“If the aim is that people like me and others are going to shrink or are going to be quiet, it’s not going to work,” the Democrat said on “The Weeknight.”
By Allison Detzel
On Thursday, NBC News reported that President Donald Trump’s top housing official, Bill Pulte, had referred California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell to the Justice Department for a potential federal criminal probe, alleging mortgage and tax fraud.
Swalwell has become the latest Trump critic to be hit with an investigation into allegations of mortgage fraud. Pulte previously referred Sen. Adam Schiff of California, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, to the Justice Department for investigation of the same crime.
In his first television interview after news of that probe broke, Swalwell told the co-hosts of “The Weeknight” that the allegations against him were false, “just like the allegations against Adam Schiff are false and Letitia James are false and Lisa Cook are false.”
“And a spoiler alert for you,” Swalwell continued, “there will be allegations next week against somebody that will be false.”
Swalwell said he wasn’t surprised to be targeted by Trump, because “no one has been a more vocal critic than me.” The congressman noted that he was pursuing “one of the only remaining lawsuits” against Trump for his role on Jan. 6, referring to a civil suit he filed in 2021 that accuses the president and his allies of inciting the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“It’s not lost on me that we’ve begun to depose members of the administration, and so you can connect the dots there,” he said.
Swalwell, who is considering a run for governor, said the investigation would not deter him from publicly criticizing the president: “I don’t wake up every day going to work to fight Donald Trump. I fight for Californians. He just happens to get in the way.”
“If the aim is that people like me and others are going to shrink or are going to be quiet, it’s not going to work,” he added. “Because the second that I stop holding this president accountable, why would anyone else go to a No Kings rally? Why would anybody else stand in line to vote if I allow him to make me weak? Why would I be able to ask my fellow citizens to be strong?”
Swalwell pledged he would continue to stand up to Trump and “his un-American ways,” and said the future of the country’s democracy is on the line. “My family, we will be fine,” he said. “I’ll protect them. I’ll protect my staff. But protecting our democracy and its rule of law while we have it is paramount right now.”