Eric Swalwell has been one of the more loathsome members of Congress — and that’s saying something — for more than a decade. No one particularly liked him, even in his own Democratic Party. He was more the useful dupe, from Chinese honeypots, presumably for intel, to Democratic Party bosses for his relentless attacks on President Trump and Republicans. But he was not particularly liked or respected by anyone on either side of the aisle.
And now, in the span of about 24 hours, he has dropped out of the California governors’ race and resigned from Congress. His supposed rising star plummeted in shockingly quick fashion. To the surprise of precious few, the plummet is tied to an increasing number of allegations of sexual assault against multiple women over the years.
Swalwell gave the normal mamby-pamby, vacuous politician “apology,” saying he is “deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past…I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I made.” Mistakes. Right.
More women keep coming forward, including Capitol Hill staffers and others he met as a Congressman. They are claiming sexual harassment, sexual threats, and a few women alleging that he took advantage of them while they were incapacitated. Swalwell denies at least some of the accusations, but the abrupt end of his gubernatorial campaign and his resignation from Congress speak volumes.
His proclivities have been known by reporters in California and D.C. for a long time. In California, since at least 2013, when he was first elected to Congress. But the media never reported on it, and the Democratic Party, the “party of women,” never did anything to hold him accountable.
The Democratic Party has been philosophically and morally corrupt for a long time. But the Swalwell saga illustrates it perfectly. Democrats said nothing when Swalwell ran for Congress seven times or when he ran for president in 2019.
Leadership allowed him a high-profile role in the Trump impeachment circus. They suddenly, conveniently, could not locate a camera or microphone when Swalwell got caught as the dupe of a Chinese spy honeypot scheme. Nothing to see here!
But of course, he was useful in those years. He hated Trump and MAGA, which will generally allow you to get away with anything in the Democratic Party. He was a partisan hack for Democratic causes.
He was useful. Now he’s not. Why?
Eric Swalwell will be a quickly forgotten nobody in American politics. But to understand why these allegations are coming out now and what they mean, we have to see that this is an indictment of more than Swalwell’s dirtbaggy ways.
The biggest reason is that Democrats saw an opportunity to cull their herd of leftists running for governor. In fact, there are so many Democrats running in California’s jungle primary — where the top two vote-getters in the all-party affiliation primary move on to the general — that it was increasingly looking like the top two vote-getters were going to be Republicans. That would guarantee a Republican governor of very blue California.
So Democrats, failing to convince any of the known Democrats to step down, saw the opportunity to get rid of one of the big names and began leaking the sordid allegations against Swalwell. They want to consolidate the field among just a few Democrats to keep Republicans from the top two places. Swalwell was still a moral-less dupe, but no longer useful.
Now, in addition to being investigated in California, he is under investigation by the state of New York for similar incidents that occurred in that jurisdiction. The actually bipartisan House Ethics Committee is also investigating him.
He’s not the only Congressional Democrat on the hot seat and facing possible expulsion.
Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida was recently found guilty of campaign finance rules violations over allegedly using federal tax money meant for victims in Florida on her campaign and personal purchases, such as a $100,000 ring. Her trial in Miami over criminal charges that she routed federal emergency funds to her campaign, originally set for April 20, was recently pushed to February 2027.
Rod Thomson is a former daily newspaper reporter and columnist, Salem radio host and ABC TV commentator, and current Founder of The Thomson Group, a Florida-based political consulting firm. He has eight children and seven grandchildren and a rapacious hunger to fight for America for them. Follow him on Twitter at @Rod_Thomson. Email him at [email protected].
