Representative Eric Swalwell is under criminal investigation and facing calls to drop out of the California governor’s race after multiple women accused him of a range of sexual misconduct in news reports published Friday.
Before the articles’ publication, he had been emerging as a front-runner in a crowded race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom. But now Mr. Swalwell, a Democrat, has lost several campaign endorsements and faces uncertainty over his political career.
Here’s what to know about the allegations, which Mr. Swalwell has denied.
New York has opened a criminal investigation.
On Saturday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a statement that it was starting an investigation into an allegation of sexual assault against Mr. Swalwell that was reported to have taken place in New York City.
In an article in The San Francisco Chronicle, a former staffer of Mr. Swalwell’s said that the congressman had sexually assaulted her in a New York hotel room after an event in 2024. The staffer told the paper that she had been too intoxicated to consent to the encounter, and that Mr. Swalwell had ignored her when she had tried to refuse.
In a statement on Saturday, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said that it was urging “survivors and anyone with knowledge of these allegations” to contact its Special Victims Division.
The woman also said that Mr. Swalwell had assaulted her in 2019. The New York Times has not confirmed the accusations of sexual assault.
Multiple women have accused Swalwell of misconduct.
After The Chronicle reported the allegations of sexual misconduct and assault from the former staffer, a separate investigation, published by CNN just hours later, surfaced more.
That article included three other women who accused Mr. Swalwell of sexual misconduct, including claims that he’d sent them explicit messages and unsolicited photos of his genitals.
Ally Sammarco, who was named in the CNN report, spoke to The Times and said Mr. Swalwell had sent her inappropriate messages on Snapchat in 2021, including unsolicited nude images.
A woman CNN did not name in its report told the news outlet that she had connected with Mr. Swalwell over her interest in politics, and that the two had begun talking. When Mr. Swalwell visited her city, she said they went out for drinks, and that Mr. Swalwell touched and kissed her as she became severely intoxicated. The next thing she was aware of, she said, was waking up in Mr. Swalwell’s hotel room with no memory of how she got there.
Swalwell has denied the allegations.
In a statement on Friday, Mr. Swalwell said that the claims against him were false. He said that he would defend himself and take legal action.
His lawyer, Elias Dabaie, on Friday told The Times that the allegations were “baseless” and described them as a “coordinated effort” to undermine Mr. Swalwell’s candidacy.
Later on Friday, Mr. Swalwell again insisted the sexual assault allegations were false in a video statement, though he also apologized to his wife.
“I do not suggest to you in any way that I’m perfect or that I’m a saint,” he said. “I have certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past, but those mistakes are between me and my wife and to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position.”
The allegations have upended the governor’s race.
Mr. Swalwell is one of eight prominent Democrats and two well-known Republicans competing in a nonpartisan primary to replace Mr. Newsom, who is term-limited. The race has so far been defined by the absence of a strong Democratic front-runner, but Mr. Swalwell had recently begun to pull ahead in the polls and had the backing of top Democrats and influential interest groups.
Within hours of the allegations being published, that support began to swiftly dissolve.
His two campaign chairs, fellow California congressmen, stepped down. Senator Adam Schiff of California, the most prominent state leader to back Mr. Swalwell, has called on him to drop out of the race, as have several other top Democrats.
Two of his Democratic opponents in the primary — former Representative Katie Porter and Tony Thurmond, the state’s chief schools official — have gone a step further and called on Mr. Swalwell to resign from Congress. Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, said that she would file a motion to expel him from the House.
Powerful labor unions — including the California Teachers Association and the Service Employees International Union California — pulled their endorsements. An independent committee that had been raising money for campaign ads said it was suspending activity.
Swalwell has been in Congress for over a decade.
Mr. Swalwell, 45, was elected to Congress in 2012. He was a prosecutor and city councilman before he unseated an 80-year-old Democratic incumbent to represent a suburban district east of San Francisco.
Mr. Swalwell briefly ran for president in 2019 and frequently appears on cable news programs. He has tried to position himself as a leading figure opposing President Trump. He sued Mr. Trump over his role in the 2021 Capitol riot and is a member of a new bipartisan House subcommittee investigating the episode. He is married and has three children.
Orlando Mayorquín is a Times reporter covering California. He is based in Los Angeles.
The post What We Know About the Eric Swalwell Sexual Misconduct Allegations appeared first on New York Times.
