Swalwell Suspends Calif. Gov. Campaign; Denies Rape, Sexual Assault Allegations

Far-left Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell of California suspended his campaign for governor of the state last night following credible allegations of rape and other sexual abuse from multiple women.

CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle published the allegations about the hate-Trump leftist on April 10. Swalwell called the accusations “false” but told followers on X last night that his campaign is on hold.

One woman said Swalwell pressured for oral sex and raped her twice while she was drunk. He also sent pornographic Snapchat messages, the women alleged. Unverified video gone viral on social media purports to show Swalwell with a woman and another man on a bed.

CNN Report

The former staffer who accused Swalwell of raping her while she was intoxicated said he “left her bruised and bleeding,” CNN reported:

“I was pushing him off of me, saying no,” the woman told CNN of the incident, which she said happened in 2024 after she had stopped working in Swalwell’s office. “He didn’t stop.”

She said it was the second time Swalwell had nonconsensual sexual contact with her while she was drunk. In 2019, when she was still working for him, she said she woke up naked with him in a hotel room after a night of heavy drinking. She said she had no memory of what happened but could feel physically that they’d had sexual contact.

Three other women who spoke with CNN also alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by the Democratic congressman — including Swalwell sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.

A woman who met Swalwell online claimed the congressman kissed and touched her without her consent in a bar. A third, Ally Sammarco, claimed that Swalwell sent nude photos to her:

She said she initially reached out to the congressman on Twitter to discuss politics. “I truly never thought he would respond – I had like 1,000 followers at the time,” she said. “And he actually responded.” …

CNN found corroboration for key elements of each of the women’s claims, including the former staffer who said she was sexually assaulted. Two family members and a friend said in interviews with CNN that she told them about the alleged 2024 assault in the following days, and CNN also reviewed text messages she sent two friends describing her allegations at the same time. “I was sexually assaulted on Thursday,” she wrote to one of her friends, adding: “By Eric.”

The woman also shared medical records related to her receiving STD and pregnancy testing after the alleged assault.

For the woman who connected online with Swalwell over Democratic politics, a family member and two friends confirmed she told them last year about the incident where she ended up intoxicated in his hotel room. CNN also reviewed messages between her and Swalwell, including a photo he sent her that matches footage of him during a CNN interview in her city on the night they met in person.

The pro-Democrat network also scrutinized dozens of messages that were flirtatious but not sexually explicit, and reported that Swalwell Snapchatted the women when he wanted to send something graphic.

The women said they came away from Swalwell’s predations “confused, distraught and scared,” CNN explained. “They said they decided to come forward after hearing rumors that they were not alone in their experiences with the congressman.”

Rape-allegation Details

When the former staffer was 21, she began Snapchatting with Swalwell, who “began making sexual comments and sent her photos of his penis and of him shirtless,” CNN reported:

He also asked her to send him photos of herself, including nude photos, which she did. She said she found the attention flattering, but also felt nervous because he was her boss. …

Because the messages on Snapchat were automatically deleted, she said she has no screenshots of their exchanges on the app.

“There was Eric the Snapchatting guy, and then there was Eric my boss,” the former staffer said. “It was like two different people completely.”

In 2019, Swalwell asked the woman for oral sex. She was Swalwell’s chauffeur in the district, and he told her to pull into a parking lot. He promptly pulled out his penis and asked for oral sex. She agreed, then stopped and told him she was uncomfortable, CNN reported:

“He said to me, ‘You’re right, it’s probably not good for a congressman to be caught with his pants down,’” she told CNN.

In September 2019, she was alone with Swalwell at a bar in his district after a casual gathering with staffers, she said. “I was really, really drunk,” she said.

She said she remembers getting an Uber, and then the next thing she remembered, she woke up in Swalwell’s hotel room the following morning, naked in bed with him.

“I know that there was sexual contact because when I woke up in the morning, I could feel that there was,” she said. Swalwell told her that “last night was great” but she should get going, she said. …

Later on Snapchat, she said, Swalwell was much friendlier, telling her how nice their sexual encounter was. “I said to him, ‘I really don’t remember it at all,’” she said. “And he was like, ‘Well, next time, we have to make sure you remember it.’”

In April 2024 in New York City, the woman told the network, Swalwell raped her in his hotel room her when she was drunk. The pair had gone to a bar together. “She said she was heavily intoxicated and doesn’t remember leaving the bar,” CNN continued:

The next thing the former staffer remembered, she was in bed with Swalwell in his hotel room and he was having sex with her, she said. She said she remembers “flashes of that evening, of him on top of me, me pushing him off, him grabbing me.”

“I was pushing him off of me, saying no,” she said. “He didn’t stop.”

The former staffer woke up in Swalwell’s hotel room the next morning alone and “completely confused,” she said. She had been wearing a dress she needed someone else to zip, so she wrapped herself in a blanket, ran out of the hotel, and took the first cab she saw back to her own hotel, she said. She said she quickly called her mother, who confirmed her account in an interview with CNN.

“My vagina was bleeding the next day after the sex, I had cuts and bruises on my body,” she said. When she looked in the mirror later, “I could see the bruises of where his hand had been on my rib cage and on my legs and near my thighs,” she remembered.

2025 Accusation

Another woman accused Swalwell of groping her in a bar in 2025. She got drunk, then wound up in his hotel room. “Her memory of what happened in Swalwell’s hotel room is ‘a blur,”’ CNN reported.  And “two other women told CNN that Swalwell had sent them unsolicited photos of his penis and other sexual messages on Snapchat after connecting on social media in 2021.”

One of those women was Sammarco.

The San Francisco Chronicle detailed the former staffer’s accusations of rape. 

Jack Posobiec of Human Events posted video of Swalwell on a bed with a woman and another man, with someone else recording. Another woman briefly shows up in the background. Posobiec claimed he “received a digital forensics report attesting” to the video’s veracity.

Swalwell denies the allegations, and his attorneys have sent cease-and-desist letters to two accusers. 

“These allegations of sexual assault are flat false. They’re absolutely false,” Swalwell said in a video posted to X on April 10:

They did not happen, they have never happened and I will fight them with everything that I have. They also come on the eve of an election where I have been the front-runner candidate for governor in California. I do not suggest to you in any way that I’m perfect or that I am a saint. 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.

“I am suspending my campaign for Governor,” he later wrote on X:

To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past. 

I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made — but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s.

Swalwell on Kavanaugh

Swalwell appears to have changed his standard on whether to believe women who lodge sexual-assault allegations.

During the contentious confirmation process for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, Swalwell said myriad allegations are credible. Multiple crazy women accused Kavanaugh of attempted rape, gang rape, and other crimes.

“It’s very easy to isolate one incident and shine inaccuracies or inconsistencies on that case, but the more and more cases that are separate and independent that look the same — pretty soon, a prosecutor starts to say to a jury … the arrows are pointing in the same direction,” he said on MSNBC:

And what are the chances that three or four women, independently, who never met each other, would have similar experiences with one person. So either … this person committed these horrific acts, or he is the single unluckiest person in the world for these people to conspire and make up lies against him.