Trump's media lapdogs rage at Trey Gowdy for destroying Trump's lies

It’s rare that a Republican dares to contradict Trump out loud. And Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) is finding out what happens when they do.

Earlier this week, Gowdy committed Trumpworld heresy by utterly destroying Trump’s “spy” conspiracy theory. In fairly short order, a prominent conservatives turned on Gowdy, a reliable GOP attack dog, for daring to speak the truth.

Gowdy told Fox News’ Martha McCallum last week’s classified briefing at the Department of Justice left him “even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got.”

On Wednesday, Fox News host and Trump shadow chief of staff Sean Hannity kicked off his show by telling viewers that Gowdy “apparently doesn’t get it,” and promised “we’ll tell Trey Gowdy why he’s wrong” for defending the FBI.

During his conspiracy-laced opening monologue, Hannity also periodically heckled Gowdy, at one point asking, “Are you keeping up, Chairman Gowdy?” And during a panel segment, Hannity said, “Shame on Trey Gowdy,” to which guest Joe DiGenova disgustedly added, “Oh, please, don’t even bring up Trey Gowdy tonight.”

Then, on Wednesday night’s “Ingraham Angle,” NRA TV host Dan Bongino went off on Gowdy. “I think Gowdy’s appearance was disgraceful,” Bongino said, and complained that Gowdy’s bout of truthfulness “is now being used as propaganda by the left.”

And on Thursday morning’s “Fox & Friends,” Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) continued pushing back against on Gowdy, claiming that the FBI should have “briefed” Trump (which the FBI actually did do in 2016), and that investigating Russian collusion with Trump’s campaign “is not what Americans want the FBI to be doing.”

The reason Trump’s minions are going so hard at Gowdy is that Gowdy is not some moderate squish, he’s an extremely conservative congressman with a long record as a partisan attack dog. And even when Gowdy was telling Trump to stop acting guilty, he still said he thought Trump was innocent.

If someone like Gowdy is running around destroying Trump’s lies, it complicates efforts to paint Trump’s scandals as partisan “witch hunts.” Unfortunately for Trump and his sycophants, so do the facts.