Trey Gowdy on the Strzok hearing: "Public hearings are a circus... I mean it's a freak show."

"I mean the private interviews are much more constructive. But I would also say this — I mean put yourself in President Trump's shoes for just a second. Jim Comey thought that impeachment was too good for you. John Brennan says you should be in the dustbin of history. Those are not insignificant people, one headed the FBI the other headed the CIA when you were under investigation. The lead FBI agent said that you would be destabilizing for the country and promise to stop your candidacy. I mean, Margaret if you were being investigated by people who had that level of bias and animus against you I think you would be concerned as well. What I would tell the president is no American has been indicted for conspiring to hack the DNC but Russia did attack us...."

On "Face the Nation" this morning.

ADDED: I chose to blog this quote because "It's a freak show" felt so close to what I thought when I watched the hearings. As I blogged on the 13th: It was "some of the most ridiculous political theater I've ever seen."

"Congressman Trey Gowdy... does a beautiful job of tying together the now-familiar FBI text exchanges with the issues of bias..."

"...  the effect of that bias on the Clinton and Russia investigations, and the FBI’s total failure to investigate the 'intent' standard that it wrongly read into the Espionage Act."

"House Benghazi Panel Finds No New Evidence of Wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton."

That's the headline in The NYT. Key word: new.

The 800-page report, however, included some new details about the night of the attacks, and the context in which it occurred, and it delivered a broad rebuke of government agencies like the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department — and the officials who led them — for failing to grasp the acute security risks in the Libyan city, and especially for maintaining outposts in Benghazi that they could not protect.

The committee, led by Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, also harshly criticized an internal State Department investigation that it said had allowed officials like Mrs. Clinton, then the secretary of state, to effectively choose who would investigate their actions. In addition, it reiterated Republicans’ complaints that the Obama administration had sought to thwart the investigation by withholding witnesses and evidence.

"Trey Gowdy Says His 11-Hour Benghazi Hearing Didn't Reveal Anything New."

HuffPo paraphrases.

AND: From Amy Davidson in The New Yorker:

Clinton has been immersed in politics for decades, and yet the panel managed to make the contrast between her manner and the ways of Washington look stark. She appeared to be a sensible outsider. At 7:15 P.M., nine hours after the hearings began, Martha Roby, of Alabama, asked Clinton about her movements when she went home on the night of the attack. “Were you alone?” she asked. Yes, Clinton said. “The whole night?” Clinton started to laugh once more. “I don’t see why that’s funny,” Roby said. Not funny, perhaps, but, like the Benghazi committee itself, absurd.

"Republican lawmakers sharply questioned Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday..."

"... seeking to build a case that the former secretary of state had been derelict in her duty to secure the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi...."

The hearing was punctuated by a series of increasingly pointed exchanges, especially among Democratic and Republican committee members. At one point, a shouting match erupted between Mr. Gowdy and two Democrats on the committee about the focus on Mrs. Clinton’s email exchanges with Sidney Blumenthal, a former aide to her husband and a personal friend.

But after more than six hours of testimony, exasperated Democrats on the Republican-led panel said they might quit their participation on the committee, declaring it a partisan sham aimed at damaging the leading Democratic presidential candidate.

That makes it sound like Hillary was on the sidelines, which suits her interests.

I sat down to watch when it started. I thought she made a fine opening statement. Though I'm mostly a steely, distanced observer of political theater, it reached me when she said:

I traveled to 112 countries as Secretary of State. Every time I did, I felt great pride and honor representing the country that I love. We need leadership at home to match our leadership abroad. Leadership that puts national security ahead of politics and ideology.

Maybe some actress coached her, but she got just the right emotional pitch on the word "love." I don't know that she's good enough to fake that, but even complete frauds can choke themselves up at the appropriate cornball moment. Still, I thought it was real. Hillary Clinton loves our country. Does she not?

I stuck with it for the first few rounds of questions, enough to make me think she'd make it through the ordeal unscathed, perhaps even with new luster. I had other things to tend to. Who can sit around all day watching television? It's the first part that matters. She was fine. After that, only really striking things are noticed, and apparently all that happened was committee members fighting with each other. Meaningless. Am I being too blithe? Point out what I should care about. And don't say: 4 men died. That was very well covered by Hillary at the beginning of her prepared statement.

"I would say in some ways these have been among the worst weeks of my life," said Trey Gowdy, the chair of the House Benghazi committee.

"Attacks on your character, attacks on your motives, are 1,000-times worse than anything you can do to anybody physically — at least it is for me."

"While it is not clear precisely when Secretary Clinton decided to permanently delete all emails from her server..."

"... it appears she made the decision after October 28, 2014, when the Department of State for the first time asked the Secretary to return her public record to the Department."

"So, it's strange credibility to believe that if you're on your way to Libya to discuss Libyan policy that there's not a single document that has been turned over to Congress."

On "Face the Nation" today, Bob Schieffer, interviewed Congressman Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the committee investigating the Hillary e-mail controversy. This is what I found most striking:

Issa says Lois Lerner waived her right against self-incrimination...

... by making an opening statement before invoking her Fifth Amendment privilege. She asserted: “I have not done anything wrong.... I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other committee.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a former federal prosecutor, said Lerner lost her rights the minute she started proclaiming her innocence, and that lawmakers therefore were entitled to question her. But Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland said hearing rules were not like those of a courtroom.

During the incident, Issa did not flat-out say whether or not Lerner had indeed waived her rights but instead tried to coax her into staying by offering to narrow the scope of questions.

By the afternoon, Issa was taking a harder stand. “The precedents are clear that this is not something you can turn on and turn off,” he told POLITICO. “She made testimony after she was sworn in, asserted her innocence in a number of areas, even answered questions asserting that a document was true … So she gave partial testimony and then tried to revoke that.”