Democrats "did everything they could" to keep Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee from finding out information for their memo reportedly showing how the FBI abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for its investigations, committee member Rep. Trey Gowdy said Tuesday.
"My Democratic colleagues didn't want us to find this information," the South Carolina Republican, who chairs the Oversight and Government Reform committee, told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program.
"They did everything they could to keep us from finding this information."
On Monday, Republicans on the committee, led by Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., voted to release their four-page memo. President Donald Trump will have up to five days to agree to allow the public access to the document, and Gowdy said he believes that will happen.
"I would just tell my fellow citizens, if you're interested in whether or not the dossier was used in court proceedings and you're interested in whether or not it was funded by a political opponent, then you'll want to see the memo," Gowdy said.
He also commented that when the memo is released, it will be "embarrassing" particularly to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, because people will "realize the extent to which he went to keep them from learning any of this."
Democrats, Gowdy continued, "went to court to help Fusion GPS, so we can't find out that they paid for the dossier and that they were working for the DNC [Democratic National Committee]. That's a pretty big step to go to court to try to keep the American people from learning something."
Gowdy added that if it was up to Schiff, "you wouldn't know about Hillary Clinton's email, you wouldn't know about the server, you wouldn't have known who paid for the dossier."
Schiff and Democrats have their own memo refuting the claims in the GOP document, and Gowdy said he finds that "ironic," because "if it were up to him, we wouldn't know any of it."
However, he said he also voted for a failing push to allow the Democrat memo to be released, as he trusts that people will make up their minds and draw fair conclusions.
Gowdy said he was surprised that assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe stepped down, reportedly under pressure from FBI Director Christopher Wray.
"He was a really professional witness," said Gowdy. "He answered all of our questions. We were together for about 20 hours, I guess, total. I don't know why he left and it wouldn't be fair for him to speculate. So, I am grateful for his service, but he's a really important witness in Clinton and Russia and we will leave it there."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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