If you have questions and we certainly hope you do there is a little fox on the screen that says ask a question. You can type your question in their and we will pull from those as we move through the event and of course you can also put comments into the chat room. And of course use your best manners and we are very glad youre here brett thank you for supporting rakestraw books. Without further ado congressman Eric Swalwell and frances. Thank you michael. Thank you so much. You are such a great supporter of independent authors all around the area. I know michael will do a great job getting the word out about your book. I guess i want to start off asking your reasons for writing endgame inside the impeachment of donald j. Trump. The impeachment trial was at the end of last year in the senate voted in february not to convict donald trump and yet it seems so long ago. So much as happened and certainly when the house set out to an teach donald trump you need there was a good possibility that the senate was never going to go further with it. I want to ask you why you wanted to write this book and whether or not rehashing and think about whats happened a few months ago has given you any clarity on what is happening in the country now. Thank you francis for hosting this evening and thank you michael and rakestraw for writing this forum to everyone. I wrote the book as attribute to the courageous witnesses who came forward gave sworn testimony spoke truth to power and allowed us to hold the president accountable. Its my hope that by telling their story highlighting their courage that it will beget more courage. The president has spent so much time going after these individuals and even right now the tenant colonel bensimon his promotion which he has worked hard to turn is called into question and may not happen because of what he did in the retaliatory white house wanted to make sure that courage was immediately rewarded and highlighted as we still need people to come forward. We just had a hearing yesterday on the Judiciary Committee with with a department of justice whistleblower from the roger stone case but i wanted to condemn publicly and name and shame the people who enabled the president to quit that put their own jobs ahead of our National Security and as you pointed out ultimately did not vote to remove i feel like impeachment looking back on it was not only something the president was worthy of for what he had done and second if we did not do what i think we would lower the standard of conduct acceptable for president because future president s that may act correctly could say well you didnt impeach donald trump and he did this, this and this and third be found during the process when you hold donald trump accountable and you stand up to him he actually backs down. Ukraine got the aid that they were supposed to get only after we launched our investigation so it has the effect of reversing the corruption but the only regret i will have at the end of all of this is that there were not or hours in the day to work to hold the president accountable. So bearing witness in your mind is important in and of itself even if it doesnt have, even if it doesnt accomplish what you hoped it would accomplish. Cynical so its a called action. We arent going to impeach donald trump again. He is impeached forever but we can impeach and remove him at the ballot box this november and if people like regarding if on a pitch beyond the hill and Lieutenant Colonel benjamin raised their lives and risk their livelihoods and the families livelihoods weekend go to the ballot box and spend an hour registering a going to vote to change the course of our country. You titled this book endgame and yet the impeachment trial was not an in game. Wondering why you chose that title. I believe we are approaching and by the way and game is a chess term. Its the last part of a chess match before the final move before a check mate. We are now in the endgame. Its just a matter of whose endgame is it . Is that the advancement of trumpism where we drift from a democracy to a tour terionism or is this redeeming this democracy and learning the vulnerabilitys that the president has exposed and rebuilding and putting it back together quick they think both endgames are possible right now and i think i laid out what they need to do to make sure that the endgame that we all want is a democratic redemption. Talking about trump supporter terry nizon is a very frightening concept. Did you think when he was first elected that he would be authoritarian and can you give us a few examples now of what you think his tendencies are . I would fear yes that by so rec wesley asking russia to interfere in our election in 2016, he said russia if you are listening to not recognize that rush is an adversary of United States and they are not our friend and we dont invite any country let alone an the talk receipt to interfere in our election. That worried me. In the book i laid out the Michael Cohen at one of our depositions with him after a break and we were watching a secure skiff as we call it the compartmentalized information facility in the capitol and we are both walking back into this gift and he said i just want you to know my biggest fear about mr. Trump is that he wants to be like food and an erdogan and is not going to accept the results of any election. That was really frightening to hear as we are now seeing almost a year after that the president seeding what will be his argument on november 4 the day after the election as to why hes not going to leave office which is that he thinks mailin balloting is fraudulent. That for me is very concerning. His attacks on the press constantly going going after free press calling them the enemy of the people and encouraging violence in his crowds where