Trey Gowdy says he has no plans to join Trump’s impeachment defense team

Trey Gowdy’s previously publicized plans to join President Trump’s impeachment legal defense team appear to be over.

The Republican poured cold water on speculation that he will represent Trump in 2020, telling Jason Chaffetz of Fox News that Trump already has “great lawyers” and “great facts” to back him up in the impeachment battle. Gowdy was rumored to be joining Trump’s team back in in October, but lobbying restrictions prevented him from being brought on board at the time.

However, during an appearance on The Ingraham Angle guest-hosted by Chaffetz, Gowdy did give a preview of how he would defend Trump, offering a point-for-point attack on the Democrats’ impeachment case, which he said was baseless and steeped in hypocrisy.

Gowdy gives hiring news

The lawyer and former prosecutor joined Fox News last year after retiring from Congress. He then left the network in October to join the Trump administration’s 2020 legal team, but those plans went awry over lobbying rules that blocked Gowdy from working for the president until January 2020, one year after he left the House of Representatives.

Gowdy previously said he had “no idea” what he would do in January 2020, but after returning to Fox as a contributor in December it appeared that he had made his plans, the Washington Examiner reported. In the interview with Gowdy, Chaffetz pointed to a photo of Gowdy golfing with Trump and asked if he was still hoping to work for the president — but Gowdy said that he wasn’t auditioning for any job.

“Getting serious here, are you going to represent President Trump coming into 2020?” Jason Chaffetz asked.

“No, the president has got great lawyers and more importantly than having great lawyers, he’s got great facts,” Gowdy said. Watch below:

Attacks impeachment

The former prosecutor quickly pivoted from talking about his personal plans to attacking both the process and the substance of the impeachment. In terms of substance, Gowdy said, the transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine clearly exculpates the president of any wrongdoing.

“Who brought up Rudy Giuliani’s name? Was President Trump or President Zelensky? It was President Zelensky, that’s who introduced Rudy Giuliani into the conversation,” Gowdy said. “The only thing President Trump did is he inserted Bill Barr and if it’s an impeachable offense to ask the attorney general, the top law enforcement officials of the country, to look in to potential impropriety, if that’s an impeachable offense, then we’re not going to have presidents serving very long.”

Gowdy went on to slam the Democrats for hypocrisy with regard to process, pointing out that Joe Biden’s stated intention to refuse to answer a subpoena undermined their very own charges of obstruction against Trump and condemning Democrats for claiming that the evidence against the president was airtight before the trial even started. Gowdy added that Pelosi would not have delayed sending articles of impeachment to the Senate if Trump was really an “existential threat” to the country and suggested that she is really trying to pressure vulnerable Republicans facing re-election.

Finally, Gowdy advised Republicans to not call any witnesses and to vote as soon as possible.

“If you have the jury and you know how they’re going to rule go ahead and get it over with and then the president can say whatever he wants to after the trial is over. I don’t believe in calling witnesses when I don’t know what they’re going to say,” Gowdy said.