My most recent column, “The Trump Investigation: Origins and Motives,” was devoted to a series of forensic analysis essays about the Trump/Putin collusion “investigation” and how Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton conspired, with the help of a few key FBI and CIA friends in high places, to set up Donald Trump for a takedown.

That forensic analysis was written by National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, whose perspective on this matter I trust given his considerable record as a former assistant U.S. attorney.

There is another astute former assistant U.S. attorney whose perspective I also trust implicitly. That would be Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and was the former chair of the House Benghazi Committee. In his former capacity, he exposed Hillary Clinton’s corrupt coverup of the Benghazi attack, which she fabricated to protect Barack Obama’s successful 2012 reelection bid. Obama suppressed any further investigation into that disgraceful coverup in order to, in turn, protect Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid.

Currently, as chair of the House Oversight Committee, Gowdy has doggedly pursued corruption at the highest levels of the Department of Justice. That includes how a handful of Obama/Clinton supporters in the FBI and CIA — most notably former CIA Director John Brennan (the Deep State boss who’s at the root of the Trump collusion setup), and former FBI Director James Comey, who, with a few other key FBI personnel — manufactured the Trump/Putin investigation in order to undermine Trump’s candidacy and then his unexpected election.

On Wednesday, after reviewing some of the FBI’s records regarding “Crossfire Hurricane,” the counterintelligence investigation into whether some Russian operatives were attempting to gain influence with several individuals with loose ties to the Trump campaign, Gowdy offered his assessment of that operation.

Regarding the justification, Gowdy concluded: “I don’t know what the FBI could have done or should have done other than run out a lead that someone loosely connected with the campaign was making assertions about Russia. I think you would want the FBI to find whether or not there was any validity to what those people were saying. … Think back to what the president himself told James Comey. He said, ‘I didn’t collude with Russia, but if anyone connected with my campaign did, I want you to investigate it.’ It strikes me that that’s exactly what the FBI was doing. I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.”

Gowdy added, “Marco Rubio and others [like] Tom Cotton on the SSI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence], the folks who have seen the information, I think, have the same perspective I have.”

Indeed, according to Rubio, “What I have seen is evidence that [the FBI agents] were investigating individuals with a history of links to Russia. … Individuals … who we should be suspicious of that predate the presidential campaign. And when individuals like that are in the orbit of a major political campaign in America, the FBI, who is in charge of counterintelligence investigations, should look at people like that.”

As I have noted repeatedly regarding Op “Crossfire Hurricane,” “For certain, Russian efforts to undermine the integrity of U.S. elections should be thoroughly investigated — as has been the case in the past.”

But I also previously noted, “The FBI should have contacted the Trump campaign directly to help determine if the Russians were seeking to influence that campaign, but there was already a fabricated presumption of colluding guilt” by several of Comey’s key senior FBI personnel, and any findings from “Crossfire Hurricane” that these connections did exist would fit nicely into their narrative.

Predictably, some Democrats and their dependable Leftmedia PR outlets are intentionally conflating the comments from Gowdy and Rubio as an exoneration of the overall corruption investigation regarding how Comey and a few of his key investigative managers within the FBI collaborated with Clinton campaign officials to frame Trump on the Russia collusion delusion. And a few folks on the Right are also chastising Gowdy and Rubio for their assessment.

But, what Gowdy and Rubio said in no way exonerates that larger investigation senior management corruption in the FBI, their comments where in defense of the actions of field agents. What they said was right…if you understand the context of their comments, but who has time for that…

According to Gowdy: “I think there are two things important to understand. Number one, the source of President Trump’s frustration. [Former CIA Director John] Brennan said he should be in the dust bin of history. [Former FBI Director James] Comey said impeachment’s too good of a remedy. [Former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper doesn’t like him. [Former Attorney General] Loretta lynch said, ‘Call it a matter, not an investigation.’ [Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Adam] Schiff said he had evidence of collusion before we even began the investigation, and 60 Democrats have voted to impeach him before Bob Mueller has come up with a single, solitary finding.”

The question is not about whether FBI counterintelligence agents did what they were reasonably tasked to do, but about the motivations of Comey and his crew regarding this investigation.

To that end, Gowdy posits the salient questions to be answered about “Crossfire Hurricane”: “What did the FBI do? When did they do it? What was the factual predicate upon which they took whatever actions they took and against whom were they directed?”

Footnote: Regarding President Trump’s blustering social media posts about corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, he should make sure those posts don’t cast the entire FBI as corrupt. As I have noted repeatedly, “The corruption of FBI leadership and some high-level bureaucrats has cast a long shadow on all of the 12,484 special agents and 2,950 intelligence analysts in the FBI. But most men and women in the FBI, much as in the CIA, steadfastly abide by their oaths ‘to support and defend’ our Constitution, not their preferential candidate, and they serve our nation likewise. They live up to the FBI motto: Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.”