Trey Gowdy had planned to spend last week promoting his new book, a crime novel that draws from the career he had as a prosecutor in South Carolina before serving four terms in Congress.
That plan was upended by a real crime nearly 2,000 miles away, the shooting of Charlie Kirk on a university campus in Orem, Utah. A novel with the title “The Color of Death” suddenly became more difficult to promote, but Gowdy is not at all bothered by that.
“That is the last thing on my mind,” he said Thursday. “I can write another book, but you only have one life.”
The host of “Sunday Night in America With Trey Gowdy” on Fox News, Gowdy has been watching the Kirk case unfold with particular interest, given his background as a district attorney and a federal prosecutor. He also worked with Kash Patel for two years when he was in the House of Representatives and Patel was a congressional staffer, and he holds Patel, now director of the FBI, in high regard.
At 61, Gowdy has a shock of gray hair that he once described as a “violent upheaval," a southern accent as thick as syrup, and a white American Dirus dog named Justice. He has two adult children — both with law degrees — with his wife of 36 years.
He also has rhetorical gifts honed in the courtroom and on the House floor, which came out in the days after he announced he would leave politics, offering quips like “I enjoy our justice system more than our political system” and “There is more civility in a death penalty case than there is in some congressional hearings."
“I like jobs where facts matter,” he said on CNN in 2019.
But Gowdy, who lives in Spartanburg, South Carolina, turns serious and thoughtful when talking about crime and punishment. In his legal career, Gowdy was involved with numerous murder cases — “too many to count” — seven of them death penalty cases. He has said that he supports the death penalty in the Charlie Kirk case.
“There will be decades and decades of appeals ... it is time consuming, it is expensive, it is fraught with pitfalls and potential pitfalls, and yet it is still exactly the right sentence to seek,” Gowdy said on his podcast. “A crime that shocks the conscience of a community, of a state, of a country, warrants society’s ultimate punishment. Period.”
In two interviews with the Deseret News — one before Kirk’s assassination, one after — he talked about his impressions of the case against Tyler Robinson, the Southern Utah man accused of killing Kirk; the challenge that lies before the prosecution and jury, and what he thought about that fiery exchange between Patel and Sen. Adam Schiff this week. He also explores why he wrote a fiction book that is heavy on crime but has “not one stitch” of politics in it.
The conversations have been edited for clarity and length.
Deseret News: You were a federal prosecutor for six years and a district attorney in South Carolina for 10 years. What are your impressions of how the Charlie Kirk case is being handled in Utah?
Trey Gowdy: The best investigations are not necessarily the most transparent. I certainly understand, as a member of the public myself, why people want to know more. The reality is, you have to protect the integrity of the investigation and the subsequent prosecution. And there are things that only the killer would know in the early stages of an investigation, so there is this balance between transparency and keeping the public informed.
But the first rule is do no harm to the case. … don’t harm the investigation, and equally important but sometimes lost, is don’t harm the subsequent prosecution because the goal is not an arrest. The goal is a conviction and a sentence that reflects the severity of the crime.
(Tyler Robinson) was captured within 48 hours, thanks to that same combination you see in almost every other case: public help, really good police work and technology. That’s what solves almost all homicides, whether they’re ones that made worldwide news or ones that nobody knows anything about.
DN: How will that video of the shooting, which was widely shared on social media, affect this case?
TG: It is incredibly difficult and jarring to watch. But there is a reason that prosecutors would put that video on as Exhibit A and why we wanted photographs to go back to the jury room. You need 12 people to come together (on the verdict).
It is one thing to read that someone was shot or someone was killed. It is another thing to watch it. And while you’re watching it, to be reminded that you may have thought this was a political figure, but this was a husband, a father, a son, a friend … I just think our culture has begun to dehumanize people, and we don’t like to be confronted with the humanity of it, but the reality is, until we see this as a living, breathing human being that had the only gift that mattered extinguished, because of either political or spiritual beliefs, until frankly both sides begin to see a human element in their opponents, I think we will have missed a chance for unity.
DN: How hard will it be to seat a jury in this case?
TG: I’m always thinking about the jury, because that’s where this ends. It does not end with the arrest. It ends with the conviction and the sentence that reflects the severity of the crime.
The key is not whether or not you have been exposed to information. The key is whether you have the mental integrity and discipline to base your decision solely on what happens in court. ... One way to think about it is, if a person were to walk out and tell the prosecutor, “I thought this person did it, but I don’t think you proved it,” that’s kind of your perfect juror, to distinguish what you feel and think from what was proven. ...
Death penalty cases are much harder because there are two trials. First you have to prove guilt — murder plus an aggravating circumstance. Then there’s a 24-hour cooling-off period, and then you start a whole separate trial about what the proper punishment is. You have to convince 12 people beyond a reasonable doubt twice. Eleven out of 12 doesn’t to it.
Death is different. That is the mantra that all prosecutors have. Death penalty cases are different. Judges are tougher on you. Juries may find someone guilty, but there’s this concept called “residual doubt” so they may not sentence them to death. Then you have to overcome the notion that “oh, he’s young, life in prison is more punishment for him to have to sit and think about what he’s done.” Well, that only works with rational people.
