My guest today is representative Congressman Eric Swalwell, who is both on the Judiciary
Committee and also the Intelligence Committee.
We're going to be talking about what happens if and when the Democrats take over the House
with regards to the Russia investigation, subpoenas, and various other matters.
Congressman, thank you so much for being with us.
So much to talk about.
You are on the House Judiciary and House Intelligence.
I mean, those are pretty active places.
By accident.
Yes, kind of found myself in the thick of these investigations or lack of investigations,
but yes.
I was a prosecutor here in Alameda County, and that has helped me kind of understand
these issues and then, as the Republicans try to bury a lot of the evidence, unearth
it and explain it to my constituents and the American people as to what it means.
Well there is sort of a cover up.
Do you think that the chairman of your committee, Devin Nunes, is covering up?
Has he been involved in a cover up, would you say, Mr. Prosecutor?
Yes, he's obstructed progress in our investigations.
As I've said, they've sought to prevent us from subpoenaing witnesses, any witness
that was brought in.
It was essentially a "take them as their word" investigation where they could tell
their version of the events, and we'd show no willingness to subpoena the third-party
documents like cell phone messages, bank records, travel logs, and so from start to finish,
we saw someone--Devin Nunes--who was willing to cover for the President.
So if the Democrats take over the house, you have subpoena power.
Now, what does that actually mean?
Explain it to people out there.
You have subpoena power.
Does that mean you can actually bring people, get documents that you otherwise couldn't
get?
Yes, well, conducting investigations that the Republicans were not willing to conduct--not
just on Russia.
There are still gaps on Russia.
Bob Mueller, for example, can only tell the American people what he can prove beyond reasonable
doubt.
There's a lot of information that he may not be able to prove, maybe because it's
a foreign witness that was picked up on an intercept, but we would still want the American
people to know what was being said and to whom it was being said.
We want to fill in those gaps.
And then also tax cuts, right?
I mean, the emoluments clause and cashing in on access to the Oval Office.
--And all the conflicts of interest.
Right.
But suppose the administration gets to subpoena and says, "too bad, we're not responding
to a subpoena."
"See you in court?"
Yeah, there might be a lot of, "see you in court", and that's where we need to
have faith in our legal system.
That's why it's so important that we don't confirm a Supreme Court nominee who thinks
that the President is above the law.
And that is--
And who might that be?
Judge Kavanaugh.
The American people will rely on their democracy to function again, and it starts with lawful,
Congressional investigations, and then if the President stands on executive privilege,
courts that would rule not thinking about what it means to a particular person but what
it means to a democracy.
But let's be clear, because if Kavanaugh is on the court, there may be 5 votes that
says executive privilege covers the protection of the executive branch, not just the President,
from any subpoena.
That's right.
Now, hopefully he's in the minority, and if you look at Supreme Court precedent, like
US v. Nixon, that was a unanimous decision--saying that the President was not above the law there.
So, we would hope that Brett Kavanaugh would too separate himself from that writing he
did in the Minnesota Law Review and understand that there's greater issues at play.
Isn't there an inherent subpoena power in the House used, I guess, 75 years ago?
This is not a quiz, but I read that the sergeant at arms in the House, even if the President
says, "we're not going to respond to a subpoena," the sergeant at arms in the House
has inherent power--and the courts has already given to him--to actually find the party that
is recalcitrant and even arrest and imprison the party until that party comes up with the
documents.
Yeah.
We hope it doesn't come to that.
But, the founders did envision an out of control, reckless, executive, and they didn't leave
the American people helpless.
They gave us the check in one of the checks, aside from the power of the purse, to subpoena
documents and witnesses.
The American people can rest assured that we will do that job.
We won't be reckless.
We aren't going to do anything just because we can, but there's a lot of alarming conduct
that needs to be investigated.
Are you going to impeach the president?
You know, I think he and the country should get an investigation that follows all the
evidence and, if red lines were crossed, an impenetrable case can be made in a bipartisan
way.
Not a rush to impeachment, not to lead with impeachments, but not to look the other way
if he broke the law.
The day after the midterm elections, let's assume that the President gets rid of Sessions,
puts in somebody who is a loyalist, maybe Scott Pruitt, somebody who will do exactly
what he says, and Pruitt fires Mueller.
But the House is under the Democrats--what will the House Democrats do?
That would be committing an obstruction of justice in broad daylight.
I think that's direct to articles of impeachment, in my mind.
Now, I don't mind if he fires Sessions, and I know some people say, "Well, Sessions
protects the Mueller investigation, so we have to--the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
I don't look at it that way.
I think Sessions should have gone when he was dishonest with the Senate about his Russian
contacts.
I don't like that he's there.
I think you have to trust that the Senate will only confirm somebody that will protect
the Mueller investigation.
Actually, the best thing that they can do is just pass a legislation that is bipartisan
and already came out of the judiciary committee of the Senate that would protect the Mueller
investigation.
