(Headline USA) Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., signed onto a bill introduced last week that would bar former President Donald Trump and several other Republicans from entering the U.S. Capitol building.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Ga., would require the U.S. Capitol Police and House and Senate sergeant-at-arms to take “such actions as may be necessary” to banish Trump and eight of his former allies from the Capitol building permanently over his alleged role in the Jan. 6 riot.
“The effort to undermine and overturn the 2020 presidential election damaged the functions of our democracy,” the bill says.
Trump “damaged the integrity of Congress’s constitutional role in certifying the election results” and “put the lives of Members of Congress and the Vice President of the United States in genuine peril,” it continues.
If the bill passes, Trump, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, former Trump assistant Peter Navarro, former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, and lawyers John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, and Rudy Giuliani would all be prohibited from entering the U.S. Capitol building.
Swalwell, who was recently removed from the House Intelligence Committee because of his past relationship with a Chinese spy, has tried to use the Jan. 6 Capitol rally as a political weapon against Trump several times. In 2021, for example, he sued the former president, Giuliani, and and former Rep. Mo Brookes, R-Ala., claiming the Republicans aided and abetted “violent rioters” and inflicted emotional distress on members of Congress.
“The Defendants, in short, convinced the mob that something was occurring that – if actually true – might indeed justify violence, and then sent that mob to the Capitol with violence-laced calls for immediate action,” Swalwell’s lawsuit alleged.
The lawsuit went on to accuse Trump of directly encouraging his supporters to “fight” when he addressed them on the National Mall that day.
“Trump directly incited the violence at the Capitol that followed and then watched approvingly as the building was overrun,” the lawsuit said. “The horrific events of January 6 were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the Defendants’ unlawful actions. As such, the Defendants are responsible for the injury and destruction that followed.”
