During an appearance on “Face the Nation” Sunday, former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who served as chairman of the House Oversight Committee during the Bengahzi hearings, said that House Republicans are wrong to criticize their Democratic colleagues for holding the initial impeachment depositions in private.

The Hill reports:

CBS’ Margaret Brennan played a clip of Gowdy in 2018 describing public House hearings as a “circus” and a “freakshow” and asked Gowdy Sunday whether he still believed that amid House Republicans’ insistence that depositions in the House’s impeachment inquiry should be public, with a group of them, including several who were authorized to be present already, storming a deposition in a secure room last week.

Gowdy could not have been clearer, replying:

“One hundred percent. I’m a rule-follower, I threw a Republican out of a hearing because he was not a member of a committee. If you’re going to have private investigations with unlimited time for question and cross-examining witnesses that’s a good thing.”

Brennan then asked Gowdy:

“So you think these hearings, these depositions should remain private?”

Again, Gowdy sided with the approach of House Democrats:

“You can pick and choose which aspects of due process you’re going to use. It’s not just the privacy. I mean the reason we respect executive branch investigations isn’t because they’re behind closed doors — it’s because there’s no leaks.”

And Gowdy added that while he understands the frustration of Republicans, they need to let the process play out:

“I do understand the Republican frustration with the current investigation. My bias has always been towards investigations that wait until the end before they share their conclusion. It’s not fair to do it on an hour by hour basis.”

Memo to Matt Gaetz and his clown car colleagues who pulled their little stunt this week and charged into a secure location so they could try and change the debate from Trump’s impeachment to their own limited understand of House rules: Even Trey Gowdy thinks you’re a bunch of fools. 

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