reporters are having attacks made on them. Of course what he did just a few weeks ago in Lafayette Square right outside the white house where he used the military and Law Enforcement apparatus at his disposal to move Peaceful Protesters out of his way and using a chemical weapon for a photo op. Those are all the hallmarks of a dictator and im afraid without congressional checks and balances and without a reckoning this november at the ballot box we are going to see more of that over the next four years. I hasnt been many checks done by the Republicancontrolled Congress during the first two years and by the republicancontrolled senate. When it became apparent that this cia was president obama was alerted and Mitch Mcconnell said if you do that im going to call it a political tactic and as a consequence of bomb was muted about what was happening with russian meddling. How big of an error was that on the part of the Trump Administration and could things have been different . It was an error and i called it out when it was happening and in the book we lay out we found in our investigation that donald trump had gotten in the Obama Administration said way back from officials who are saying the threats coming from russia and the activity coming from russia that they were very concerned about what the russians were doing. If you recall just as Donald Trumps seeding this argument that the result is going to be fraudulent excessive mailin balloting in 2016 Donald Trumps saying that the election is going to be rigged so obama officials believe that if they call that russia and really named and shamed russia for what they were doing that it could feed into Donald Trumps and affirm his argument that the election was going to be rigged. He almost benefited from making that spurious claim that the election was going to be rigged because it was actually being by the russians and i do not believe there was an adequate response against it. Why werent the republicans were concerned about russian interference in our elections . We fought the cold war for decades with russia. They were our sworn enemy. What how can the whole Political Party decided doesnt matter . Is so troubling and in the days and weeks after we learned what russia had done i would talk to my republican friends underground and when i say in the ground they refer to this gift. There are no windows and no cameras or cell phones allowed. Its a very safe and secure environment. Its a safe place for republicans and democrats to talk to each other and Work Together because you dont have to worry about how its perceived by the public. Many republican colleagues would say they were concerned about what the russians had done and they were concerned that donald trump was not doing enough to counteract it but one of them told me the problem is she said when he tweets he winds and that is where they started under the Trump Administration which was they recognized it was wrong but they were afraid if they spoke out he would tweet at you when he would win. What i saw to do was to write legislation to have an independent commission to take the whole issue of russia outside of Congress Like we did after september 11 and put it in the hands of experts and elders and states person and tell us what russia did and how we can make sure it never happens again. I only got two were publicans to join me on that legislation. Every democratic member of Congress Join me. Speaker pelosi when she was minority leader made it a priority but all the republicans i spoke to privately told me i like this idea and is another one told me and i put this in the book, he will lop my head off if i cross him. That is where they started, afraid of him and what i saw was this progression of fear and just her outright enabling and accepting well this is the new truth of the day and we have to get behind it even if it was absolutely contrary to every belief they had ever a spouse before. Why do you think republicans have come to that conclusion . Do you think they feel the judicial appointments are the objective . Ultimately do they think the country will be better off when they can stand trumpcare his tweets in shenanigans and so on . That would be a better reason than what i believe it is. I believe the reason they have stood with the president is not because of the tax cuts are the deregulation or the judges. Thats the benefit of the collateral benefit that i believe its more selfish. Its the belief that if they cross the president they will lose their job. And its hard to believe that because members of congress would like to think otherwise they are employable and this is not the only job we can get but it really has come down to the fear of having a republican run against you and say im the one for trump and this person has been a pain for trump. Hes got to go. We seen that happen and you dont have to imagine what that looks like. Mark stanford a republican from South Carolina spoke out against the president not even in a major way and pretty soon the president was tweeting in favor of his primary opponent and tweeting against mark sanford and mark sanford lost his primary. That was enough for the president. The president had been banned from the political and went to the Republican Caucus and will stanford was thereafter he a dart a loss roasted into the whole caucus to humiliate stanford. Sanford. I think its worse than wanting to advance political parties. I think its just not wanting to lose your job. I want to talk a little bit about comey. When comey came to testify in front of one of your committees he wrote in the book that everything in that russian hacking investigation changed at that point and an does any any chance of a bipartisan vote went out the door. Can you talk about the positions between democrats and