Steve Castor, the overall counsel for the Home Judiciary Committee, has been concerned in almost each main congressional investigation launched over the previous 20 years.
Castor, 51, got here to Congress to flee company regulation, becoming a member of the Home Oversight and Accountability Committee because it reviewed the fallout from Hurricane Katrina.
He later realized the position permits him to give attention to the features of being a trial lawyer he preferred the perfect: interviewing witnesses and main depositions.
Castor has investigated steroid use inside Main League Baseball; the killing of State Division personnel in Benghazi, Libya; and a gun-trafficking program that led to the subpoena of then-Legal professional Basic Eric Holder.
Regardless of engaged on a lot of high-profile investigations, he largely remained behind the scenes till his work on former President Trump’s first impeachment, entering into the limelight because the GOP’s lead counsel for questioning witnesses.
It was an expertise he described as much like “driving through a snowstorm,” the place it is crucial to remain centered on the street.
“A lot of it was thinking on your feet. It wasn’t as simple as having a script and just reading through it in a dry fashion. That was very exciting, but it was also a real high-wire act,” he mentioned, describing Republicans as being in a “defensive posture.”
He didn’t measure success till the matter got here to a vote on the ground.
“We didn’t have any defections among Republicans. I think that was our No. 1 goal going in,” Castor mentioned.
Castor has seen the significance of investigations develop throughout his time in Congress, beginning as a part of a workforce of three to engaged on a panel the place almost 100 staffers assist with probes.
Whereas he’s been vilified by the left, he famous he additionally takes warmth from some on the proper who don’t perceive the “inherent limitations” of Congress.
“We can’t conduct investigations for purposes of shining a light on something, for the purposes of finding the facts,” he mentioned, noting they will need to have a legislative function.
“And so a lot of people on the outside just expect us to reengineer the work of the Jan. 6 committee, and we can’t keep Steve Bannon out of jail. We can’t keep Peter Navarro out of jail … and I think a lot of our critics are just angry that we can’t do things like that.”