Then it doesn't matter who the attorney general is.
They may of course continue to do awful things like separate their kids from their parents
at the border or enforce these marijuana laws cross the country, but the Mueller investigation
would be in tact.
Can we switch to Russia?
Yeah.
I've gotten a Phd in Russian Studies in the last 18 months.
Oh, really?
I bet you have.
The only debt-free education I have.
But--it's really no smiling matter, and it's no humorous matter because a lot of
Americans are worried that there is, at this moment, some tampering going on with regard
to election machinery and maybe not every vote is going to counted.
How can we be sure that that's not happening?
If it is, what can you say to at least reassure Americans that everything is going to be done.
Just vote.
That's what I tell people, is we can't worry about it, because we can't do anything
about it.
The Republicans have refused to fund election security.
The administration will not give directives to counter Russian meddling in the way that
would deter them, because we continue to see it.
So, the more that we talk about insecurity of the election system, that's actually
a form of voter suppression.
Think about that single mom that goes and picks up her daughter from daycare, 6:00
on Election Day, and she wants to get her home, and bathe her, and feed her, and get
her to bed on-time, but she also wants to go vote.
If she thinks for a second that her vote may not count because the Russians might interfere,
she might not vote.
I don't think we should give much air to that, because I think that's what the Republicans
would love is for people to just not have confidence in our elections.
But Republicans, in terms of not protecting the election system, do you suspect or have
reason to believe that they--I don't want to accuse them of being in cahoots with Russia--but
do you think that they might actually be favorably disposed to Russian interference in the election?
Well, they're helping Russia.
Whether they intend to or not, they are helping Russia's interests by undermining our democracy,
by not standing up to what they're doing, by zeroing out election security funds.
And the best thing we can do is to help ourselves by overwhelm the ballot box on election day,
put in place people who would check the President, fund election security--I wrote legislation
to have an independent commission to look at what the Russians did, how they did it,
who they worked with, and what we can do to make sure it never happens again.
You also have the bill that would require people to know or have reason to believe that
there is some tampering going on to actually alert, what, the FBI or authorities?
Yeah, what a crazy idea, right?
That was in 2000 that the Gore campaign was approached with stolen Bush debate documents
that a foreign national had given them, and they did the right thing.
They went to the FBI.
Good people do that.
We saw a lot of people who did not do that in the Russia investigation, and I think they
should be required to.
And it's amazing that they aren't required to right now.
That's right.
There's so much reform that will have to take place because of what we've learned
from the Trump campaign and Trump administration, and those opportunities will present themselves
when we're in the majority.
Right now, I don't think I can change any more minds.
I'll try.
I try working with my Republican colleagues, and I think we have to change seats.
23 seats, and that's where we start to get it right.
You've been in the house since 2012.
How many days do you get up and say, "This is just discouraging.
I'm just slogging through this, and I'm against a formidable set of opponents who
are not giving an inch and don't care about the public.
You know, when my wife and I were at her 40-week appointment for our son last year, we went
to the doctor, and I was going to be home that week for the birth.
The doctor, when my wife told her that "my husband is going to be back for the birth",
she said to me, you're going to miss votes?
And I said, "Well, yeah.
I'm not going to miss the birth of my son."
And then the doctor said, "Well, aren't the Republicans trying to repeal healthcare
again this week?", and I told her, "Well, yeah, but I'm not going to miss the birth
of my son."
And then my wife said, "They're trying to repeal healthcare again?"
And then the doctor told me, she said, "well, how about I make a deal with you.
You do your job.
I'll do mine.
You go back there and make sure they don't take away my patients' healthcare, and I'll
see your wife every single day and make sure that you don't miss the birth of your baby."
And I saw that what we do as representatives matters.
It matters.
I thought you were going to say that the doctor was going to go in--made the deal to do it--
Right now?
Yes, right in the cloak room.
You know, whenever your wife needed it.
But to be in the House, and to be in the minority, even in the best of circumstances, is hard.
But these are the, in many ways, in living memory, among the worst of circumstances.
Yeah.
One of my inspirations in the House is, and just heros in general, is John Lewis from
Atlanta.
He invited me down to his district, and we did a town hall with students at Georgia State.
Before the town hall, we had lunch with a few students there, and Mr. Lewis was talking
about being with Dr. King during the Civil Rights Movement, the sense of loss when Dr.
King was assassinated, but believing, "we still have Bobby," that Bobby Kennedy was
running for President, and that was a last hope.
We talked about being in LA with Bobby at the Ambassador Hotel when he was shot, and
just the despair he felt flying back East.
When he told me that story, I couldn't help but think, "We've gone through some tough
times in America, and we've pulled ourselves out, but that a lot of times was because we
went from the town halls and town squares, and as Dr. King called upon us to do, we marched
onto the ballot boxes."
That's what we have to do right now.
The only way out is to the ballot box.
Let's talk about young people in the ballot box, because I know that you've been very
active with regard to that.
