House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., named nine Democrats to serve as managers of the House’s plan to impeach President Donald Trump in the wake of last week’s Capitol siege.
The impeachment managers would argue the House’s case during a Senate trial, though it is not clear whether the House plans to send its articles of impeachment to the Senate.
The managers include: Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Diana DeGette, D-Colo., David Cicilline, D-R.I., Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, Ted Lieu, D-Calif., Joe Neguse, D-Colo., Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., Delegate Stacey Plaskett, D-Virgin Islands, and, most notably, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.
It was recently discovered that Swalwell had intimate ties to a Chinese spy for several years before the federal government stepped in and intervened.
Swalwell has refused to say just how involved he was with Christine Fang, but several lawmakers demanded that he be removed from his influential intelligence committee position because of his failure to disclose this relationship.
“Rep. Swalwell withheld information for five years from the House Intelligence Committee about an ongoing Chinese espionage operation targeted at him and his own colleagues,” several Republican lawmakers wrote to Pelosi. “Rep. Swalwell kept this information to himself while repeatedly using his position on House Intelligence Committee to peddle damaging and baseless conspiracies about President Donald Trump’s unproven ties to Russia for years and still refuses to comment fully on the extent and nature of his relationship with the Chinese Communist Party spy exposed in Axios’ bombshell report.”
But Pelosi defended Swalwell, telling reports that she didn’t “have any concern about Mr. Swalwell.”
And now she has rewarded him with a key position in the impeachment trial.
“It is their constitutional and patriotic duty to present the case for the President’s impeachment and removal. They will do so guided by their great love of country, determination to protect our democracy and loyalty to our oath to the Constitution,” Pelosi said of Swalwell and the other impeachment managers.
