Trey Gowdy Has Good News About South Carolina

Turnout has been one of the big headlines of the presidential election cycle, now that actual votes are being cast in the respective parties’ primary processes.

In both Iowa and New Hampshire, evangelical voters have turned out in big numbers, which have helped propel Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and even Donald Trump to the top of the delegate count. In South Carolina, which votes next on the Republican side, self-identified evangelicals make up nearly two-thirds of the traditional GOP voters.

So, that means U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) had great news on Monday’s Hugh Hewitt Show. Asked specifically to talk about his thoughts on turnout, the congressman said:

“It’s going to be huge. The crowds have been gigantic. The interest everywhere you go, people are talking about it. South Carolina takes its politics very seriously. I think turnout is going to be gigantic on Saturday.”

Gowdy is a Rubio supporter, and has been campaigning across the Palmetto State on the Florida senator’s behalf, but record-breaking turnout fueled by evangelicals is great news for other candidates, as well. Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson have been trying to make inroads with committed Christians all across the state.

The interview then turned to a discussion about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. As chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, he’s had access to information related to the Democrat presidential candidate’s private email server.

Hewitt asked him about the current FBI criminal investigation.

“I actually wish we did not know as much as we do, because I like the investigations to be confidential like they’re supposed to,” he said. “But just take the universe of information that you have now, and how do you feel about that. And obviously, you don’t know what you don’t know, and [FBI Director] Jim Comey’s a really good man and he’s a straight arrow. So he’s certainly not out there talking about what the Bureau has found. If there were attempts to access her server, and Heaven forbid if those attempts were successful, I think in many ways that’s potentially a game changer with respect to November.”

Hewitt then noted past guests on his show, including former Acting Director of the CIA Mike Morrell and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, had indicated the likelihood that Russia, China, and Iran had compromised Clinton’s email server was “very high.” He asked Gowdy what the congressman thought that meant, in terms of national security.

“It’s impossible to calculate, and that doesn’t frankly even get to the Special Access Programs. It’s, you know, there would be lives at risk, to put it mildly, with some of the information that we already know about,” he said. “So it’s, I can’t tell you the number of folks who come up to me at town halls who serve in the military, and it’s not just a classification issue. It’s not just a threat. It’s this notion that we have in our country, the bedrock notion, that the same rules apply no matter who you are or no matter what your title is. And the number of staff sergeants and others who come up to me and say if I had done this, I would be in Leavenworth right now. And I always caution them and say look, you don’t know what the Bureau has found, yet. You can’t go based on news accounts. But there’s, I trust Comey. I’m going to wait and make any assessments until he has finished his investigation, and we’ll see what the Department of Justice does.”