Swalwell attorneys say they’re having difficulty serving Brooks with lawsuit

Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) attorneys said in a new court filing that they are having trouble serving Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) with a lawsuit seeking to hold the GOP lawmaker, as well as former President Trump and his allies, responsible for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. 

Swalwell’s attorneys also asked for additional time to serve the complaint, citing Brooks’s alleged “ongoing refusal to waive service and the inherent difficulties of attempting service on a sitting Member of Congress.” 

The attorneys further requested that a U.S. marshal or other court-designated official serve the complaint due to the difficulties in locating Brooks, as well as “recovery of costs associated” with Swalwell’s “efforts to serve Brooks.” 

Swalwell argued that Brooks “has refused to waive service or even speak to undersigned counsel about the case,” with his attorneys going so far as hiring a private investigator “to attempt to serve Brooks personally — a difficult feat under normal circumstances that has been complicated further in the wake of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol that Defendants incited,” the attorneys wrote, citing the increased security at the Capitol following the mob attack. 

CNN reported that a federal judge granted Swalwell’s legal team an additional 60 days to serve Brooks with the lawsuit, but added that U.S. marshals would not be allowed to deliver the suit “due to separation of powers concerns.” 

The Hill has reached out to Brooks’s office for comment on the filing.

Swalwell in March filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., accusing Brooks, Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani with provoking the Capitol riot, as well as violating several federal and D.C. laws. 

The 65-page complaint cited each of the defendants’ speeches at the pro-Trump rally in Washington hours before the deadly mob attack as being the final straw in a months-long campaign to attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election through repeated unsupported claims of widespread fraud. 

The former president last month claimed he possessed “absolute immunity” from Swalwell’s lawsuit and urged the court to dismiss the legal complaint in his own court filing.

Updated at 7:45 a.m.