"I think there's an effort to protect the president." Top Democrat nails complicit GOP

That’s according to Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. In an appearance on CNN Friday, Cummings discussed the explosive letter released earlier this week, detailing a whistleblower’s account of how Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was scheming to help businessmen profit from Russian ties on the day of Trump’s inauguration.

Cummings says Republicans are actively refusing to investigate issues that could incriminate Trump, completely shirking their responsibility. That’s especially true of the committee’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, who appears to be too nervous and timid to investigate any allegation of wrongdoing by the Trump administration.

Gowdy’s even afraid to meet with a key whistleblower:

CUMMINGS: I think there’s an effort to protect the president, to be frank with you. Keep in mind what we have here. We have a whistleblower, and this person come to us in great fear because this whistleblower felt it was important that this information be shared for the benefit of the country. […] Somebody has to look at this. And at the end of the day, the question is, what are we doing to reveal to the American people what happened, why it happened with regards to our elections, and what is going on here. I’ve got to tell you, the more I look at this, it’s clear to me that this is about greed. This is about people trying to make money, and it’s so sad. And I think, clearly I don’t want to get ahead of Mr. Mueller’s efforts, but I think as he moves forward, he will uncover a lot of this. And hopefully some of it will come out. But the kind of stuff I’m talking about may never come out if we don’t address it.

Gowdy rejected Cummings’ request that he meet with the whistleblower and investigate his charges because that wouldn’t be “a prudent use of resources.”

In response, Cummings wrote, “Your letter seems to resort to desperate and baseless jurisdictional excuses to avoid conducting oversight in an apparent attempt to protect President Trump and his Administration.”

Keep in mind, this is the same Trey Gowdy who flushed millions and millions of dollars perusing bogus Benghazi “cover-up” allegations and sponsoring pointless anti-Obama quests that went on for years.

We just recently learned that Gowdy engaged in flagrantly unethical behavior during that investigation, including retaliation against a staffer who refused to obsessively investigate Hillary Clinton. After the staffer sued, Gowdy was forced to pay out a $150,000 settlement.

Flynn recently pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about calls he had with the Russian ambassador about sanctions.

And Trey Gowdy wants nothing to do with the story.