Rep. Eric Swalwell, who’s considering a 2020 presidential run, thinks President Trump is acting guilty, which suggests he probably is guilty of some kind of crime relating to Russia. But the California Democrat doesn’t favor impeachment.
“He's either going to be impeached by Congress or he's going to be impeached at the ballot box,” Swalwell told Yahoo Finance during a recent interview in his Capitol Hill office. “I think it's better that democracy works.”
Swalwell sits on the House intelligence committee, which is investigating Trump now that Democrats have taken control of Congress. The committee, chaired by Adam Schiff of California, plans to call fresh witnesses to testify, and hand transcripts of previous testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller, who can evaluate if any prior witnesses lied under oath. Republicans who controlled the committee during the last two years declined to give Mueller those transcripts, or pursue certain lines of inquiry, such as Trump’s relationship with lenders tied to Russia.
Swalwell, a former prosecutor, says there’s “probable cause” suggesting Trump and his family members committed crimes related to Russian financing during the 2016 campaign. “We know that Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump, the president's two sons, have said that they've had money flowing in from Russia into the Trump Organization,” Swalwell tells Yahoo Finance in the video above. “We know the president's lender, Deutsche Bank, has been fined $300 million for a $10 billion Russian money laundering scheme. So if you pair those two up, you have reason to look to see if the president has been financially compromised by the Russians.”
Trump insists he has done nothing wrong, even though his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has pleaded guilty to several crimes, and his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, has been convicted on several counts of fraud. Others associated with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign have pleaded guilty to lying under oath.
Trump argues, correctly, that it’s not a crime for a private-sector developer to pursue a real-estate deal in Russia or accepting financing for legitimate projects from foreign lenders. Trump’s two sons, who are now running the family real-estate business, have said before that Russians purchasing units in Trump buildings are among the firm’s best customers. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, either.
But Swalwell and other Democrats say Trump has demonstrated “consciousness of guilt,” a legal phrase meaning he’s behaving like he has something to hide. “What we've seen from the president is just lie after lie about what their dealings were with the Russians. If it was so innocent, why couldn't they just have been straightforward about it?”
The most prominent example may be the revelation, via testimony from Cohen, that Trump was pursuing a real-estate deal in Moscow up the point he secured the presidential Republican nomination in the summer of 2016, and perhaps even up to the point of the election that November. As a candidate, Trump denied any interest in a Russia deal, and in 2017 he said, “I have nothing to do with Russia.” Yet he was trying to land a deal, at the same time he favored a softer U.S. stance toward Russia than most other candidates, and existing U.S. policy. Trump has continued to show favoritism toward Russia as president.
The Mueller investigation is meant to determine whether there’s a hard connection between Trump and Russia, or something more circumstantial. Swalwell doesn’t rule out impeachment, if there’s clear evidence of a crime. But he’d prefer voters to judge, rather than Congress. When asked if he thinks Trump will finish his first term, Swalwell says, “I hope so. I don’t think it’s good to have presidents leave early. But if he did cross red lines, I do think we have a responsibility to uphold the rule of law. I really hope it doesn’t come to that.”
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Rick Newman is the author of four books, including “Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success.” Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman