The Utah House Votes to Investigate and Swallow Reacts

The House will begin its investigations of John Swallow on July 3.

Wednesday the Utah House Majority Caucus (also known as “Republicans”) met to discuss the possible impeachment of Attorney General John Swallow. It was an interesting discussion to watch. If you can find a video of it, I recommend it.

The upshot was that the House decided that they did not yet have enough information for impeachment and voted to

convene the House to create the House Rules to allow the establishment of committees to investigate certain issues through the use of subpoenas and other available methods; and
that the committee hold meetings that are public and open; and
that the committee report back to the House of Representatives with their findings when their work is complete.

In other words, the House voted to set up a committee to investigate the allegations against John Swallow before they decide to vote on impeachment, if they decide to vote on impeachment.

An email from Speaker Becky Lockhart to House members later this afternoon set the date for a special meeting to establish the rules on July 3. She ended the email with this: “This date will not be optimal for every member, but we need to address this issue in a timely manner. I have great faith that this body will do what is best for the people of Utah.”

Amen.

Meanwhile, John Swallow reacted to the news:

The only question I have is: why would Utah’s chief law enforcement official answer ‘No’ when asked if he would investigate allegations of extortion by his predecessor, Mark Shurtleff, let alone even ask him?

Instead, his response was to deflect and say that was a question for Shurtleff…but isn’t investigations of extortion allegations, especially when there are recordings of the attempt, kind of the responsibility of the Attorney General?