Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Hefty Report on Swallow Investigation Now Available to Public
Posted By Eric S. Peterson on March 12, 2014, 1:02 PM
After combing through tens of thousands of pages of documents, interviewing 165 witnesses and spending nearly $4 million--the Special House Investigative Committee has issued it's final public report. At 200 pages with 3,700 pages of exhibits, printed out and bound the investigation would take up as much space an encyclopedia set even though committee members admit they were only halfway through their investigation when Swallow resigned.---
Rep. Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, who chaired the House Investigative Committee that begun investigating Swallow with the help of hired outside counsel lead by Steven Reich and private investigators lead by Jim Mintz, presented the final report on the House floor Wednesday.
“The committee's responsibility was a grave one,” Dunnigan said. “The allegations again then Attorney General Swallow were serious and throughout our investigation we sought to be fair, to keep an open mind and follow all the evidence wherever it led us.”
The document recaps much of the presentation the committee gave to the House in December 2013. Though new evidence was made available to the report as early as a week and a half ago such as an email showing Swallow asking his predecessor Attorney General Mark Shurtleff in 2010 if he could introduce Jeremy Johnson to Mike Lee.
Shurtleff in an email responded: “sure.”
Johnson would later be indicted for having defrauded hundreds of thousands of consumers out of $275 million and at the time of the email, Shurtleff had dropped out of the race for the United States Senate-- a race the Lee would go on to win. The report exhaustively documents Swallow's connection to other alleged schemes involving individuals such as convicted white-collar felon Marc Session Jenson.
Another part of the report confirms the reporting of City Weekly's August 2013 story “Bad Company” that showed Swallow failed to disclose a fundraiser held on his behalf by an ex-con with significant ties to the telemarketing and online-business opportunities industry. Backed by a mountain of research, the report summarizes Swallow's time as Attorney General as one where the scales of justice in the state could be tipped in a person's favor if the price was right.
“During Mr. Swallow’s tenure in office there were two systems of justice that he administered: one for the wealthy and politically connected, and one for everyone else.”
To read the report visit the House Investigative Committee's document page here. To find your legislator and contact them about this issue click here. For more updates from the hill visit CityWeekly.net and follow @EricSPeterson and @ColbyFrazierLP on Twitter.
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