Gowdy blows up Trump lie: 'I am even more convinced' FBI acted properly

GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy went on Fox News Tuesday night and proceeded to smack down Trump’s latest lie about the Russia investigation.

Appearing on Fox’s “The Story” with Martha MacCallum, Gowdy said he believes the FBI acted appropriately when it used an informant to make contact with several members of Trump’s presidential campaign shortly after it began its counterintelligence investigation in 2016.

Furthermore, he said, after attending last week’s classified briefing at the Department of Justice, “I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got.”

“It was Trump himself who said, ‘I didn’t collude with Russia but if anyone did, I want the FBI to find that out,'” he added.

Gowdy’s comments offer a stinging rebuke of Trump’s most recent lie about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference and potential coordination with the Trump campaign.

The lie, which has since evolved into a full-blown conspiracy theory, began when Trump made up a story about a “spy” being planted in his campaign by the FBI.

Trump then used that lie as the basis to demand that the DOJ brief lawmakers on classified intelligence gathered by federal investigators working on the Russia probe. The apparent purpose of the briefing, which was initially scheduled only for Republicans, was to let Trump’s allies get a look at information from the inside of the investigation — including evidence on Trump and his associates.

The briefing, like the failed memo stunt months earlier, turned out to be a complete flop. Both Republicans and Democrats came away from it with the same message: The FBI acted appropriately, and “spygate” is nothing but a figment of Trump’s deranged imagination.

And as Gowdy said Tuesday night, the briefing actually increased his confidence in the FBI and the legitimacy of its investigation — precisely the opposite of what Trump was going for.