Strzok testimony begins with blistering assault from Gowdy, then devolves into the usual congressional weak sauce

Despite the fact that we never expect much to come out of these hearings, we were glued to C-Span here at Cain HQ. At first, we weren’t disappointed. Strzok is as smarmy and self-righteous as you’d expect, Trey Gowdy came out of the gate with a blistering series of pointed questions that put him back on his heels, and the Democrats were – as usual – desperate to shield “their guy” from the proceedings. Here is the complete Gowdy segment of the proceedings…

Gowdy exchange quickly melted away into the usual morass of procedural nonsense and go-nowhere questioning

A: It’s interesting that he doesn’t “recall writing” the infamous “we’ll stop it” text, while he simultaneously has all the details and ‘context’ surrounding it. B: Gowdy’s pregnant pause before referring to Strzok’s lover Lisa Page as “Your…um…colleague” is hilarious. C: The argument over “perception” and “appearance” being the reasons Mueller kicked him off the Russia investigation is interesting, particularly when Gowdy asks why (if Mueller was only worried about perception) the other participating Democrats weren’t given the boot. D: As you can see, Strzok is going to stick with the “how dare you impugn me” defense. He has always claimed that his disdain for Donald Trump has had no impact on any of the decisions he made or the actions he took – and it’s completely laughable. If you live in the real world, and you’re not hopelessly in the tank for the Dems, it’s virtually impossible to believe that his bias had no impact on either the Clinton or the Russia investigation. The problem is that, even though literally no sane person is buying the idea that his bias didn’t impact his performance, it’s a difficult thing to prove. Sadly, also as usual, all the sound and fury of the Gowdy exchange quickly melted away into the usual morass of procedural nonsense and go-nowhere questioning. You can watch the entire hearing below. If you need to see everything wrong with the D.C. swamp, including the impotence of those who say they’d like to drain it, it’s all on display.