The New York Times has a great article about how internal White House strife “botched” the hiring of Trey Gowdy to defend Donald Trump against impeachment. Or did Gowdy have a change of heart?
From The Times article, written by Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni:
The official story, circulated by senior administration aides to a handful of reporters, was that Mr. Gowdy, who retired from Congress last year, had agreed to re-enter the fray on Tuesday. Mr. Gowdy’s name began circulating on Twitter as the new Trump defender, prompting a number of aides to the president to claim credit privately for the idea of bringing him on board.
But by Wednesday evening, aides were distancing themselves from the bungled personnel maneuver, which was made public before all the usual procedural boxes had been checked. Several pointed fingers at Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, suggesting he had botched the rollout.
According to The Times, Gowdy was Mulvaney’s idea and there were plenty of people who were not happy with it, including White House counsel Pat Cipollone. “Some White House officials” wanted Emmet T. Flood, who oversaw the administration’s response to the Mueller investigation, but “he was not available.” Flood probably wanted nothing to do with Trump’s latest mess.
Maybe Gowdy, who gave up his Fox News gig for this one, had second thoughts. The Times writes that “within 30 minutes” of the public statement that Gowdy was joining the Trump team, Gowdy alerted them to a problem it’s surprising he had not thought of previously: lobbying rules would prevent him from starting work until January, when the impeachment inquiry might already be over.
Now, according to two people familiar with events, Mr. Gowdy is never expected to join the team. And Trump advisers are back to square one, searching for a different lawyer.
Guess which completely unqualified person seems to be running the impeachment response for the guy who so hates unqualified relatives getting jobs they don't deserve, he claimed that's why he extorted the president of Ukraine?
Mr. Kushner, who aides said had been spending many hours on impeachment as part of his broader portfolio of defending the president, has told some people he is running the inquiry response and played down that idea with others.
I’ve previously written about how Gowdy can’t seem to make up his mind between his principles and his pocketbook. It makes me wonder which Gowdy told Trump after the fact that he couldn’t join the team until it was likely too late. Or which one will show up next if he has the opportunity to get his Fox News contributor's contact back.
Stay tuned.
(Gowdy image via screen grab)