After FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress on Tuesday that the FBI gave the White House a completed background check on former staff secretary Rob Porter in July and a follow-up in November, the House Oversight Committee began investigating the situation, committee chair Trey Gowdy said:
“You can call it official. You can call it unofficial,” Gowdy said. “I'm going to direct questions to the FBI that I expect them to answer. And if they don't answer them, then they're going to need to give me a really good reason.”
All very well, but Gowdy needs to be directing some very serious questions to the White House. Questions like: how did a man whose ex-wives reported he abused them, one of whom obtained a protective order against him, continue in his highly sensitive job after the FBI background check revealed this information? The FBI appears to have done its job by gathering the information; what the White House did with that information is the big issue here.
More promisingly for the direction of Gowdy’s investigation he also said that “I have real issues about how someone like this could be considered for employment whether there’s a security clearance or not.” That is definitely a question for the White House.