Republican House Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy attended a classified Department of Justice briefing last week with the congressional “Gang of Eight” (top members of both parties). The meeting was arranged by Donald Trump to improperly disclose information about an informant used by the FBI during its investigation of suspicious contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. This is the core of the controversy that Trump has been railing against for months as he tries to discredit the FBI and the inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump refers to it as a hoax and calls it the “Collusion Witch Hunt.” Never mind that there have already been dozens of indictments and five guilty pleas. That’s a lot of witches, and it’s a long way from being over.

Shortly after the meeting Democrat Adam Schiff told the press that there was nothing in the presentation that confirmed Trump’s wild accusations that the FBI planted a “spy” in his campaign. But Republicans said nothing at all, fueling speculation that what Schiff said was accurate. Now Gowdy has come forward and corroborated Schiff’s account. He said that:

“I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.”

So Gowdy disagrees completely with Trump’s baseless “spygate” malarkey. However, on Tuesday evening Trump held a rally in Nashville where he brought up the matter and stated as a fact that the FBI had infiltrated his campaign. He offered no further proof of the allegation, but he got the response he expected from the glassy-eyed disciples in his audience. Which is what he was going for on Wednesday morning when he tweeted some remarks from Gowdy that left out entirely the sharp rebuking above. Trump focused on whether or not he should have selected Jeff Sessions to be his Attorney General:

Rep.Trey Gowdy, “I don’t think so, I think what the President is doing is expressing frustration that Attorney General Sessions should have shared these reasons for recusal before he took the job, not afterward. If I were the President and I picked someone to be the country’s….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2018

….chief law enforcement officer, and they told me later, ‘oh by the way I’m not going to be able to participate in the most important case in the office, I would be frustrated too…and that’s how I read that – Senator Sessions, why didn’t you tell me before I picked you…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2018

….There are lots of really good lawyers in the country, he could have picked somebody else!” And I wish I did!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2018

The problem with that version of events is that Sessions could not have known at the time of his appointment that he would have to recuse himself. For one thing, there was no “most important case” in progress at the time of Sessions’ appointment. For another, the reason for the recusal included Sessions’ testimony at his confirmation hearings where he denied having any contact with Russians. That was false. Consequently, he made himself a potential witness in the investigation which required his recusal. So Trump is criticizing Sessions for not having “shared these reasons for recusal before he took the job,” which would have been impossible without being able to see into the future.

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All of this points to additional evidence of Trump’s guilt and subsequent efforts to obstruct justice. Add to this the new report that Trump tried to get Sessions to reverse his recusal, which would have been a clear violation of legal ethics. Not that ethics ever had anything to do with what Trump does or says. But that attempt has now become another plank in Mueller’s probe.