Everybody Knew About Eric Swalwell. Except You and Me
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
You Learned About Eric Swalwell Only Once He Became Inconvenient
Freshman Representative Eric Swalwell arrived in Washington, D.C., in 2013, having just knocked off an incumbent Democrat (ancient snapping turtle Pete Stark) in the first election cycle after California adopted its “top two” primary system. By 2019, the Northern California representative was known to national political observers as a highly visible (and gaseously self-righteous) opponent of Donald Trump’s presidency, a headline-seeking fixture of the cable news “rubber chicken” circuit of endless moral preening during five-minute TV hits. By 2024, Swalwell stood among the vanguard of the Democratic “resistance,” as one of its most aggressively public, square-jawed, elected faces.
And in November 2025 he announced his candidacy for California governor, eventually picking up the endorsements of many of the state’s biggest powerbrokers, including Senator Adam Schiff. With the all-party primary set for June, and the hopelessly split Democratic field all clawing haplessly at one another in the polling like crabs in a bucket, Swalwell was beginning to look like the one who would separate himself from the rest of the pack, the one Democrat who would make it to the general election ballot in November — and thus inevitably to Sacramento in January.
Until Friday morning, that is. Now? It’s all over. Swalwell suddenly suspended his race for governor on Sunday night. And unless you were vacationing somewhere without Wi-Fi until this morning, you already know the reason why: because Swalwell — married with three children — has not only been credibly accused of being an insatiable lecher who preys upon Capitol Hill women like a one-man plague of locusts; he is also accused of raping one of his former staffers . Yes, the man who once tweeted #BelieveSurvivors — in direct response to the outrageously false Julie Swetnick gang-rape allegations during the Kavanaugh hearings, no less — turns out to have allegedly left behind an angry mob of survivors himself. (Many of the accusers have come forward under their own names.)
The allegations have not been proven, but if you can judge a man’s character by his friends, then Swalwell has none whatsoever — because he no longer has any friends, at least no public ones. That was not the case until recently: Swalwell had collected endorsements from 21 members of Congress and California’s most important labor unions (SEIU, California Teachers Association, etc.). Within 24 hours of the story breaking, every single one of them had rescinded their endorsement of his gubernatorial bid — almost as if they had been warned in advance that they might need to do so.
The real sport is now on: the spin game where partisans and operatives from every California Democratic campaign seek to blame the other ones for finally putting the Swalwell allegations out there to the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN; Katie Porter’s people are blaming Tom Steyer’s people, Steyer’s people are blaming Porter’s, and both are suspiciously eyeing the dark-horse campaign of San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. But honestly, this feels to me a bit like a moral inversion of the old Murder on the Orient Express scenario: Since every campaign had a righteous motive, the true guilty parties are whichever campaigns didn’t knife Swalwell.
Because everybody knew. This is the core fact that we must always return to. Everybody knew Swalwell was an adulterous lech — except you . Swalwell’s name was being whispered through the Democratic grapevine on Capitol Hill by 2017 at the latest, when CNN almost surely mentioned him as the California representative cited by “more than half a dozen interviewees independently” for pursuing female staffers. Of course, CNN didn’t specifically name who they were referring to in that piece — “because the stories are unverified.”
“Unverified.” Such a curious word. Why not seek verification of such claims, especially given the number of allegations? Why such bizarre investigative indifference to a rumored pattern of flagrant professional sexual abuse from a powerful representative? Why are we first hearing about Swalwell-as-sex-pest only now?
But whether the media reported on it or not, they knew. And now they really want us to give them credit for having known, but not told us. Over the weekend, one journalist after another poured forth smugly from the woodwork to tsk-tsk about Swalwell and casually aver that everybody knew and “ rumors have swirled in DC for years ” — without realizing what that says about them. One local Northern California journalist claimed that “shortly after being elected to Congress in 2013, [Swalwell’s] behavior towards women was known by all levels of our local government and the Alameda County Democratic Party.” Golly, thanks for keeping the rest of us informed.
The pols knew, too. As one who doesn’t typically find himself guiding readers to the American Prospect , I strongly recommend this Monday piece by executive editor (and Los Angeleno) David Dayen, which bluntly laments the “death of accountability” in a D.C. and California Democratic culture where it was known long ago what Swalwell was up to: “The truth, which will be available for all to see before long, is that Swalwell’s conduct with interns, young staff, and female fans was an open secret for a long time, and yet the party . . . had been supporting him and raising money for him.” Give Dayen credit for confronting the ugly reality head-on:
Any of these people who say they were blindsided by the Swalwell developments are not being entirely credible; perhaps they’re not even being straight with themselves. . . . They wanted to ignore the worst whispers about someone in the family. So they did, for over a decade.
Why? I have no trouble understanding why one of Swalwell’s rivals would push to get these sexual allegations into the media before the June election. What I would like explained is why anyone would give a man with a well-known reputation for predation a pass on it for over a decade. I have a cheerlessly blunt theory as to why: because, back then, anyone who had the power to push it as a story had no incentive to make it into one. As long as Swalwell was content to play “replacement-level representative,” it apparently didn’t matter whom he might victimize; he was useful . He was useful during the first Trump term as a sufficiently telegenic talking head; he was useful during the Biden years as a narrative-pusher. Useful men tend to make friends.
