During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) pleaded with Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to bring Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign to a prompt conclusion, citing the purported damage it is doing the country.

“There’s an old saying that justice delayed is justice denied. I think right now all of us are being denied,” Gowdy said. “Whatever you got — finish it the hell up, because this country is being torn apart.”

Gowdy’s comments might be defensible in a vacuum. But when he was chair of the House Benghazi Committee, Gowdy oversaw an investigation of Hillary Clinton that lasted more than two years.


When it finally ended in the summer of 2016, Gowdy told the Washington Post he had no qualms about how long it dragged out because “my job is to report facts.” But Gowdy — who isn’t running for reelection — is now clearly motivated by a desire to protect his party’s president.

In 2016, Gowdy acknowledged his Benghazi investigation didn’t turn up much. From the Post:

Gowdy said there was new information unearthed by the investigation, which he said included interviews with 81 new witnesses and the review of 75,000 additional pages of documents. The most prominent witness was Clinton, who remained calm under a marathon grilling before the committee last October.

On the other hand, Mueller’s investigation — which has been going on about 13 months — has already indicted or secured guilty pleas from 20 people, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump administration National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.


Later during the hearing, Rosenstein — who was appointed to his job by Trump — said he believes Mueller is working “as expeditiously as possible.”

“I don’t think it’s atypical at all. I believe that it’s being done as expeditiously as possible,” he said. “That was one of my goals in appointing someone I knew would be focused on the task, would not be distracted by other matters.”