Generally, I’m a Trey Gowdy fan. There’s no doubt that he’s smart and principled and that he is committed to moving conservatism forward, not just patting himself on the back and generally wanking about how incredibly high and unimpeachable is principles are.

But I do take issue with Gowdy in his interview yesterday with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. The set up was the public call by President Trump’s attorney, John Dowd, for the Mueller investigation to be shut down:

Rep. Trey Gowdy addresses Trump's lawyer John Dowd and his call to shut down the Mueller investigation: "If you have an innocent client Mr. Dowd, act like it" pic.twitter.com/pM2J2zYfZ2

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) March 18, 2018

REP. TREY GOWDY, R-S.C., HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CHAIR: I don’t, and I think that president’s attorney frankly does him a disservice when he says that and when he frames the investigation that way. Chris, if you look at the jurisdiction for Robert Mueller, first and foremost, what did Russia do to this country in 2016? That is supremely important, and it has nothing to do with collusion. So, to suggest that McCabe should shut down and all that he is looking at his collusion, if you have an innocent client, Mr. Dowd, act like it.
Russia attacked our country. Let special counsel Mueller figure that out. And if you believe as we have found, there’s no evidence to collusion, you should want special counsel Mueller to take all the time, and have all the independence he needs to do his job.

I thinks a lot of Gowdy’s statement here is disingenuous bunkum designed to give cover to an investigation that is clearly focused on collecting scalps and creating paychecks for Mueller’s investigatory team despite the damage that he is doing to the nation. What Gowdy is doing is endorsing the “Kafka trap” where someone’s denial of guilt is used as evidence of their guilt.

More to the point, John Dowd acted precisely the way a lawyer with an innocent client should react to a dodgy prosecutor who seems intent upon finding a crime of some kind with which to charge his client.

I’m squarely with our HotAir colleague, Gabriel Malor, on this

"My client is innocent, and this investigation should be closed" is exactly what your lawyer is supposed to say.

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) March 18, 2018

By this point Mueller either knows there is collusion or not. If he doesn’t, he’s a freakin moron because the full investigatory resources of the U. S. government have been focused on this question since October 2016. He owes the nation an answer on that question. Not on Paul Manafort’s financial shenanigans from a decade ago. Not on Flynn’s “lie” to the FBI.

The fact that he won’t deliver an answer on as question that is causing grave harm to President Trump’s administration tells you a great deal about Mueller’s agenda and where his investigation is going.

Mueller is clearly trying to develop some kind of a case against Trump because his focus is on the actions of Trump’s administration after he was inaugurated. That has nothing to do with much of anything. I tend to think that the claims that Mueller is out to cause grave financial harm to Trump by targeting his business enterprises makes for a better explanation of Mueller’s actions than any search he may be conducting for coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Mueller is owned zero deference by the White House. I think the White House has tolerated all of this nonsense that it needs to from what is essentially a temp employee of the Justice Department. President Trump is under no moral or legal obligation to sit on his hands while Mueller’s crew refuses to answer the very question that justified his appointment but finds time to pursue all manner of unrelated and specious offenses. Until Mueller delivers a verdict on the Russia collusion nonsense, the administration should make Mueller’s life as difficult as it is possible to make it.