Gowdy eyes court battle over Hillary emails

Rep. Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina prosecutor-turned-congressional bulldog, said his House colleagues may in fact pursue a court order to obtain access to Hillary Clinton's home server, in order to view the emails she sent and received while secretary of state.

In an interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked: "Now, you say your committee can't subpoena personal property. They can [subpoena] documents, papers, but not personal properties like a server. On the other hand, the House of Representatives, the full House, can. Should they?"

And Gowdy's reply, in a word: Perhaps.

"Well, we shouldn't have to," he said, Real Clear Politics documented. "I hope it doesn't get to that point. It's an open legal question and any time you litigate something, you're talking about years and years. I think an imminently reasonable alternative is for her to turn over that server to an independent, neutral third party."

Asked by Wallace if Clinton had broken rules put in place by the Obama administration, Gowdy said, “I’m going to have to let smart lawyers decide if she complied with the law or not.”

Gowdy also said he didn't want to look at Clinton's personal emails – her communications "about her yoga practice" or about "bridesmaid dresses," he said. But he does want to see her government emails. And he questions Clinton's assertion that she's in process of disclosing all her work-related emails.

"Who gets to decide what's personal and what's public? And if it's a mixed-use email, and lots of emails we get in life are both personal and some work, I just can't trust her lawyers to make the determination that the public is getting everything they're entitled to."

Wallace then said Clinton stated at one point she was open to the idea of "somebody neutral" looking at her server.

And Gowdy's response?

"Well, there are lots of ways to motivate people in life, Chris. One is public pressure," he said. "If it becomes an issue for her, if the public believes it is reasonable for her to turn over that server which contains public information to a neutral, detached, arbiter, not Congress but a retired judge or an archivist or an inspector general, then she'll be forced to do so. Otherwise, the House as an institution may be forced to go to court to try to get access to that."