There’s nothing quite as satisfying as seeing Former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) — one of the only people who has actually seen the classified documents related to the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the FBI’s/DOJ’s FISA abuses — wryly smile when confronted with former acting FBI head Andrew McCabe’s story about why he and his cohorts at the FBI opened an investigation into the Trump campaign, and who they made aware of it.

Gowdy was interviewed Tuesday night on Fox about whether or not he believed McCabe’s claim that he (McCabe) told the Gang of 8 (the 8 congressional members briefed on intelligence matters by the executive branch) that the FBI had opened a criminal probe into the Trump campaign attempting to ascertain if Trump was colluding with Russian agents.

Gowdy isn’t biting.

And he made the incredible statement that he “will continue not to believe” McCabe when it comes to whether his House colleagues Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) knew about an investigation into the Trump campaign and never said a word about it.

“That Devin and Paul knew about it and had no problem with it,” Gowdy said on Fox News Tuesday night. “The reason he’s doing it this way is that Devin and Paul are not allowed to discuss anything that is said in a Gang of Eight meeting, and McCabe knows that. So he can level the accusation and Paul and Devin cannot refute him.”

The wry smile came when Fox host Martha MacCallum relayed to Gowdy that McCabe’s morning interview indicated he believed that the criminal investigation into the Trump campaign was because he and his FBI accomplices believed Trump was “an agent of Russia, essentially.”

Trump himself tweeted Gowdy’s reply:

“If thinking that James Comey is not a good FBI Director is tantamount to being an agent of Russia, than just list all the people that are agents of Russia – Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Rod Rosenstein who wrote the memo to get rid of Comey, the Inspector General….” Trey Gowdy

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2019

And there was a lot more:

McCabe said in an interview Tuesday morning that he had briefed the Gang of Eight– the intel body comprised the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate as well as the intelligence committee leaders–about the FBI opening a counterintelligence investigation into President Donald Trump and his ties to Russia. Gowdy told MacCallum he doesn’t believe it.

…

“What I think is fascinating is, there were three investigations into a duly elected president,” said Gowdy. “The Peter Strzok one from July of 2016 and then McCabe started a counterintelligence, and if he’s telling the truth, started a criminal probe into the President of the United States.”

“I listened to Devin and Paul quiz the DOJ and the DOJ for hours on multiple occasions about the one counterintelligence investigation we all knew about it. I find it stunning that they would know about a second one and not say a single solitary word,” said Gowdy. “And I will continue to not believe they knew about it unless one or the other contradicts it.”

The entire segment is here. McCabe keeps digging his hole, and there’s an old saying that if your enemy is digging a hole, you shouldn’t stop him. But it is getting a little uncomfortable to watch.

https://twitter.com/JammieWF/status/1098219749589377025