Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is not the sharpest tool in the drawer. Indeed, I would hasten to add that it shouldn’t have just been Fang Fang that got him booted off the House Intel Committee — an additional reason should have been the lack of intelligence that he’s demonstrated. On such a committee, you want the people who can best serve the interests of the United States. If someone isn’t very perceptive or is easily taken in, they’re likely not the right person for such a seat.

I noted before that Swalwell is not very perceptive. For example, he retweeted a Carpe Donktum video because he thought Donktum was praising him and he didn’t see Donktum added to the video and changed his tweet in the video. That was pretty funny.

I want to thank you @RepSwalwell @ericswalwell for standing up and saying the truth! The person who tweeted that SHOULD BE PROSECUTED!! pic.twitter.com/VWO8iro3wo

— Carpe Donktum🔹 (@CarpeDonktum) February 2, 2023

So let’s look at the tweet that Swalwell made on Monday about the train derailment disaster in East Palestine. (Click on it to see the full tweet.)

A news headline warned Trump’s deregulation of railroads could lead to train cars “exploding.” Trump proudly quote-tweeted “effect will be great.”

Case closed. Now let’s help #EastPalestine pic.twitter.com/FuzTjX2Efb

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 27, 2023

“A news headline warned Trump’s deregulation of railroads could lead to train cars “exploding.” Trump proudly quote-tweeted “effect will be great,” Swalwell claimed. “Case closed. Now let’s help #EastPalestine.”

Many people responded to Swalwell noting that this derailment had nothing to do with any deregulation by Trump — that’s a debunked lie that some on the left have been spreading. As we’ve reported, the NTSB head Jennifer Homendy not only went to great lengths to explain that the accident had nothing to do with a braking rule, she implored people to stop spreading misinformation.

WATCH: NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy says the brake rule Buttigieg and Joy Behar blamed President Trump for repealing 'would not have prevented' the East Palestine derailment.

"The wheel bearing failed on car number 23. So even with ECP brakes, the derailment would have occurred." pic.twitter.com/AECPta0T5F

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) February 24, 2023

This means even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn’t have had ECP brakes.

— Jennifer Homendy (@JenniferHomendy) February 17, 2023

Translation: The change was precipitated before Trump, not because of Trump (even though it was in any event irrelevant to the accident).

We’ve already reported this. At this point, Swalwell has to know this, but he’s just trying to be misleading to attack Trump. That shows he’s dishonest.

But there’s another point I wanted to make about Swalwell’s tweet, about Swalwell’s perception. He claims Trump “proudly quote-tweeted” that deregulation could lead to train cars “exploding.” But take a look at the dates of the Trump tweet and the headline Swalwell claims Trump “quote-tweeted.” Is he saying that Trump has superpowers and can quote-tweet something that hadn’t happened yet when he tweeted in August 2017? The article was from 2018.

What happened here is Swalwell in his haste to try to whack at Trump, fell for a screenshot that some leftist put together of the Trump tweet and the tweet about the article and assumed it was a quote tweet, even though it wasn’t. So not only was he wrong about the rule part as I noted above, but claiming that Trump was proudly quote-tweeting the article was completely untrue. But Swalwell was too blinded by his desire to get Trump to truly examine the evidence before him, and so he fell for it.

Talk about a self-own, when you’re trying to nail a political opponent but you just end up showing how dumb you are, and how right House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was to boot him off the Intelligence Committee.

This was the guy that the Democrats wanted on that Committee? No wonder he got taken in by Fang Fang.