republicans . March 2017 and i believe it was around march 20 and from november 8 the 2016th of march that was really the fog of russia. Where were learning what they than a Michael Flynn and his conversation with the Russian Ambassador had been revealed. It was still drip, drip, drip of information every day but i think chairman shifted a very good job while we are in the minority of talking about it publicly and having intelligence members talk publicly about what we were seeing and by the way before this you would never have seen me do a Television Interview but it was very rare because on the Intel Committee the Standard Operating Procedure was that we just dont talk about what we do. We were so concerned about what the russians have done and seeing the republicans wanting to bury any evidence of it that mr. Schiff felt like we had to go above ground and tell the public. We were able to put the pressure on the republicans and call and to give us an update. We are in the ways means room which is the biggest Committee Room in congress which is important because that would later be three years later for two years later the same room where we would conduct the impeachment investigations. Mr. Comey comes in and over the weekend adam schiff had gone on television and said that he had seen circumstantial evidence of collusion. Devin nunes had gone on television and said there was no evidence of collusion and there was nothing to see here. Mr. Calm he raises his right hand and testifies that there was an open criminal counterintelligence investigation into the Trump Campaign for the relationship with russia. That was the first any of us had heard of it in mr. Comey was validating the concerns of we had so much so that they launched an investigation predicted to the republicans were on their heels because their chairman devin nunes had told them nothing to see here. We had come to that hearing doing mock hearings beforehand preparing so we could use mr. Comey to tell the story of what russia had done. I felt like that was a breakthrough moment for us and one part that i will never forget during the hearing i stepped out to go to the and just behind the ways means dais theres the small kindness anteroom where it does with the sofa at tv and a wet bar with water and sandwiches and in the small restroom. They go into the restroom and i come out and they notice for five republicans sitting on the couch and a couple of chairs around the couch watching the hearing on the television that was in the anteroom. I thought what in the world are they doing back here . Kalmias lie about their and they have left their seats and just to come watch it because they knew how port and it was really believe they didnt want to be in the same room. They were ashamed of what they had been telling the public that was their way of bearing her head in the sand was to walk it when he literally was in the room in a side room and not even give him the respect of sitting in the seat and listening to what he was saying. Thats one of the great parts about endgame and all the behindthescenes descriptions of how members interact with one another and where you go in the halls of congress and you provide average americans a glimpse of how it works. That was really enjoyable and very illuminating. I just want to move on to another critical part of the impeachment per seedings. We watch them all or investigation. Closely but every day when the going to come out of witnesses report going to come out . I boys than a liberal democrat and we all had a lot of hope that mueller would reveal information about the russian involvement and that there would be a clearcut evidence that there was criminality or Something Like that. However it didnt end up happening and having that impact on the nation. I wanted, you write in your book that you have a lot of respect for mueller that you were you were unimpressed with the report and there were couple of reasons you felt like the report didnt go far enough. I was hoping you could sort of tell us a little bit about what you saw in the report and what should have happened . Its a great question and theres no fault of mueller because he did say the president invited russian interference and welcomed it and the Campaign Plan for it when they were putting the Campaign Together that they would be leaks coming their way that they could benefit from. Was the failure of prior congress to imagine the campaign would do this so no laws were written about the duty to report to the fbi or Law Enforcement that you are receiving this june 9 meeting invitation of the trump tower in 2016 or there was no duty to report that roger stone would be in contact with wikileaks and telling people on the campaign that this information was coming. That was a failure of us to appreciate that this could happen read we have to fix that Going Forward so no democratic or Republican Campaign can benefit. The scope of an investigation is where i think he fell short. The fact that Donald Trumps finances were never looked at and the fact that donald trump never interviewed as a suspect. This goes back to donald trump masterfully getting in the heads of his adversary. He did it as a mention with the Obama Administration by saying the 2016 election was going to be rigged. What did he do once the Mueller Investigation was launched . He said over and over it was a witchhunt. He said i believe to the New York Times said he would consider looking at his finances in a red line and was telegraphing that he would not sit down for an interview and insisted on having only written questions sent over. Every day that the Mueller Investigation went on he was talking about how long the investigation would take so mueller never went through the finances and for no good reason. I still understan