But now he is of no use to anyone — neither his rivals for power nor a Democratic establishment that desperately seeks not to have “Literally Worse Than Trump” on the ballot as its candidate in November. And that’s why he no longer has any friends. We learned recently about the nightmare reality of pedophilia and sexual abuse lurking behind the glittering myth of “Cesar Chavez, hero of California farm labor.” For decades, many within Chavez’s organization had known, or at least had powerful inklings, that something was horribly amiss. The abuses of power were too noticeable, the whispers ever-present. And yet all involved kept silent until long after it was too late, because too much was at stake . Chavez was allowed to get away with horrible crimes and abuses of power simply because — even in his retirement, even as a symbol — he was useful .
You’re only finding out about Eric Swalwell now because he is in the way of other Democrats — and easily wounded. It has nothing to do with morality or accountability, only the interests of political campaigns. And it makes one wonder who else out there might still be shielded from accountability — as long as they remain useful.
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Swalwell's crime was putting the governorship at risk. If he hadn't run, or if California has a normal primary system, none of this would have been made public.
Seems too many on the left were too concerned with Trump to know or care what slime in their own party was attacking women.
Should they not be?
Not to the ignoring of everything else. Maybe you would have known that if you read the whole comment and didn't just cherry pick half of it.
So you agree with me that people should be concerned about Trump. Good. I see no evidence that that prevents anyone from looking at Democrats. It certainly didn’t prevent Swalwell from losing his political career.
Only when they were forced into it and he became a political liability. Just like ignoring joe's mental incapacity until they had no choice and he became a political liability.
Do you have some insider knowledge none of us know about? Surely you can tell us when the first claims were made?
Forced into what? By what? By whom? The accusations came out and his support evaporated. It took like a day and was, apparently, unanimous.
It’s not like people went on supporting him in spite of accusations. That is the situation with Trump.
If people knew before, they should have said something or done something. Absolutely.
But now that the information is public, the response is appropriate. Why does that not apply to Trump? Information about him has been public for years, and the Right goes on supporting him. Why? Because he’s “useful?”
The Right clutching their pearls over Swalwell is not the flex you think it is.
So progressives are no different than die hard MAGA . Boy, that's something I've never argued a thousand times.
You’re ignoring the part about the accusations being public knowledge.
Their hypocrisy knows no bounds
You've argued that MAGA are no different than progressives? Really? It seems you speak out against progressives constantly, and yet I rarely hear you admonish MAGA. If they're the same, why not treat them the same? If Swalwell should be kicked out as his party is doing based solely on allegations so far, shouldn't we hold Republicans to that same standard? And when there are literally dozens of women making accusations against a Republican, and enough evidence was presented in court to hold them responsible for sexual assault, and they've admitted in their own words that they "don't even wait" before grabbing women they find attractive by the genitals, and they cheated on all three of their wives, flew on a known convicted pedophiles private jet at least 8 times and was accused of raping a 13-year-old, this is just all public record, yet not only don't Republicans kick them out of the party, the Republican legislature essentially crown him king and subject themselves to him? Frankly, claiming there is no difference between the parties is pretty insulting to Democrats, none of them would have the gall to tacitly support such a pustule of fornication let alone worship it.
As stated above, their hypocrisy knows not bounds, but your reply to Sean is so on. They cannot see how different they are from you, and about everyone is from me, is just plain ole bovine excrement for they if they honestly don't, or can't, see, how deep the divides are between the sides that come with dinner and a drink, of ICE cold Kool Aid so they don't think, I think, we all need a lot to drink to comprehend how one can just grab women in the pink, lemon aides to squeeze the sweetness out of 47 (thousand or so )made up maids to make up the bed he LIES inn , as sweet n low is paying Porn stars and playmates to get laids while being accused by close to 30 women, cause in D Nile is where they be swimmin, and not necessarily with 'Bo Legged Women", cause they were all little girls, except for 'Bubba' !
Not at all. What matters is usefulness. Sexual preference improprieties didn’t matter when it came to Joe Biden, bill Clinton etc.
You do realize that Rep Tony Gonzalez, announced he would resign around the same time that Swalwell announced his resignation. It was underreported, but we just had a member of each party resign from congress.
had NOT left office, even though the allegations' had been out there for what, over a month at least. It wasn't till Swalwell announced his departure did it cause the Republicans to realize how terrible those optics would be. And that's on top of the pedo protecting likely pedophile himself, who only cares about power and wealth, has been accused by close to 30 women of sexual assault, admittedly grabs em' buy the pusssy, that he pays porn stars and playmates $130,000.00 a pop, yet somehow they don't feel he is obligated to be investigated! He hung out for over a decade with the worlds most famous pedophile and sex trafficker, whose DOJ gave Maxwell a new cushy low security prison for exchange for her Lying about Trumps' involvement and behavior with young girls and Epstein. A potUS who's been accused with Epstein of raping a 13 -15 year old girl and promised to completely release the Epstein files that his name plastered ALL over it, yet hasn't released half of them, or with Melania testified under oath, all after Bill and Hillary have. WTF is a better hypocritical example than this Vic, do tell!??
...that you intentionally avoided the elephant in the room that I mention in my comment, right? No comment on the accused pedophile and known sexual predator running the Republican party because that would obviously expose a Trump supporter as a massive hypocrite as they whine and bitch about Swalwell. Fuck Swalwell, fuck Gonzalez and fuck Trump, get them the fuck out of our government. Why is that so hard for Republicans to say? Perhaps it's Trumps balloon knot around their necks that is just tight enough not to let them say anything bad about their lord and master.
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