Exactly three weeks ago, Eric Swalwell announced he was resigning his congressional seat. He formally resigned the next day. That decision, and his prior decision to leave the California governor’s race were the result of two stories about him, one by the SF Chronicle and one by CNN. One more woman came forward on the day that Swalwell resigned and since then the story has gone quiet.
Until today. Today CNN has another story designed to make the rubble of Swalwell’s career bounce. It reveals that many more women had come forward with stories to tell.
A 19-year-old Los Angeles restaurant hostess was stunned to get a LinkedIn message from Eric Swalwell – a congressman she had interacted with briefly as she escorted him and his party to a table, only telling him her first name.
A young congressional staffer said Swalwell sent her flirty messages on Snapchat after talking to her inside a Capitol Hill office and slipping his business card into her back pocket.
Another young woman who connected online with Swalwell about a policy issue said he repeatedly sent her suggestive messages, offered to fly her to DC, and even wrote her a letter of recommendation despite never meeting in person.
“He would Snapchat me. He’d be like, ‘What do you want to do with your future?’” she recalled. “And then he’d be like, ‘What are you wearing right now?’”
More than a dozen women who spoke with CNN described interactions with Swalwell that made them uncomfortable over the last decade, from social media messages to in-person encounters to alleged attempts by the congressman to lure them to his hotel room. Some asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation.
The difference here is that none of these women were assaulted. They never got close enough to Swalwell for that to happen, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. In one instance, Swalwell (allegedly) took a woman’s purse and got on an elevator, forcing her to follow him. When they got to his floor she grabbed the bag and screamed at him. But she didn’t notify security because he was a congressman.
In public, Swalwell was saying all the correct male feminist things, even voting for a resolution to ban relationships between members of congress and staffers. Meanwhile…
…according to allegations shared in recent weeks with CNN, Swalwell was sexually pursuing at least one woman who worked for him as well as other Capitol Hill staffers, sending women unsolicited nude photos of himself, and, allegedly, sexually assaulting two women.
Swalwell’s attorney, Sara Azari, has denied any illegal behavior, down to something as minor as touching a woman on the shoulder. But when CNN confronted Azari with text messages from Swalwell that young women had saved, those women got messages later that night from Swalwell himself.
Similarly, Swalwell met Amanda Koski, a former Hill staffer and political operative, when she served him and his family while waitressing at a DC pizza restaurant. He asked for her phone number and later started messaging her about her involvement in politics, she told CNN…
The night after CNN spoke with Azari about the women’s claims, Swalwell sent Koski a Snapchat message at 1:57 a.m. Eastern – asking why she had screenshotted his chats and including screencaps of texts between the two of them.
“Given the accusations against him, attempting to gaslight or intimidate a woman on Snapchat at 2:00 a.m. isn’t overly becoming of a person who has ‘done no wrong,’” Koski told CNN.
I doubt his attorney would have suggested that was a smart course of action. I’m guessing Swalwell was not 100% sober when he sent those texts.
In any case, the new story adds to the sense that Swalwell had a pattern of going after young women he could impress with his job and connections. He assumed that his messages would be automatically deleted by Snapchat but in many cases those messages were screenshotted by the women in question, making it hard to deny his contact with them.
He’s still denying everything, probably in hopes of avoiding a criminal indictment, but his career in politics is over. Given that he’s only 45-years-old, he’s going to have to find another line of work.
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