House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said in a recent interview that Democrats are “smart enough” to include information that will require redactions in their rebuttal to the controversial GOP House Intelligence Committee memo.
In an appearance on Fox News’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” Gowdy appeared to suggest that lawmakers in the opposing party want Americans to wonder about information that may be redacted.
“The Democrats are politically smart enough to put things in the memo that require either the [Federal] Bureau [of Investigation] or the Department of Justice to say it needs to be redacted. Therefore, it creates this belief that there’s something being hidden from the American people,” Gowdy said.
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Gowdy’s remarks come after the House Intelligence Committee, of which he is also a member, last week released a GOP-crafted memo alleging surveillance abuses at the Justice Department.
The committee on Monday voted to release a Democratic countermemo disputing the original Republican document, which was drafted by staff for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).
While the Democratic memo has yet to be released, the Intelligence panel’s ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Tuesday expressed worries that the White House could make “political redactions” to the Democratic document.
Gowdy said in the Fox interview he thinks Democrats may purposely include information that needs to be redacted.
“But unfortunately we’re in an environment where you would include material that you know has to be redacted and you know responsible people are going to redact it, just so that question will be asked,” he said.