PRESS RELEASE Contact: press@congressionalintegrity.org
For Immediate Release
Date: December 11, 2023
Watch the full briefing here
Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell, Dennis Aftergut of Lawyers Defending American Democracy, and Brad Woodhouse, senior advisor to the Congressional Integrity Project, joined a press call to discuss the bogus impeachment inquiry of President Biden, the wrong priorities of the MAGA GOP, and new polling results conducted in the Biden 17 districts.
MAGA House Republicans, led by James Comer and Jim Jordan, have wasted all year investigating President Biden and have failed to turn up a single shred of evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever. During this year, the MAGA House has ignored the important issues that affect Californians, such as increasing access to health care or addressing the cost of living. Instead, at Donald Trump’s direction, they have pursued a partisan political stunt, designed to hurt President Biden ahead of the 2024 election, all to distract from Trump’s 91 criminal indictments and help him return to the White House.
The virtual press conference also follows the release of a new poll commissioned by the Congressional Integrity Project and conducted by Public Policy Polling in the Biden 17 districts. The poll found that 74% of Americans including 68% of independents in the Biden 17 districts think the House of Representatives should focus more on issues like the economy, inflation, crime, and border security over impeaching President Biden. 90% of voters in these districts including 93% of independents want Congress to stop playing partisan games and work to address these issues keeping them up at night.
“As a Californian, I’m well aware of what is facing my constituents, and what I hear about the most is affordability when it comes to housing, breathing room in personal finances and spending less time in your car as you commute,” said Congressman Eric Swalwell. “This extreme political stunt does zero to take on those issues. As a former prosecutor, I can tell you James Comer and Jim Jordan have not presented an ounce of evidence in this case, they have not been able to prove anything.”
“What we’re witnessing is Trumpism 101 in how to destroy constitutional guardrails. From a former prosecutor’s perspective, what I notice is they’re not really hiding the fact that this is a completely partisan inquiry. Institutions and constitutional guardrails depend on trust in the same way that human relationships between two people depend on trust. You can destroy it by people thinking, ‘Oh, this is just what politicians do’,” said Dennis Aftergut of Lawyers Defending American Democracy. “And then those guardrails no longer exist. If a wannabe dictator gets elected, and there are no guardrails, our freedom is at stake. Explaining that serious danger to voters makes your role in the fourth estate so important.”
“According to the polling that is fresh off the presses from Public Policy Polling, that they took of constituents from the 17 districts that Republicans serve in that President Biden won in 2020, the majority voters in those districts don’t want any part of impeachment. 74% of voters in these 17 congressional districts which include five in California that we’re talking about today think Congress should focus more on issues like the economy, inflation, crime, and securing the border,” said Brad Woodhouse, senior advisor to the Congressional Integrity Project. “So in terms of this issue of priorities and this kind of part and parcel of where the Republican Party is – they really don’t have an agenda to help people. They don’t have a plan for housing or a plan for health care, they don’t have a plan for the border or for fair and comprehensive immigration reform or college affordability. So they wind up getting in this rut that they put themselves in where they don’t have a plan to help anybody. So the only thing they can do is appeal to the Republican base, which is what they are doing.”
Watch the full press briefing here.
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