A meeting had been scheduled for Thursday between top House Intelligence Committee Republicans and top Department of Justice and FBI leaders to discuss allegations of an FBI informant spying on the Trump campaign in 2016.
Democrat leaders cried foul that they weren’t invited, so a second meeting at the White House was set up to include them, but Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina issued those Democrats a succinct warning ahead of the get-together.
According to The Daily Caller, House and Senate Minority Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer had sent a letter demanding that the scheduled White House meeting between President Donald Trump, top law enforcement officials and the House Intelligence Committee Republicans — chairman Devin Nunes and Gowdy — be made bipartisan.
To accommodate that demand, a second White House meeting was arranged which also included the “gang of eight” — the top Democrats and Republicans from the House and Senate Intel Committees plus the Majority and Minority Leaders from the House and Senate.
Gowdy was asked Wednesday by Fox News host Dana Perino how he felt about the inclusion of the Democrats in the meeting to discuss incredibly sensitive materials at the foundation of the counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign.
“I don’t care who comes, I’m not in control of the invite list,” stated Gowdy, prior to issuing a blunt warning.
“The only thing I would ask, Dana, is that if you’re going to show up, show up with an open mind and closed lips,” he warned.
“In other words, don’t leak like a sieve when we get through with the meeting,” he added, no doubt in reference to multiple leaks of sensitive information suspected of having come from House Intel ranking Democrat Adam Schiff and Senate Intel ranking Democrat Mark Warner.
As to the “open mind” portion of his warning, Gowdy noted that 60 House Democrats have already voted in favor of impeachment for President Trump.
Furthermore, a number of former Obama officials have been critical of Trump’s presidency as well, prior to the findings of the investigation being released.
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The White House was right to make the high-level meeting at the White House bipartisan, as it removed a key talking point from the Democrat arsenal against them.
However, Gowdy was even more correct to caution those Democrats against leaking sensitive information, as they have shown a tendency to do in the past.