On “Pensacola Speaks,” I asked Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fort Walton Beach) what was his take on the Jim Comey’s testimony before the U.S. Senate. Gaetz chose to focus on the former FBI director’s comments about the Obama administration’s Attorney General, Loretta Lynch.
“I was shocked during the Comey testimony that Loretta Lynch actually went and was telling Comey that on the Hillary Clinton email scandal he was to call it ‘a matter’, not ‘an investigation,'” Gaetz said.
Comey said during his testimony last Thursday that Lynch asked him to refer to the Hillary Clinton email investigation as a “matter” — as opposed to an “investigation” — before a hearing in September. He didn’t resist the request because it “isn’t a hill worth dying on,” and he expected media reports to “completely ignore it”–which they did. However, Comey said that Lynch’s request “concerned” him because the language she suggested resembled the language the Clinton campaign itself was using.
On “Pensacola Speaks,” Gaetz also voiced concern about “different fact patterns coming out from different places about Russia.”
“That’s what Russia wants,” said the freshman congressman, who serves on the House Judiciary Committee. “Russia wants a Democratic model that looks disruptive and unstable.”
Gaetz added, “So no matter where you are on Trump, or any of that, this is just problematic for us as a country to have these varying fact patterns. I wasn’t heartened by that but it certainly looks like on all sides this Justice Department is becoming too politicized, and we need to make sure we have competent professionals who follow the facts, not the politics.”
I pointed out that I felt Comey’s testimony showed that the former FBI director was non-partisan. Gaetz agreed somewhat.
“Yeah, I don’t think that Comey is a partisan for Republicans or Democrats,” said Gaetz. “I think Comey is a partisan for attention. This is someone who, by the accounts of his own peers, broke every standard–laying out facts and conclusions in the way that he did during an investigation. The investigations that occur at the Justice Department, they aren’t a reality TV show.”
He believes that Comey got “used to the limelight.”
Gaetz said, “Those jobs really aren’t political appointments, and they should not be subject to the whims of politics. They really shouldn’t.”
