Gowdy Reflects on Past Investigations: I Always Get Asked ‘Why Don’t These People Go to Jail?’

In an exit interview of sorts, Congressman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina — who is leaving the House after his current term — spoke about the many times he has had to explained to voters that he cannot send anybody “to jail,” despite the many who ask him to put people like Hillary Clinton behind bars.

While appearing on Fox News’ The Story with Martha McCallum, Gowdy, who has a long history of working in the legal profession, reflected on past investigations that put him in the limelight and said the following:

“It’s the dominant question I get every Saturday morning at Publix, ‘Why don’t these people go to jail?’ I just politely have to tell them that no one in the legislative branch can put anyone in jail for anything. You could admit to a crime in this hearing room and there’s nothing, as a member of the legislative branch, I can do about it. That was my old job. The executive branch is to charge and prosecute and gain a conviction. In the past, we could always say you gotta’ talk to the Obama Justice Department. We can’t say that anymore, because it’s the Sessions Justice Department.”

He also noted that everything that happens in regards to federal prosecution is under a “Republican administration’s watch right now.”

“We build up expectations that we can never actualize. We should tell people we’re having a hearing to shed light, we’re not gonna’ have a hearing to put anybody in jail because I don’t have the power to do it,” he said.

Additionally, Gowdy seemingly defended Special Counsel Robert Mueller against conservative accusations of wrongdoing in the Russia investigation — despite many on his side of the aisle attacking his integrity and even calling for his firing. “I can just tell you, having done it for a living, Bob Mueller is every bit as interested in figuring out how we missed the signs that Russia was trying to interfere with our election. Prosecutors are just wired differently from politicians,” Gowdy said.

As far as the probe itself, Gowdy added, “There may or may not be crimes, domestic crimes associated with that, but it’s a foreign power trying to interfere with the gears of our democracy. The hack of the DNC server is a crime. The accessing of John Podesta’s email is a crime.”

He went on to talk about all of his famous interviews as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, including the grillings of Clinton over the Benghazi scandal, Sid Blumenthal over the IRS targeting scandal, and James Comey over the Clinton email scandal.

Watch above, via Fox News.

[images via screengrab]

Follow the author on Twitter (@calebecarma).

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