Pelosi Makes a Mockery of the Impeachment Process by Picking Eric Swalwell as Manager
If Nancy Pelosi’s serious about impeaching President Donald Trump in the final days of his administration, she’s got a funny way of showing it.
After engineering an obviously futile resolution among House Democrat to ask Vice President Mike Pence to try to remove the president he’s served for four years, Pelosi announced on Tuesday her selection of nine representatives to serve as impeachment managers to present a case to the Senate against Trump for any role he might have played in last week’s riotous incursion in the nation’s Capitol.
And one name in particular stood out as having been in the headlines recently — for being tied to an intricate espionage plot run by the country’s chief global rival in the world today.
Eric Swalwell, the California Democrat best known lately for his involvement with a spy for communist China, will be among lawmakers named to prosecute a president of the United States, according to Fox News.
IMPEACHMENT 2: Pelosi Picks Eric Swalwell as One of Nine Impeachment Managers https://t.co/BLhuYO8W6q
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) January 13, 2021
It’s difficult to see what point Pelosi could be making with this, beyond proving to half of the country that the impeachment case is a mockery of the political system.
Even though she holds the speaker gavel by a shrunken majority after the November elections cost her party numerous seats, it’s not like Pelosi didn’t have plenty of other options to choose from with her 222 members.
She could even have gone back to her original impeachment team from the doomed 2019-2020 effort — led by the loathsome Reps. Adam Schiff of California and Jerrold Nadler of New York — to take a second stab at stabbing Trump.
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Yet she chose a team that included the one Democrat who happens to have been tied up with an intelligence agent sent by Beijing to (literally) cuddle up to promising young American politicians.
It was bad enough that Swalwell retains his membership on the House Intelligence Committee. Americans already worried about Democratic commitment to national security didn’t need the additional aggravation of knowing that a potentially compromised congressman is sitting in on meetings where sensitive national intelligence information is being discussed.
As former Rep. Trey Gowdy put it in December when discussing Swalwell’s Intelligence Committee membership: “There are 230 Democrats and you mean to tell me she cannot find a single one that didn’t date a Chinese spy?”
But now, to help lead Congress through what’s supposed to be the most important action it can take short of a declaration of war, Pelosi picks a man who’s more famous for his relations with a Chinese operative than for his abortive run for the presidency in 2019.
It’s not just an insult to the almost 75 million Americans who voted for Trump in November. It’s an insult to anyone who thinks the American political system — even in its current state — is a process worthy of being treated with respect. And thinks American voters should be treated with respect, too.
I truly think this is done to publicly show her level of contempt for due process and fairness. The level of hypocrisy is infuriating.
— Darrin Morgan (@DarrinMorgan12) January 13, 2021
This is OUTRAGEOUS!!!! She just keeps on giving people more and more reasons to distrust government!!
— Tara Colopy (@tmcolopy) January 13, 2021
You cannot make this up…
— Tricia Neneman (@NenemanTricia) January 13, 2021
The House was set to vote on Wednesday to approve a single article of impeachment, charging Trump with “incitement of insurrection,” according to CNN.
It’s a serious charge, but there’s little evidence to convince any fair-minded American that Trump is guilty of it — or that House Democrats even care about the truth of the matter.
Since they took power in the House after the 2018 midterm elections, Pelosi and her fellow travelers have been proving on a near-daily basis that their major priority was attacking the Trump White House.
They proved it with the sham of the first Trump impeachment trial, on charges that are barely remembered today.
They proved it after the coronavirus pandemic struck, when putting together a relief package for struggling Americans took a back seat to damaging the president politically.
Now, with her choice of Eric Swalwell to serve as one of the managers of a second Trump impeachment, Pelosi’s proving it again.
This impeachment isn’t a move by conscientious lawmakers to address a constitutional crisis, as the Founders intended. It’s a nakedly political attack on a political enemy at an opportune time.
Pelosi knows it. She knows the country knows it. And she clearly doesn’t care if her management of it is making a mockery of the process.
Gowdy’s question in December is even more relevant now. With more than 200 Democrats to choose from, Pelosi couldn’t find one who wasn’t tarnished by a Chinese spying scandal?
She could have, but she didn’t have to. And in choosing Swalwell, she made a mockery of her own impeachment effort, and any effort to convince Trump supporters — or even Americans who might be on the fence — that she’s an honest steward of the Consitution operating in good faith.
It’s a sham that’s even worse than the first time, perpetrated with zero regard for the potential damage it might do to the country’s future.
And there’s nothing funny about that.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
