John Swallow was born on November 10,1962 and is an American lawyer and politician who served as Attorney General of Utah.
25 Facts About John Swallow
1.
2.
In December 2009, John Swallow was appointed Chief Deputy Attorney General for Utah.
3.
In November 2012, John Swallow easily won the election for Utah Attorney General by a 64 to 30 percent margin.
4.
In November 2013, following federal and state investigations into alleged improprieties, John Swallow resigned, after less than a year in office, while proclaiming his innocence and denying all wrongdoing.
5.
Thereafter a licensed private investigator asserted publicly that all investigations of John Swallow's conduct had been orchestrated by politicians who benefitted from the false allegations.
6.
John Swallow was born in San Gabriel, California and moved to St George, Utah when he was five years old.
7.
When John was 13, his mother married Richard Swallow, and John and his siblings were adopted into the Swallow family when John was 16.
8.
Richard John Swallow was a farmer in Spring Valley, Nevada, in an area of what is Great Basin National Park.
9.
John Swallow served a Spanish-speaking mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Los Angeles, California.
10.
John Swallow earned an undergraduate degree in Psychology and then a JD degree from Brigham Young University J Reuben Clark Law School, where he was a member of the Law Review.
11.
In 1985, John Swallow married Suzanne Seader; after his graduation they moved to Sandy, a suburb of Salt Lake City.
12.
In 1996, after working as a law firm partner for several years, John Swallow successfully ran for the Utah House of Representatives for a district based in Sandy and continued serving as a State Representative for six consecutive years.
13.
John Swallow gave up his state house seat in 2002 to run for against freshman Democrat Jim Matheson.
14.
The district had been located entirely within Salt Lake County, but redistricting after the 2000 census pushed it into a large swath of rural territory in southern Utah, where John Swallow had lived as a boy.
15.
In 2009, John Swallow was appointed as the Chief Deputy Attorney General of Utah over seven civil divisions.
16.
John Swallow sued Barack Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to unlock federal land within Utah for oil and gas exploration, and to help fund education for Utah children.
17.
John Swallow announced his candidacy for Attorney General in January 2012.
18.
At the time, John Swallow was a private lawyer and not a public official; thus, there was no improper receipt of benefits.
19.
On November 21,2013, John Swallow announced his resignation from office.
20.
John Swallow resigned to clear his name as a private citizen without the distractions of being a public figure in office.
21.
John Swallow cited the personal and financial strains involved in the investigations.
22.
The Deseret News, a Salt Lake City daily newspaper, reported that he "cut a deal" with the Utah lieutenant governor's office to avoid criminal charges and the release of a report charging John Swallow with violating state law.
23.
The committee concluded that John Swallow had engaged in unethical and potentially illegal behavior, including the disappearance of substantial electronic evidence under suspicious circumstances.
24.
John Swallow is practicing law and writing a book on government investigative abuses.
25.
John Swallow alleges that expansive federal policies that cut off access to public lands are killing jobs, hurting Utah's economy and robbing children's classrooms of greatly needed funding.