Steve Castor, the general counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, has been involved in nearly every major congressional investigation launched over the past 20 years.
Castor, 51, came to Congress to escape corporate law, joining the House Oversight and Accountability Committee as it reviewed the fallout from Hurricane Katrina.
He later realized the role allows him to focus on the aspects of being a trial lawyer he liked the best: interviewing witnesses and leading depositions.
Castor has investigated steroid use within Major League Baseball; the killing of State Department personnel in Benghazi, Libya; and a gun-trafficking program that led to the subpoena of then-Attorney General Eric Holder.
Despite working on a number of high-profile investigations, he largely remained behind the scenes until his work on former President Trump’s first impeachment, stepping into the limelight as the GOP’s lead counsel for questioning witnesses.
It was an experience he described as similar to “driving through a snowstorm,” where it’s imperative to stay focused on the road.
“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 said, describing Republicans as being in a “defensive posture.”
He didn’t measure success until the matter came to a vote on the floor.
“We didn’t have any defections among Republicans. I think that was our No. 1 goal going in,” Castor said.
Castor has seen the importance of investigations grow during his time in Congress, starting as part of a team of three to working on a panel where nearly 100 staffers help with probes.
While he’s been vilified by the left, he noted he also takes heat from some on the right who don’t understand 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 said, noting they must have a legislative purpose.
“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.”