Police reform is on the front burner in Congress, with Democrats pushing hard for a House measure, while Senate Republicans counter with a package of their own.
The national momentum is clearly there for making substantive change, but is the political will necessary to get it done?
Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell is from Dublin, representing the 15th district, covering parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties. He ran for the Democratic nomination for president this year and is the author of a new book, just out, called “Endgame: Inside the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump.” He joined KCBS Radio’s “The State Of California.”
The fight over police reform seems to be coming to a head now in Washington, D.C. You come from a family of cops, you’re a former prosecutor, in the Alameda County District Attorney’s office. What are the prospects for something meaningful getting done on the federal level, that’s really responsive to all the protest and anguish we have seen since the killing of George Floyd?
We have to do it, we’ve seen continued individual and institutional tragedies when it comes to policing and the African American community, and Congress is the one place that can make the biggest changes.
We’re going to pass this week the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act. Just to lay out what that does, is it requires body cameras, gets rid of racial profiling, has independent misconduct boards, a national registry of officers who have committed misconduct, bans the chokehold and, of course, reduces the standard of liability that you have to prove for a civil rights criminal violation from acting willfully to acting recklessly. So, it’s going to be sweeping reform and we need Republicans and the Senate to come to the table and help us pass it, as well.
You have many and deep connections with the police community. In what ways have your views changed since the killing of George Floyd?
I’ve seen—working as a prosecutor, being the son of a cop, brother to cops—that good that our police officers can do in the community, and we need them. One of my brothers helps run the Deputy Sheriff Athletic League, he works in proactive community policing to help troubled youth find sports as an outlet. We need to invest more in programs like that, and I think we need invest less in techniques and tactics that are not working and have proven to be discriminatory.
I think the best thing we can do is listen to Black police officers. A local, police captain told me the only time he feels safe in his community is when he wakes up in his own bed, his own house, and we he comes home to his family. This is a Black police officer in our community who’s saying he feels like he’s targeted. He’s seen police officers drive behind him when he’s driving his civilian car and run his plates. He’s seen neighbors look at him like because he drives a nice car, perhaps he’s a drug dealer or it’s stolen.
He identified in a conversation him and I had recently some of the systemic issues he wants to see addressed. I think if we have honest conversations about this, we can make real progress.
You talked about your family upbringing and your background. How confident are you that with the culture within the police departments, systemic change can occur?
The American people are demanding it, and my brothers, when I talk to them, they want to be respected. They know that they have power but they don’t just want power, they want authority. Power is, of course, the tools we give them: the bulletproof vest, the service weapon that they use, handcuffs. That’s power. But authority can only be given through respect, and people in the community trusting them.
I think there is an authority deficit across the country right now and we want to restore that so they do have not only have power, but authority. I think a lot of good officers recognize that.
When you were an assistant District Attorney, you had to work closely with police officers prosecuting cases, so what happens when a cop is accused of wrongdoing? Doesn’t that put prosecutors in an awkward position? And should there be a better way to handle those cases?
The answer is yes, and that’s because the nature of our job is we work with them, we call them as witnesses, we subpoena them, we’re constantly learning more about each other. And it’s natural to develop a bond with them, but when there is wrongdoing, I think the best thing we can do is try and get rid of any actual bias or any perceived bias that the public may have. And that’s going to have to happen more at the local and state levels.
The federal government cannot tell individual counties how they prosecute their own police departments, and we need local leaders to do that. And I know those conversations are happening, but I think that the more trust the public can have that there’s independence and prosecution, that’s better not only for the public, but also for the police and the prosecution team.
I want to shift gears now and ask you about John Bolton. His book is, of course, out today with a lot of buzz. You badly wanted Mr. Bolton to testify before your house judiciary committee during the impeachment trial. That did not happen. How much of a difference do you think that would have made knowing now what we know from this book?
Well, John Bolton’s book is called “The Room Where It Happened,” but I was actually in the room where it happened because I think the room that mattered the most was where people like Marie Yovanovitch, Lt. Col. Vindman and Fiona Hill came and gave sworn testimony to hold the president accountable. And as far as I’m concerned, John Bolton is a firefighter that’s shown up with his fire truck and his fire hose after the building’s burned to the grown and is smoldering in ashes.
It’s too late. Thank you for sharing this information, but he was subpoena’d and he was also asked during the senate trial to provide a sworn affidavit, and he refused to do that.
Now, we have a responsibility to take his allegation seriously but I don’t think that makes him any sort of hero.
Are there things that you wish came before the committee that didn’t? Other things, as he said, impeachable offenses beyond the ones the committee heard?
Sure. The allegation about the president asking China to help him in the election or the president getting involved in individual criminal investigations, and I think Turkey was identified. But the reason we were so successful in our prosecution of the impeachment case was that we had a traditional bottom-up prosecution, where we were able to continue to bring in—which I lay out in the book—it was people like David Holmes, a career political officer over in Ukraine, he came in and validated what Bill Taylor was saying. What Bill Taylor was saying was validated by what Fiona Hill was saying.
So you had multiple witnesses corroborating and reinforcing the testimony and it put the president right at the center of the scheme.
But if John Bolton was not willing to come in, it’s going to be very hard to explore further witnesses and testimony to look at those claims.
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