Trey Gowdy

Harold Watson "Trey" Gowdy III (born August 22, 1964) is an American television news presenter, former politician and former federal prosecutor who served as the U.S. representative for SC's 4th congressional district from 2011 to 2019.

His district included much of the Upstate region of South Carolina, including Greenville and Spartanburg.

Gowdy was born on August 22, 1964, in Greenville, South Carolina.

He is the son of Novalene (Evans) and Harold Watson "Hal" Gowdy Jr., MD.

He grew up in Spartanburg, where as a young man he delivered newspapers for the local daily and worked at the community market.

Gowdy graduated from Spartanburg High School in 1982 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Baylor University in 1986.

While at Baylor he was a member of Kappa Omega Tau.

He graduated Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1989.

Gowdy worked as judicial law clerk for John P. Gardner on the South Carolina Court of Appeals as well as for federal judge G. Ross Anderson of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina.

Despite getting a 93% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, Inglis had angered the conservative wing of the Republican Party by taking stances that were perceived to be more moderate than those he had taken when he first represented the district from 1993 to 1999; besides opposing elements in his own party on issues including climate change, he attracted attention as a member of the Judiciary Committee for providing the deciding vote that prevented a measure designed to protect the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance from coming to the House floor.

Before his congressional career, Gowdy served as a federal prosecutor in the District of South Carolina from 1994 to 2000 and then as the solicitor (district attorney) for South Carolina's Seventh Judicial Circuit, comprising Spartanburg and Cherokee counties from 2000 to 2010.

He then went into private practice at Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough in Greenville, South Carolina before being appointed as an assistant United States Attorney in April 1994.

Gowdy received the Postal Inspector's Award for the successful prosecution of J. Mark Allen, one of "America's Most Wanted" suspects.

In February 2000, he left the United States Attorney's Office to run for 7th Circuit solicitor.

He defeated Solicitor Holman Gossett who was an incumbent, in the Republican primary and he ran unopposed in the general election.

Gowdy was re-elected in 2004 and 2008, both times unopposed.

During his tenure he appeared in four episodes of the television program Forensic Files, as well as Dateline NBC and SCETV.

He prosecuted the set of criminal cases and seven of them were death penalty cases.

In the summer of 2009, Gowdy announced that he would challenge incumbent Republican U.S. Congressman Bob Inglis in the Republican primary for South Carolina's 4th congressional district.

Gowdy was one of several candidates in the 2010 primary who ran well to Inglis' right.

Inglis had drawn five Republican challengers, including Gowdy.

In the June 2010 primary, Gowdy ranked first with 39% of the vote, short of the 50% majority threshold to win outright and avoid a run-off.

Inglis received 27% of the vote.

Jim Lee got 14%, State Senator David L. Thomas got 13%, and former Historian of the United States House of Representatives Christina Jeffrey was last with 7% of the vote.

In the run-off election, Gowdy defeated Inglis 70–30%.

The 4th district was considered so heavily Republican that it was widely presumed Gowdy had clinched a seat in Congress with his primary victory.

Gowdy defeated Democratic nominee Paul Corden 63–29%.

Gowdy ran for re-election to a second term against Democrat Deb Morrow.

During redistricting following the 2010 census, one proposed map saw large portions of Gowdy's home county of Spartanburg County cut out of the district, while leaving all of Greenville County within the district.

Gowdy was initially quoted as being "disappointed" with the version, even though the redrawn 4th would have been as solidly Republican as its predecessor.

The final map moved a portion of Greenville County to the 3rd district while leaving almost all of Spartanburg County in the 4th district (except for a sliver that was moved to the 5th district).

Gowdy was quoted as being "pleased" with this version, since Greenville and Spartanburg counties remained linked.

His investigative committee spent over two and a half years and $7.8 million investigating the events surrounding the 2012 Benghazi attack, ultimately not finding evidence of specific wrong-doing by then-Secretary of State Clinton.

From 2014 to 2016, Gowdy chaired the United States House Select Committee on Benghazi which was partly responsible for discovering the existence of Hillary Clinton's private email server.

Gowdy pressed for the prosecution of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Beginning in June 2017 he chaired the House Oversight Committee.

On January 31, 2018, Gowdy announced that he would not seek re-election in 2018 and that he intended to pursue a legal career instead of politics.

He has since rejoined the law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, and also joined Fox News as a contributor.

In early 2021, he served as an interim host of Fox News Primetime, and then was named host of Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy later that same year.

In May 2023, Gowdy served as a guest host of Fox News Tonight following the firing of Tucker Carlson.