Trey Gowdy Strikes Fear into Justice Department: 'We Have Run Out of Patience'
If the Justice Department wants to keep on stonewalling when it comes to former FBI official Bruce Ohr, they have a very rude awakening coming: Rep. Trey “The Bulldog” Gowdy and his Republican compatriots have “run out of patience.”
Ohr, you might recall, is caught up in a kerfuffle over possible improper contact with Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who assembled the Trump dossier.
The FBI had “suspended and then terminated” Steele as a source in November of 2016 for “unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI.”
The FBI characterized this, according to Fox News, as “the most serious of violations” and told Steele he could no longer “operate to obtain any intelligence whatsoever on behalf of the FBI.”
Emails and text messages show that Steele continued to send Ohr information even after Steele was terminated. Congressional committees want to question Ohr over this, but the Justice Department has rebuffed those requests.
In an interview on Fox News, Rep. Gowdy said that Republicans in the House were likely to issue a subpoena for Ohr if the DOJ continued to drag its feet.
The interview comes amid news that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, is preparing subpoenas for many of the Steele dossier principals, including Ohr.
“Chairman Goodlatte is a patient man, but we have run out of patience,” Gowdy said.
“(The Department of Justice) either needs to set this for a date-certain, or there will be a subpoena issued.”
Watch the video below:
Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, also said that texts between Ohr and Steele were “not new to me because I’m also on the House Intelligence Committee.”
“I may have been the first member of Congress who actually read these messages,” Gowdy said. “And that would have been in the fall of 2017. They were troubling then. They’re troubling now, which is why Chairman Goodlatte and I so much want to talk to Bruce Ohr.”
“I mean, think about Chris Steele, who has been dismissed from the FBI because he cannot follow their rules and regulations, and he’s communicating with someone in the Department of Justice who — by the way, Shannon — is not involved in this investigation. He’s a … narcotics prosecutor.”
“So, of course we want to talk to Bruce Ohr,” he continued.
And, apparently, Congress will be talking to him. Not just him, either; his wife Nellie Ohr and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson are also supposed to be headed for a subpoena.
This is why you don’t mess with “The Bulldog” — or the rest of GOP leadership — even if you’re the DOJ.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.