Eric Swalwell Blasts House Republican For ‘Living On Fantasy Island’ Over Trump Claim

Ben Blanchet
Updated ·2 min read
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Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) took down Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) on Thursday over how he discussed former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case compared to his talk of President Joe Biden’s handling of documents.

Van Drew, in remarks at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, argued that Trump was president when he brought documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate and claimed he had a “right to declassify” them.

“He was a president that put it in an area that was safely stored,” said Van Drew, one of 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Swalwell, later in the hearing, said he couldn’t “let go” of Van Drew’s description.

“One of my Republican colleagues just stated that the boxes containing national security secrets that were seized at Mar-a-Lago were stored in a safe manner, quote, stored in a safe manner,” said Swalwell, who pointed to a picture of boxes stacked on top of each other next to a toilet at the Trump estate.

“This is the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago with over a dozen boxes of national security secrets that were stored in a safe manner,” Swalwell said. “My friends, you are living on Fantasy Island; that’s where cults live, so that makes sense.”

He later described both the Mar-a-Lago bathroom and the GOP-led committee, which advanced a resolution to hold Biden’s ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer in contempt of Congress, as a “mess.”

Zwonitzer refused to turn over Biden’s memoir-related documents after the committee initially requested the materials in the wake of special counsel Robert Hur’s report on the president’s handling of classified documents.

“This is not stored in a safe manner. It’s delusional to say that,” said Swalwell, who pointed toward the Mar-a-Lago picture again.

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