The last midterm election, my memory tells me, in 2014, only about 16 percent of eligible
young people between the ages of 18 and 29 voted.
16 percent.
How do we get them to vote?
How do we encourage young people to vote?
Be authentic.
I think, if anything, Donald Trump has just liberated us to be ourselves.
So if we believe something, just say it.
Bernie Sanders connected with this generation because they believed he was authentic.
I don't think they agreed on every single policy item that he put out there, but if
you asked them why they liked him, they trusted him.
They don't want the polish.
They want you to just tell them what you believe in, cut through the bullshit, and tell them
how you're going to help them, so authenticity counts with this generation.
But also, you have to make them believe that they can be a part of it, that it's not
a one way conversation.
I think this Parkland generation, in many ways, is leading us on the issue of gun violence,
and one other thing is, I've noticed, that you can't just brand young people as Democrats
and say that you have to be a Democrat.
They are stubbornly independent, and that's okay.
But on the issues, they're very progressive, and they align with us, so we have to make
sure that the candidates are conveying to them on the issues that they're with young
people.
I think they can be a comparative edge this coming fall.
We had, after Parkland, our committee hosted the steering and policy committee with congressman
Mike Thompson.
I had a hearing with--it was a gun violence task force, steering and policy hearing with
some of the Parkland survivors.
I asked one of the students, I said, "Safety is a very binary thing.
Either you feel safe or you don't.
What would it take for you to feel safe?"
And this boy, Charlie, looked down, kind of gathered his emotions, and then looked at
this row of Democratic members of Congress, and he said, "For you guys in this building
to just do something."
I think that generation wants to see action, and it's not just on gun violence.
It's not just a single issue or generation, but they want to see action.
Do something.
That connects with them very much.
Well, I'll tell you, I've been teaching for 35 years.
I don't really recall a generation that is as committed, as dedicated to changing
the world, and as committed to public service as the present generation of students.
How would you compare them to the Vietnam generation?
The big difference is that the present generation is more cynical about politics.
They don't have the same direct experience of successful political action as the generation
that was in the Civil Rights Movement and went through the anti-Vietnam War movement.
I keep telling them over and over again, you know, that the only way to be successful in
politics is to get involved and experience the success.
But they are hugely, highly motivated.
Which gets me to my last question for you, Congressman.
You are fairly young.
I mean, from my standpoint, you are very young.
How do we get somebody like you to, let's say, run for President.
Mrs. Swalwell.
It starts there.
But--
And what does Mrs. Swalwell say about Presidency?
Are you thinking about running for President?
I'm considering it, yes.
I am.
And my wife is very supportive.
I think that story with the doctor, her willingness to have me miss the birth of our son so that
I could vote against healthcare repeal, shows she's in.
She knows that we're doing this to help people.
How about your son?
15 months old.
What does he say when you say that you're considering?
I wish I could see him more.
That's the tough part of this.
He's a beast, and we've got a little girl on the way in 7 weeks, so she's going to
be born right before the midterms, so I want to win the Congress this Fall when I have
a healthy baby in November, and I'm going to consider it.
I do believe that my experience of growing up in a family where my dad was a cop and
my mom worked a number of odd jobs, they just wanted me to be the first in the family to
go to college.
They chased the American Dream all over the country.
I was born in Iowa.
We moved to Oregon and California and saw their hard work added up to something, that
capitalism worked for them.
Today, I see that capitalism is unchecked.
It only works for people on the top floor of a building, and everyone else on every
other floor who works very hard, is not getting by, and they're just running in place.
So I think that my own experience, the sense of justice that I have from working as a prosecutor
and the work I've done when our democracy was on the ropes, qualifies me to do this.
But it's a big decision, and I only want to do it if I felt like I could make a difference.
The cartoon version is that there are two kinds of Democrats right now.
There are the corporate, Wall Street democrats, the establishment Democrats, and then there
are the Democrats that really want to change the structure of the economy and reform politics
and get big money out of politics.
Where on that continuum would you put yourself?
I want to get rid of dirty money and dirty maps.
I want publicly financed campaigns.
I want to do all we can to end Citizens United.
I think we shouldn't give up on a constitutional amendment, but I also want to pass legislation
immediately that would require every state to have an independent commission for their
congressional lines, because I think that holds us back very much.
And when it comes to the economy, I believe that if you just give people a chance, they
want to work hard.
They want to do better for themselves and look at their kids and think that they can
dream bigger.
Right now, most people don't have a chance, because they look at crumbling schools around
them, infrastructure that can't get them to their jobs, and retirement security that
is just being chipped away.
So it's not adding up for them, and that's why I think you see these temptations to move
toward more socialist countries.
What I want to do for us is make sure that we check the unchecked capitalism that's
taking place right now and making sure that it works like it did for my parents when they
chased that dream, but that it works for every person on every corner across this country.
Congressman.
Thank you, Secretary.
Thank you.
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