Former Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., on Friday denounced House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., as "deeply partisan" and said he "leaks" confidential information "like a sieve."
"When you put someone who is wrong as often as Adam Schiff is wrong and is as deeply partisan as he is, in charge of the intelligence committee, then no, you’re not going to share confidential information because Adam leaks like a sieve," Gowdy told Fox News.
Now a Fox contributor, Gowdy, 55, chaired the House Oversight Committee and the House Benghazi Committee during his four terms on Capitol Hill.
His comments came amid the congressional investigation into whistleblower allegations involving President Donald Trump.
Schiff, 59, who was first elected in 2000, told reporters Thursday after a closed-door hearing with intelligence officials that his panel may take legal action to obtain the complaint.
Democrats charge that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire is violating the law by not presenting the document to Congress, which Maguire's office disputes.
In his Friday interview, Gowdy said that Schiff's comments were "the consequence of putting someone that partisan as the head of the Intel Committee" and ripped Democrats for hypocrisy in their attacks on the Trump administration.
"What does frustrate people is I seem to recall a president who said, 'I'll have more flexibility in a second term,'" Gowdy told Fox News. "That's on tape.
"I don't think there was a similar level of outrage when President [Barack] Obama promised that to the Russian president."
Gowdy was referring to a March 2012 meeting in South Korea when Obama told then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in comments picked up by a live microphone that he would have "more flexibility" on whether to stop long-held U.S. plans to fully deploy a missile shield in Eastern Europe.
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