Former Congressman Pat Swindall's Life Marked by Controversy

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Pat Swindall (Photo: Zachary D. Porter/ALM)[/caption] Former U.S. Rep. Pat Swindall—who burst onto Georgia’s political scene following Ronald Reagan’s presidential election, only to be brought low by a federal prosecution that ended his political and legal career—died Wednesday. He was 67. Swindall’s family will receive visitors at Crowell Brothers Funeral Home & Crematory in Peachtree Corners on Saturday from 3-6 p.m. A memorial service will be held Sunday at the Vine Community Church in Cumming. Swindall launched what appeared in 1984 to be a quixotic campaign against Atlanta attorney Elliott Levitas. Levitas was a Democrat and, at the time, dean of Georgia’s congressional delegation in a race that quickly attracted national attention. Swindall won in an upset that catapulted him into the national limelight in a race marked by controversy that would dog him for the remainder of his adult life. Art Harris—who covered Swindall’s campaigns as The Washington Post’s Atlanta bureau chief and who now produces documentaries for use in personal injury litigation—called the former congressman “brilliant” but often “misguided.” “He had this Achilles heel he kept spraining because of his sprint to the finish line,” Harris said. “He kept tripping on himself. … Three decades before there was Donald Trump, there was Pat Swindall.” Atlanta political consultant Bill Crane, who said he counted Swindall as a friend, described Swindall as a flawed but good man. Robb Austin—a media and political consultant who served as Swindall’s chief of staff and managed his political campaigns, told The Daily Report that Swindall was “a trailblazer” in awakening Christian evangelicals as a political force. “Today it’s commonplace. Everyone does it,” Austin said. “But back then, no one did that.” Austin said he was recruited to help Swindall in his 1984 race by Lee Atwater, an Atlanta native and former senior partner at Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly who became famous for his often brutal political tactics. Swindall, himself, recruited Roger Ailes, the late chairman and CEO of Fox News, who was then a political campaign consultant, Austin said. Ailes produced Swindall’s television campaign against Levitas. Austin called Swindall “a fantastic candidate” who was “attractive, articulate, smart” and “a true blue conservative.” Austin said Swindall’s campaign painted Levitas as a liberal out of touch with his suburban Atlanta constituents with a voting record that paralleled that of Geraldine Ferraro, a Democratic congresswoman from Brooklyn, New York, who was the running mate for then-Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale. “We said Elliott Levitas was a great congressman, if he was from Brooklyn. But he wasn’t from Brooklyn. He was from Georgia,” Austin said. That summer, Levitas spearheaded an investigation that led the House of Representatives to cite then-EPA administrator Anne Gorsuch Burford, mother of current U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, for contempt. “At the time, the majority of Levitas’ constituents thought he was representing the district well and representing their views,” Austin recalled. “Pat always felt differently. We took a look at Levitas’ voting record. We concluded that … in actuality, he was voting too liberal.” Austin said that Swindall, Swindall’s wife, Kim, and a growing coterie of volunteers went door to door, precinct by precinct during the campaign to talk to voters. “Pat was a Christian, and he had a great political antenna,” Austin said. “He saw that evangelicals could be a tremendous asset to his campaign.” The campaign, he said, began leafleting cars in church parking lots on Sundays identifying Swindall as “a man of faith” who “cared about things that were important to evangelicals,” Austin said. But contemporary news reports also listed a “Biblical scorecard” among Swindall’s tactics. Levitas would later tell Harris in a 1988 Washington Post story that the 1984 campaign became tinged with anti-Semitism. Constituents received calls singling him out as Jewish while touting Swindall as “one of us,” Levitas, now retired from Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, said at the time. Swindall embraced similar tactics four years later in his race against Ben Jones, who played Cooter on “The Dukes of Hazzard.” Jones was a recovering alcoholic in what national newspapers quickly dubbed “the dirtiest political campaign” in the country that year. Harris said Swindall rolled out Jones’ ex-wives and people who had gotten in bar fights with Jones to paint him as a violent drunk, even though Jones said he had been sober for more than a decade. Swindall also claimed Jones was “a patsy” for organized labor and a newly vocal gay community. “Pat pulled out all the stops. He threw everything against the wall,” Harris said. “The only difference between him and Donald Trump is that Donald Trump won.” But by then, Swindall also was in serious legal trouble. U.S. Attorney Robert Barr had secured an indictment accusing Swindall of perjury stemming from $850,000 in loans he was attempting to secure. The money was to complete a $1.5 million home he was building that was plagued with liens and unpaid bills. The indictment derived from Swindall’s testimony before a federal grand jury after he became the target of a federal sting. A Republican operative later indicted for money laundering arranged the loan from an undercover IRS agent, who suggested the funds might be proceeds from illegal drug sales. Swindall took a $150,000 check but returned it to the operative several days later. Swindall was convicted of multiple counts of perjury in 1989 for his statements to the grand jury about the loan negotiations. After years of appeals proved fruitless, Swindall surrendered his bar license and went to federal prison for a year while still asserting his innocence. Swindall’s online obituary said his indictment three weeks before the 1988 election was “politically motivated,” since he opposed Barr’s appointment. “At the time of his sudden passing, he was working on an in-depth book detailing his sting and cover-up, linking it to the larger systemic corruption in the U.S. political and governmental system,” the obituary said. Crane said Swindall insisted on testifying to the grand jury, confident that he did nothing other than demonstrate bad judgment. “He didn’t want to let his lawyers handle it,” Crane said. “He was thinking more about the political ramifications of taking the Fifth.” But, Crane added, “I didn’t think he would be prosecuted as a felony perjurer.” Swindall began hosting a Christian radio show after his release from prison and focused on the convergence of politics and religion. Crane called Swindall “one of the pioneers” of home-based broadcasts. “He was a syndicated, multimarket Christian evangelical radio host before there was a Sean Hannity and before Rush Limbaugh was the figure we know him to be now,” Crane said. Swindall also began investing millions of dollars in deteriorating commercial real estate around Five Points in the heart of downtown Atlanta and around Greenbriar Mall. Some of those plans were thwarted in part by the Great Recession and a tornado that glanced off one of his downtown properties. Fulton County government became one major tenant. Swindall told The Daily Report at the time that he was “an accidental developer,” the result of his conviction and the loss of his bar license. But he had a vision to develop what he said were “livable, habitable spaces” downtown that were interspersed with office and retail development. But Swindall couldn’t shed controversy. In 2009, he became mired anew in legal trouble when he was charged with giving $8,000 to two associates to contribute to a candidate for Atlanta City Council two years earlier. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard in 2011 reduced the felony charges to three misdemeanors: two counts of exceeding the maximum allowable campaign contribution and one count of conspiracy to commit a crime. Swindall pleaded no contest and was sentenced one year of probation. Swindall’s attorney, Kish & Lietz partner Paul Kish, told the Daily Report that Swindall was targeted solely because of his notoriety, calling it both “a ludicrous prosecution” and “not even a crime.” Both people whose testimony formed the basis of the charges, Kish said, had been fired by Swindall. But taking the case to trial “would have cost more money and put his business interests in jeopardy.” Swindall would always “lead the charge hard,” Crane said. “In politics, when you are charging hard and making up ground, there are no small number of people who like watching you trip and fall. It happened more than once,” Crane said. “I have always admired people who fall, stand up, dust themselves off and get up and go on,” Crane added.