"You just don't burn cars because they won't start," he said. "Unless you have something you want to hide."

A year later, Trey Gowdy was elected to Congress, where his hard-nosed prosecutorial style is casting him in a much larger drama. At stake: his own reputation and the perhaps the political fate of a potential future president of the United States.

This Thursday, he will lead the high-stakes interrogation of Hillary Clinton over her role in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. And Clinton won't be the only one on the hot seat. Gowdy, the 51-year-old chairman of the House committee investigating the attacks, finds himself defending the panel against charges that it's only a partisan Republican effort to derail Clinton's presidential campaign.

While Gowdy will be at the center of the political drama, his background is in court. Friends in Congress say that while leading investigations and questioning witnesses is clearly part of Gowdy's DNA – his three dogs are named Judge, Jury and Bailiff – the highly charged political atmosphere has been frustrating.