I just realized who Eric Swalwell reminds me of, looks-wise: Michael Weatherly, that d-bag from NCIS. And like Weatherly, Swalwell is really gross to women. In recent days, CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle have both released exclusives on Eric Swalwell’s lengthy history of using his position as a congressman to abuse much-younger female staffers. Swalwell was considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, and before these stories broke, he was topping the polls for the Democratic nomination for California’s governor’s race. On Sunday, Swalwell dropped out of the Democratic primary. 24 hours later, he’s now resigning his congressional seat.
Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman from the San Francisco Bay Area, said on Monday that he is resigning after allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staff member and engaged in misconduct with other women.
The accusations, published in articles by The San Francisco Chronicle and CNN, prompted rescinded endorsements in the governor’s race, a criminal investigation and, now, Mr. Swalwell’s exit from politics. The lawmaker has denied what he described as “the serious false allegation made against me,” but apologized to his family, staff and constituents “for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past” in a statement Monday.
Mr. Swalwell, 45, suspended his campaign for governor on Sunday after having been a Democratic front-runner in a wide-open race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run again because of term limits.
The House was expected to vote on whether to expel Mr. Swalwell this week, and a growing number of Mr. Swalwell’s colleagues — many of them Democratic women — said they would support forcing him out. The House Ethics Committee also announced it would investigate the allegations.
“Expelling anyone from Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong,” Mr. Swalwell said. “But it’s also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties.”
He did not offer a timeline for his resignation. Under California law, Gov. Gavin Newsom can decide whether to call a special election when a congressional office becomes vacant this close to a regularly scheduled election.
I’m fine with him resigning – it was more than likely that the votes were there to expel him from Congress anyway, so he saved Democrats a lot of time and energy. If he steps down quickly, I’m sure Gavin Newsom will find a way to call a special election pretty soon as well. Given that there’s already a big governor’s race, it would make sense to package everything together. I don’t want to see any whataboutism on Swalwell either – there is enough evidence to suggest that he is a serial abuser of women and this is exactly what should happen to him. The Democrats took out their trash over the course of 72 hours. Meanwhile, the Republicans are still slavishly devoted to enabling Donald Trump, a serial predator, misogynist and demented fascist madman for a full decade. The two parties are not the same.
Also: I keep seeing tweets from Hill staffers and DC politicos who are super-eager to claim that they have insider knowledge Swalwell’s behavior. Don’t believe everything you read on social media. From what I understand, most people in DC thought he was a womanizer who cheated on his wife constantly – I don’t believe it was common knowledge that he was assaulting or raping women.
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