DN: So this case is going to be in the news for a very long time?
TG: As well it should be. The less you have of something, maybe the more you treasure it. And over two-thirds of my life is in the rear view mirror, not the windshield. And when I think of someone 31, which is (about) the age my children are, and I think that you, from 200 yards, extinguished every hope, every dream, thought, kindergarten graduation, elementary school graduation, wedding, prom, you extinguish from 200 yards, what you were too much of a coward to come and discuss from 20 feet, I think about how to make the best closing argument in that case: to convince 12 people to put someone with no criminal history to death. Which I’ve had to do.
Usually (a case like this) is like a lifetime achievement award ... they have a long criminal history. This defendant has no criminal history, so the closing argument I think is going to be really important. .. This jury will hear about (Kirk) as a father, husband, son, friend. He will be humanized.
DN: Can you tell me a little bit about your work with Kash Patel, and your thoughts about some of the headlines about him this week?
TG: We worked together for two years when I was in Congress, which would have been 2016-2018; he was a staffer with (the House Intelligence Committee) when I was asked to lead the Russia investigation. So we worked literally elbow-to-elbow, day by day, that’s how Kash and I got to know each other. ...
I think Kash is perhaps the most unfairly maligned person that is in public service. I saw a snippet of he and (Adam) Schiff having an exchange with one another. I can’t think of anyone who was more unfair to Kash than Adam was, and I think you saw some of the frustration and anger come out on Kash’s behalf. That’s been five years in the making. ... I am biased toward Kash, I would not be seated on his jury. I just don’t like unfairness.
DN: Your new novel is about an assistant DA in South Carolina who has been devastated by the deaths of his wife and daughter, but gets caught up in a murder investigation of a young woman. How did you mentally go into the dark places that a novel like this requires an author to do? I saw an interview you did in the aftermath of the Texas floods and you spoke very emotionally about having a daughter.
TG: If you ask me what’s the happiest day of my life, I can identify probably one of 3 or 4 days. If you ask me what would be the saddest day of my life, there is no bottom, there is no basement to it. … I spent 16 years where every file you pick up is someone doing something to someone, and when it’s all you see, you think it’s all that exists. Truth be told, I never ran for Congress. I was running from … I wanted an honorable exit out of a job that I loved but could no longer do. That’s the toll it takes on you. It’s literally all you see every day.
We had three children murdered in about six days. I tried to get out before it was too late, but I didn’t make it, to be honest with you. .. I am a little envious about people who say “I could leave it at work.” I couldn’t leave it at work. It followed me. And it still does. I can’t get the crime scene photos out of my head. That’s the thing most prosecutors will tell you.
DN: Was writing this book therapeutic in any way?
TG: It was, because I got to tell folks the real story of what prosecutors do. It’s not the way the media portrays it, and when I say media, I mean television, movies. We don’t show up the morning of jury selection and introduce ourselves to the cops. Most of us are there the night the crime happens. We need to be involved from day one. It is this unusual relationship where cops don’t work for prosecutors and we don’t work for them. But our fates are inextricably intertwined.
And also, there is no closure. The criminal justice chapter may end, but the grief remains largely unabated. In the psychology of trying to figure out the why — even though you don’t ever have to prove why — but everyone wants to know it. And my point is, even if you know the why, you will be left unsatisfied. You’re not going to be, OK, now I get it. You’ll never get it. The relationship between the prosecutors and the victims is a lifelong relationship.
I had blood drawn a couple of weeks ago, and the phlebotomist remembered me as as a prosecutor. She didn’t know me from Congress or Fox News; that was what she remembered. And it was strangely satisfying. That was enough for me.
DN: You’ve written nonfiction books before, including “Start, Stay or Leave,” published in 2023. Are you a novelist going forward, in addition to your broadcasting and your legal work?
TG: This book was really long; I had to divide it in three parts. Ten years is a long time to be writing a book in your head. So I took about a third of it and said, we’ll see if people like it, and if they do, it’s not like I have to spend a lot of time coming up with books two and three. They’re already in my head.
DN: Tell me a little bit about your collaboration with your co-author Christopher Greyson.
TG: We worked together maybe six months. In all the time we worked together, we never talked politics. And I liked it like that. If I’d liked politics, I wouldn’t have left Congress.
The only nonnegotiable was I wanted my mom and my wife to be able to read it, so there are no bad words or sex scenes. I would argue there’s a romance, but it’s a platonic romance. And that’s one of the questions that Christopher and I talked about — how soon is too soon to notice someone else when you have suffered a loss? You have to be sensitive to that. But I don’t want to ruin the book for you.
DN: One more thing — your protagonist’s name, Colm Truesdale. Where did that come from?
TG: Think about Malcolm, but shortening it to Colm. The very first Gowdy to ever set foot in the United States of America was named Benjamin Malcolm Gowdy. And Truesdale was my paternal grandmother’s maiden name, and also my baby sister’s middle name. Nobody in the world knows that, but you know it now.