Eric Swalwell - Endgame: Inside the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump

Copyright 2020 Eric Swalwell

Cover 2020 Abrams

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ISBN: 978-1-4197-4540-9

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For my dad, who boldly risked everything to do what was right; my mom, who raised four boys to always do good; my wife, Brittany, who inspires me to fight harder not just for our children, Nelson and Cricket, but everybodys children; and for the public servants, who proved courage beats corruption.

Mueller Day started for me when my two-year-old son, Nelson, woke me up before dawn. I had a big day ahead, but the most important thing that morning was his sore pointer finger. Hed been sent home from preschool the day before with the injury. He seemed fine when we put him to bed, but Brittany and I feared hed wake up in pain and wed have to take him in for X-rays. What did we know? As young parents, everything feels like a crisis. But I could see from the way he was throwing his trucks around that his finger was just fine. Relief! Instead of worrying about a trip to urgent care, Id be able to focus on questioning Special Counsel Robert Mueller later in the day in two separate Congressional hearings watched live by millions of people.

Nelson wanted to watch Cars. (Hed only seen it 1,800 times at that point.) He also wanted a cookie. No chance, I said. Next, he wanted pancakes. I wanted time for a little more Mueller prep work, but he was insistent. I made a counteroffer. Maybe Cheerios and milk could work today? As a former prosecutor in Alameda County in Northern California, I felt like I had some experience in being persuasive when I really needed to be. Not that morning, though. Nelson held firm. (Stubbornness is an inherited trait.) So, I whipped up a batch of pancakes, and he seemed appeased.

He didnt eat a single one. What parent doesnt know how that goes? But he was satisfied enough for me to leave and make my way over to Capitol Hill not too far behind schedule.

The whole month of July 2019 was like that for me, feeling caught between two places, or several, always playing catch-up. Two and a half weeks earlier, Id still been out on the stump campaigning for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. I was bummed to be off the trail, but I had zero regrets about having gone for it. I ran inspired by the power of young people to rise up and demand change in politics and government. I first ran for my House seat against an older incumbent from my party who had been in Congress too long and had fallen out of touch with his constituents. My surprise win in that race was all about the value of new energy and new perspectives. I believe in being bold and insisting on real change, even if that means taking some heat or falling short. After all, Id grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area, surrounded by a culture of try, fail, try again, fail again, try another time... and youre Google.

Id had my say in a televised Democratic presidential debate and taken my shot. I had good reason to believe the country wanted generational change. In 2018, I led an effort that helped elect twenty-nine new members of Congress in their forties and younger, who delivered us a crucial majority in the House. I made ending gun violence my top issue and had the National Rifle Association on the run when I pushed for an assault weapons ban. I became a favorite target of theirs on social media, which I saw as a badge of honor. My dad even called me in December 2018 to tell me the NRA had put me on the cover of their magazine. He knew because he is a member.

As much as I hoped it would take off, my presidential campaign wasnt breaking through. Besides, it was hard to be away from Washington with so much coming to a boiling point there, when I was one of only three members of Congress to serve on both the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. I asked myself a lot of tough questions about whether I still had a shot to win the Democratic nomination for President. By early July 2019, I realized it was time to get back to Washington full time.

Today ends our presidential campaign, I announced in my hometown of Dublin, California, on Monday, July 8, but it is the beginning of an opportunity in Congress.

Weeks later, as I was making Nelson pancakes that morning of the Mueller hearing, it struck me that for the first time, I felt relieved not to be running for President anymore. I was going to be part of an effort to find out if Congress could do its constitutional duty of checking a corrupt President. We were up against the incalculable power of systematic disinformation and blatant lies in the social media age. We had to prevail.

We didnt know how much of a difference Muellers live testimony to the nation would make, but we knew this was our best shot to take all the work that had gone into his investigation and showcase it for the American people. We were well aware of the challenge we faced, breaking through layers of complacency to drive home the truth of Donald Trumps guilt. We were very organized in our preparations for questioning Mueller. I hadnt seen a prep effort like that since former FBI director James Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017 on Russias interference in the 2016 elections.

Trump fired Comey suddenly and impulsively on May 9, 2017. A week later, it was revealed that Trump had pressured Comey in a White House meeting to hold back an investigation of former White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, telling the FBI director, I hope you can let this go.

A day after those revelations were made public, Mueller, a lifelong Republican and former FBI director, was appointed by Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to oversee an investigation into any ties between the Trump campaign and the Russias intervention into our 2016 elections. Mueller had a reputation for being honest, tough, and thorough. As Republican Senator Ben Sasse told the New York Times when Mueller was appointed, his record, character, and trustworthiness have been lauded for decades by Republicans and Democrats alike.

By the following year, as Muellers all-star lineup of investigators moved toward a conclusion, indications emerged that for all the wrongdoing Mueller was uncovering, leading to a dizzying total of thirty-four different indictments, Trump himself might not be held accountable. A May 2018 New York Times article quoted former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, by then working as Trumps personal lawyerimportant to note: