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All of the stories surrounding the allegations surrounding Utah Attorney General John Swallow.

Lt. Governor to Seek Special Counsel in Swallow Investigation

The Salt Lake Tribune (pool photo)

Utah Lt. Governor Greg Bell will seek special counsel to investigate three of the 12 allegations brought against Attorney General John Swallow that he violated election law.

Maryann Martindale of The Alliance for a Better Utah filed the initial complaint with the Elections Office on March 7. In it are claims that John Swallow violated several sections of the Utah Election Code when he failed to disclose the extent of his involvement with P Solutions LLC. Mark Thomas, the Chief Deputy for the Lt. Governor’s Office, says after looking into the complaint they found that three of the allegations had enough merit to seek special counsel.

“We weren’t able to dismiss those so I think it goes without saying that there are some questions there that we weren’t able to answer," he says. "I will caution though that a part of our questions there that we had that we couldn’t answer were related to some issues that our office is just not familiar with.”

If the special counsel finds that there is a violation of election law, Swallow could be removed from office pending the order of a judge. The U.S. department of Justice is also investigating Swallow for different allegations that he was involved in a bribery scheme. The former director of the Utah Division of Consumer Protection has also recently filed an ethics complaint against Swallow with the Utah State Bar.

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