Former 2020 candidate Eric Swalwell on the impeachment showdown
Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell told 'America's Newsroom' host Bill Hemmer president deserves due process in impeachment, but 'facts are powerful.'
Former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Eric Swalwell said Friday he would not "assume how people will vote" on articles of impeachment, but would not condemn House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff's decision to release information that included Ranking Member Devin Nunes' call logs.
On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for Democrats to "proceed with articles of impeachment." Her announcement came following the release of a 300-page report from the Intelligence Committee which accused the president of placing his own personal and political interest before the United States, seeking to undermine the integrity of the presidential election process, and endangering national security.
Appearing on "America's Newsroom" with host Bill Hemmer, the California congressman said it would be unfair to President Trump to predict whether Democrats have the votes to pass an impeachment. But he expressed confidence that there are "enough responsible people in the House to hold the president accountable."
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He said that Democrats have to "make sure people understand just what's at stake here" and that they want the American people to "understand what the president did ... is wrong and people need to be held accountable when they commit wrongdoing like that."
However, Swalwell also told Hemmer he believes the president "deserves a process that's fair."
"The facts are powerful, but the process behind the facts also [has] to be fair," he said.
The House Intelligence Committee's report also revealed phone records obtained by Schiff to bolster the impeachment case against the president. The records included calls from Rep. Nunes, presidential lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, journalist John Solomon, Fox News host Sean Hannity, Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, and other White House associates.
Hemmer asked Swalwell why Schiff was making these phone numbers public, with Swalwell answering that a "better question" is why Nunes was talking to Giuliani and Parnas at a time when a "smear and clear campaign" by the president was taking place to remove the Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
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"That's an accusation," Hemmer pushed back. "You're already drawing a conclusion..."
"The call records are clear," Swalwell responded. Ranking Member Nunes was talking to these individuals and what is really striking is that he used all of this time during the public hearing to attack Adam Schiff."
"If you don't talk to indicted felons, you don't end up on call records," he concluded.