This Charge, Alone, Should Not Bring Impeachment Without Further Study
Taking the resort vacation is a known fact. The receipts show it happened and Swallow has agreed it happened. Many of us would agree it is wrong to take such a visit, since the person you are taking the gift from is the same person you just sent to jail, and the case might come back for adjusting of sentence. (Note: Swallow was a private attorney, true, but he was also Shurtleff's chief fundraiser and was there with him. The ties to the A.G.'s office as opposed to just being a private attorney seem well in place, to me.)
Do you take gifts from someone whose case is in your power to influence? No. At least to me, you do not. Whether a person is in prison should not come down to whether you thought, "Ahh, shucks, I'm not going to recommend much punishment for you since you were so kind as to buy me that night at Pelican Hill. Our justice system should not be tainted by any such influence.
So, if we were to say this offense is enough for impeachment, we could go without the investigation. I, however, do not believe that is enough. What was done was wrong,, but was it wrong enough to impeach? If you establish that there was a, "If you do this for me, it'll make your case go smoother" mentality, then you have reason -- definite reason -- for impeaching Swallow. There is in the things that have come out, evidence of that. Whether there is proof, yet, I don't think so.
Swallow will leave office one way or the other. This is the quote from the Salt Lake Tribune "Nobody looks better after they’ve been investigated than before. It just doesn’t work out that way," he said. "While occasionally the net result is someone is exonerated … by the time people in a body like a legislative chamber feel like they’ve got enough evidence to start an investigation, that’s kind of the beginning of the countdown to someone having to leave office." Rep. Arthur O’Neill, who co-chaired the Connecticut committee to impeach then Gov. John Rowland.
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