Oversight Chair: ‘Drip, Drip, Drip’ Is Undermining Trump Admin’s Credibility

The chairman of the House Oversight Committee is frustrated that Republicans have spent so much time defending President Donald Trump and his administration in light of Donald Trump Jr.’s emails, which seemingly confirm that the President’s campaign was willing to work with the Russian government to gain an electoral advantage.

Appearing on Fox News Tuesday evening, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said he was “troubled on three levels” after reading the chain of emails that Trump Jr. released, revealing what led to the meeting between the President’s son, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, then-campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Kremlin-linked lawyer. When asked what disturbed him most, Gowdy said words like “‘Russian government’s efforts to help the Trump campaign,’ ‘official documents.’”

“Those are the kind of words that for months and months, Republicans have been saying, ‘There is no evidence of collusion between Trump, the Trump campaign, or even hangers-on,’” he said. “And here we have this meeting that may amount to nothing, but here we are on a Tuesday on a week when we ought to be discussing infrastructure and tax reform, and we are still talking about Russia, and frankly (it) came up with some good reason because this email, we should have known about it before yesterday.”

He wouldn’t say whether the President’s son committed a crime and said he’d rather “let Bob Mueller sort out all the criminality” of the emails.

“That is not the job of Congress, it is not the job of the New York Times,” he said.

Gowdy said he was “troubled” from a legal level, a political level and a “medical” level, saying he’s worried about the health of people who worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign.

“The third, which is more of a medical issue, is the amnesia of people that are in the Trump orbit. Someone close to the President needs to get everyone connected with that campaign in a room and say, ‘From the time you saw ‘Dr. Zhivago’ until the moment you drank vodka with a guy named Boris, you list every single one of those, and we are going to turn them over to the special counsel,’” he said, referencing the 1965 movie. “Because, this drip, drip, drip, it is undermining the credibility of this administration.”

Along with his work as the chair of the Oversight Committee, Gowdy is also helping the House Intelligence Committee in its investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign assisted in that interference.