Media

Chris Wallace Puts Eric Swalwell On The Spot On Impeachment: ‘How Can You Be Considered An Impartial Fact-Finder?’

Font Size:

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace pressed Democratic California Rep. Eric Swalwell about the ongoing House impeachment inquiry during a “Fox News Sunday” interview.

The conversation featured Wallace questioning Swalwell about several issues President Donald Trump and Republicans have with the impeachment inquiry process, including the president’s chance to confront his accuser, political bias, presidential participation, and Swalwell’s role as an impartial fact-finder.

WATCH:

“As a matter of basic fairness, shouldn’t Republicans, shouldn’t the president get a chance to at least hear and even to confront the accuser who set all of this this in motion?” Wallace asked.

Swalwell responded by stating that the whistleblower is “not the accuser,” but merely the person who “pulled the fire alarm.”

Responding to the Fox News anchor’s question about “potential political bias” and House Intelligence Committee staff contact with the whistleblower before he filed his report, Swalwell insisted that the committee’s chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff, “had never met the whistleblower, does not know the whistleblower’s identity, and did not know what the whistleblower complaint was going to say.”

Wallace played two segments of Swalwell seeming to assume Trump’s guilt, then asked him: “How can you be considered an impartial fact-finder when you seem to have come to the conclusion that the president is guilty before you’ve heard a single witness defending the president?” (RELATED: John Kennedy Fact Checks CNN’s Jake Tapper On Republican Senate Closed Door Hearings: ‘They Are Dealing With Classified Information’)

“And as I said, obstructive acts in our law, you know, in our system of laws are considered consciousness of guilt,” Swalwell responded. “When people try and obstruct the proceedings, jurors are told you can use that as a consciousness of guilt.”

“Well, he’s not allowed to participate, because you haven’t allowed him to have a counsel present or to ask questions of the witnesses, so he has not been able to participate,” Wallace pressed later, responding to the California lawmaker’s contention that the process has been “fair” to Trump.

“He’s allowed to participate in that we have subpoenaed witnesses who he has told not to come forward,” Swalwell said. “We’ve asked for documents that he has refused to turn over, and I just assume and I think my colleagues assume that if those documents could exonerate him, if those witnesses would exonerate him, he would send them forward. If he’s going to obstruct our efforts, we’re going to put that in the bucket of a consciousness of guilt.”

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel