The House Intelligence Committee should release a memo alleging Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses by the FBI — but the bureau should look at it beforehand, Rep. Trey Gowdy said Sunday.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” the South Carolina Republican, who had a hand in the writing of the four-page memo, declared, “I want the bureau to know everything that’s in the memo.”
"This memo answers what I think are legitimate questions and I do think the FBI should look at it before it is released,” he said. “I have provided that counsel to [Intelligence Committee] chairman [Devin] Nunes and I think that he has taken that under advisement. I want to play face-up poker.”
He also said it’s not a "hit piece."
"I think you will be surprised; it is not a hit piece on the department and the FBI,” he said. “I would not have participated in it if that's what it was.”
“There's nothing in this memo the department is not already aware of,” Gowdy added. “If you think your viewers want to know whether or not the dossier was used in court proceedings, whether or not it was vetted before it was used, whether or not it's ever been vetted. If you are interested in who paid for the dossier, if you are interested in Christopher Steele's relationship with Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, then you will want the memo to come out.”
Gowdy said it doesn’t matter how much an opposition research dossier on President Donald Trump that was produced by a former British spy and paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign was used as the basis for a federal investigation.
“Whether it was relied upon 80 percent or 20 percent, do you want to know that the Democratic National Committee paid for material that was never vetted, that was included in the court proceeding?” he asked. “Do you want to know whether or not the primary source in these core proceedings had a bias against one candidate? Do you want to know whether or not he said he would do anything to keep that candidate from becoming president?”