Even if no one else does, Representative Trey Gowdy takes what he is doing in chairing the special committee investigating Benghazi seriously. And he doesn’t care what Hillary Clinton thinks, because, according to him, this investigation is not about her.

…Gowdy reiterated that he’s not targeting Clinton, noting that he’s got no qualms if his investigation finds that she did nothing wrong in Libya — though he feels Democrats are so eager to protect Clinton that they’re ruling that possibility out.

“When I hear that ‘it’s about her,’ it is so hard for me,” he said, before addressing Clinton directly: “You are not worth 18 months of my life, with all due respect. Four dead people are, but you’re not.”

Gowdy gave an interview to Politico this weekend that details what he really wants is the truth, and how he feels that the truth should not be political, despite what anyone else thinks.

Gowdy worked behind closed doors for 18 months in an effort to keep the committee’s work out of the political fray. But his strategy started unraveling after three Republicans suggested the committee was aimed at hurting Clinton in the polls. Democrats pounced, newspaper editorials called for the panel to be disbanded, and now there are calls from commentators of all stripes for Gowdy to reveal what he’s uncovered.

Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign and its allies have kept up the pressure with an almost daily barrage of news releases and statements slamming the panel’s work.

And he probably really would love to smack Rep. Kevin McCarthy for opening his big mouth.

Regardless, Gowdy is drawing on his experience as a prosecutor to get to the truth behind the deaths of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

“Trey does not like politics, he likes finding the truth,” said Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. “He stopped doing 70 percent of his shows like going on Fox, because this is a serious opportunity to find the truth and he wants to be less involved in the political process.”

And in the meantime, despite the media hyperventilating about Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s closed door testimony to the committee, Gowdy is working to make sure he is completely ready to face Hillary this coming Thursday.

On Friday, while all of Washington was focused on Abedin’s Benghazi testimony, Gowdy was examining a batch of emails from slain U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, messages he says no committee has ever read.

This is the part of this job he still loves, poring through documents to come up with questions, “looking at ways to put the puzzle together.”

Since the messages are not yet public, Gowdy described them over the phone: In the first few days of June 2012, Stevens asked for more security after an IED explosion outside the Benghazi compound and an RPG attack on the British ambassador’s convoy.

The State Department in Washington turned down the request for more protection from Stevens, who was to die in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack. At the time, Stevens joked to a colleague that maybe the Qataris would pay for the upgrades.

Meanwhile, a top Clinton aide asked him for help “messaging” the violence in Libya back in the States.

“You want to shape the violence? How about defend against it?” Gowdy said of the messages between Stevens and Washington.

For those of us who are paying attention, Thursday will be the day that Trey Gowdy gets to prove, once and for all, that this is a search for the truth behind why four Americans were killed. Hillary Clinton better be ready to answer his questions.