Is it the method or the results?

When you were in school, you not only got credit for the right answer, but for "showing your work" which was to make sure that you did not just guess or cheat.

Both were important but in the end, if you showed you knew how to get the right answer, but did not get the right answer, you really did not know how to get it - did you?  Either that or you made a stupid mistake.  (My hand is up for that - a painful lesson.)

Now to today.  Let's start by establishing a truth.  A "leak" must be true by definition.  You cannot leak something that is not true - it is just something that is made up.  I cannot leak that President Trump is really 5 foot 5 inches tall, no matter how seriously or how widely published it is.

So to Representative Trey Gowdy.  Here is what he said in response to Senator Charles Schumer's comment that House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, be removed from that position. Note, the details of the events are not essential to the point I am going to make.

"I wish Senator Schumer and some of the other Democrats would be interested in the authenticity and reliability of the underlying data [rather than] the means by which it was acquired," Gowdy said.

Now, Let us go back a few weeks to when Rep Gowdy was asking FBI Director James Comey about if the leak on former national security adviser Michael Flynn was being investigated.

Gowdy asked Comey to also assure the American people that the FBI is investigating the leak which led to the resignation of Trump's national security adviser Michael Flynn over communications with the Russian ambassador.

"I can't," Comey responded. "But I hope people watching know how seriously we take leaks of classified information. But I don't want to confirm it by saying we're investigating it. I'm sorry I have to draw that line, I just think that's the right way to be."

Gowdy shook his head in response. He said he wouldn't argue, but that he and Comey agree the release of classified information is "most definitely" a crime.

He then asked Comey to "seek authority from whomever you need to seek authority from" to assure the American people that the leak is being investigated.

Okay - which one is it - in the first case the that fact but not the method is important, in the second, the method and not the fact is more important????

Hmmmmm.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/03/27/trey-gowdy-chuck-schumer-devin-nunes-intelligence-wiretap-info-white-house

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/03/20/gowdy-presses-comey-whether-flynn-leak-will-be-investigated