's metrics. Gowdy scored 97 out of 100, and was one of 34 congressmen given the award.^[21]

An ardent social conservative, Gowdy considers himself "pro-life plus." He not only believes "in the sanctity of life," but argues that "the strategy should be broader than waiting for the Supreme Court to revisit Roe v. Wade."^[22]

Trey Gowdy signed the Contract From America, which aims to defund, repeal, and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, limit United States Environmental Protection Agency regulations, enact a reform of the federal tax code, pass a balanced budget amendment, and end earmarks.^[23][24]

Legislation:{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

On March 4, 2014, Gowdy introduced the ENFORCE the Law Act of 2014 (H.R. 4138; 113th Congress) into the House.^[25] The bill would give the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate both the standing to sue the President of the United States in a federal district court to clarify a federal law (that is, seek a declaratory judgment) in the event that the executive branch is not enforcing the law.^[26][27] House Republicans argued that the bill was necessary because the Obama Administration refused to enforce the laws.^[28] H.R. 4138 has passed the House but has yet to become law.

In total, Gowdy has sponsored 11 bills, including:^[29]

112th Congress (2011–2012):{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

H.R. 1894, a bill to permit a guilty plea made by the accused prior to the announcement of the sentence in a capital offense trial before a military commission to form the basis of an agreement to reduce the maximum approved sentence, introduced May 13, 2011
H.R. 2076, a bill to allow the Attorney General to assist with investigation incidents in which three or more people are killed or are attempted to be killed, introduced June 1, 2011, signed into law January 14, 2013
H.R. 6620, a bill to authorize the United States Secret Service to protect former presidents, their spouses, and their children under the age of 16, introduced November 30, 2012, signed into law January 10, 2013

113th Congress (2013–2014):{:(style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px"):}:[edit:{]}:

H.R. 652, a bill to prohibit non-humanitarian relief foreign aid from being sent to countries that engage in state-sanction persecution of religious minorities, prevent equal access to education on the basis of gender, race, or ethnicity, or do not accept the return of nationals who have been extradited, introduced February 13, 2013
H.R. 5401, a bill to prohibit Libyan nationals from engaging in aviation maintenance, flight operations, or nuclear-related studies or training inside the United States, introduced September 8, 2014