Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), the Trump-friendly member of the House Judiciary Committee, slammed the leadership of that committee and other Republican leaders Monday for not moving “fast enough” to interview former FBI Director James Comey and others.
Gaetz on Monday told Fox News’ Harris Faulkner that the “snail’s pace” of Republicans’ congressional oversight had been a “travesty.”
“It was five months ago that [House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Devin Nunes gave the House Judiciary Committee 42 names where we needed to take interviews. But we moved at such a snail’s pace that now we only have days left in legislative calendar and we are only now getting to James Comey? What a joke,” Gaetz said.
“This low-energy oversight is one of the reasons I think we lost the majority,” he added.
“Wow,” Faulkner responded. “But it was oversight by your political team. What happened?”
Gaetz named names: “We didn’t move fast enough,” he said, specifically faulting “the Speaker [of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI)], and the Judiciary Chairman [Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)] and the Oversight Chairman [Trey Gowdy (R-SC)].”
Faulkner pressed more: “Why didn’t it get done?”
“I don’t think that we really wanted the answers to a lot of these questions,” Gaetz said. “I think that a lot of the Republican leadership viewed the Russian investigation and our oversight into the FBI’s conduct as disruptive to the economic message that they were trying to push.”
The congressman added later: “Even if we get the facts, we’re out of time to really do the job that we should have been doing for the last two years.”
TPM has reached out to Ryan, Goodlatte and Gowdy for comment.
Watch below:
.@mattgaetz calls out fellow Republicans @SpeakerRyan, @RepGoodlatte and @TGowdySC, calling their "low-energy oversight" a "travesty, a "joke" and "one of the reasons I think we lost the majority."
"Wow," @HARRISFAULKNER responds. pic.twitter.com/FoGwTSaY52
— Matt Shuham (@mattshuham) December 3, 2018
Due to low intelligence!
What? Surely the next Congress can pick up where this one leaves off. Doesn’t Gaetz have any faith in the system?
Republican Master Gaetz on Fox.
Frankly, I agree with his assessment of congressional oversight. It’s been shockingly lax with regard to the criminal in the White House.