Eric Swalwell was one of the most esteemed members of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was praised for his attacks on Donald Trump. He was one of the Democratic Party's most effective communicators. And he was on a glide path to the governorship of California.
Then the roof caved in.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Friday that Swalwell had raped a female staffer and had sexually assaulted three others, with one woman insisting the Swalwell had assaulted her twice - both times when she was drunk. Swalwell denied the charges, apparently hoping that he could navigate the accusations and ride out the storm. But the storm was already past riding out. The incident involving the woman accusing Swalwell of assaulting her while drunk occurred in New York City, which led Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to launch an investigation. Several other women are alleged to have similar accusations against Swalwell as well.
All of this proved to be too much for Swalwell, who terminated his California gubernatorial campaign two days after the Chronicle's report, announced his intention to resign to avoid a congressional investigation three days after the Chronicle's report, and made good on his intentions four days after the Chronicle's report - right as Lonna Drewes, a former model who had sought help from Swalwell for her software firm, came forward to say that he had raped and choked her in a hotel room after he'd drugged her glass of wine in the hotel bar. She claimed that Swalwell had raped her and even choked her, which sounds a good deal like something Bill Cosby would have done.
In fact, in this particular case, the accusation from Lonna Drewes is what I call the Beverly Johnson Coordinate, the point at which an accusation is so credible and so detailed, it must be true on top of all of the others that preceded it. The Beverly Johnson Coordinate is named for the legendary fashion and beauty model who came forward with accusations of sexual assault against her by Bill Cosby and described the incident in great detail that more or less corroborated charges from earlier accusers. Before then, I had dismissed claims of Bill Cosby sexually assaulting women as too wild to be believed. But when Beverly Johnson - a model I had long had a crush on (she was one of a handful of black models who opened my eyes to how astonishingly beautiful black women can be) and a woman who I always knew to be someone of integrity - made the same accusations against Cosby, that's when Cosby lost me, as I explained back in December 2014.
(Aside: I saw Ms. Johnson's one-woman show about her career in February 2024. She opened with a brief slide show of her most famous modeling photos. It ended with a picture of Bill Cosby, to which Ms. Johnson said, "What a fucker!" Her f-bomb got a positive response from the audience, including me. Call it expletive-delighted.)
And so, once Lonna Drewes came forward against Swalwell, it became impossible for anyone still defending him (if there were any such people left) to continue doing so. Ms. Drewes even claims to have notes from therapy sessions over the incident. Swalwell's withdrawal statement included a denial of the accusations against him while apologizing for mistakes and bad judgment regarding . . . what? That's just it, he doesn't say.
Uh, anything you want to get off your chest now, Eric? So the investigators don't have to pull it off first?
Compared to Swalwell's downfall, Al Franken's fall, he being pushed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to ignite her unignitable 2020 presidential campaign, was much more gradual. Accusations of a tryst in Bimini in late March 1987 brought down Gary Hart's presidential campaign in a week. Swalwell went from the top of the world to the bottom of the heap (from Mount Whitney to Death Valley, as it were, seeing that he's from California) in four days - a new record for a disgraced politician, unless Matt Gaetz somehow counts. And Franken and Hart were forced out for not even having done one one-hundredth of what Swalwell has done. Rumors of Swalwell's sexual misconduct, it turns out, have been circulating for years on Capitol Hill, so the rush of all this news is an unfortunate but well-deserved cap to his political career, which was sound and fury signifying hubris. And by the way, Swalwell is not the only House member out the door - Representative Tony Gonzales, a Republican from Texas, also resigned after having admitted to an affair with a staffer who later committed suicide.
People may get the government they deserve, but we won't get the leaders we need until we demand better leaders that we deserve better from. That goes for both parties.
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