Retiring Gowdy Says Lawmakers ‘Leak Like the Gossip Girls’

Washington lawmakers too often “leak like the Gossip Girls” and select information they think will validate their “previously held conviction,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

“[Congressional investigators] are just not serious. Serious investigations don’t leak,” Gowdy said. “Serious investigations don’t make up their mind first and then go in search of the evidence to validate your previously held conviction.”

He added, “Congressional investigations leak like the ‘Gossip Girls.’ I mean, they’re terrible, and I would be telling you that if I were staying in Congress.” He was referring to the television show “Gossip Girl,” a high school drama centered upon an eponymous gossip blog, when he ripped his peers.

Gowdy is not seeking a fifth term in Congress in November, and is planning instead to return to the practice of law in his home state.

Congressional probes and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into allegations of collusion between President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia have suffered from a flood of leaked details.

The chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Gowdy said lawmakers participating in congressional investigations are “terrible” and “just not serious” about the work they perform.

Although he said he was “glad we have Bob Mueller” and glad “we have an independent ball and strike caller” investigating the collusion allegations, he said Congress “has proven itself incapable of conducting serious investigations” because of its members’ various biases — including members of his own committee.

Gowdy announced on January 31 that he would not be running for re-election in 2018 because he intended to instead pursue a legal career.

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Lawmakers’ investigations into allegations of Trump-Russia collusion have been politicized heavily. Although GOP members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said they found no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion in a March report, Democratic members like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) accused their Republican colleagues of writing a “fundamentally incomplete” report inherently biased in Trump’s favor.

Related: Johnson Claims Mueller Probe ‘Hampered’ Congressional Investigations

“I think Adam Schiff in March of 2017 said he had evidence more than circumstantial but not direct,” Gowdy said. “And oh, by the way, there is no body of evidence that’s more than circumstantial but not direct, but he said he had it of collusion and we’ve been waiting for … over a year now for him to actually produce that, that evidence.”

“That is not serious,” Gowdy continued. “And I’m hoping that either the Senate investigation or Mueller will be more objective.”

PoliZette writer Kathryn Blackhurst can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter.