By covering up for Swalwell until now, Democrats – Latest News
What occurred to Eric Swalwell, who suspended his marketing campaign for California on Sunday, was not a reckoning over gross conduct.
It was a #metoo witchhunt, organized and motivated by the Democrats’ want to not lose the governor’s race to both of the 2 main candidates, each of whom occur to be Republicans.
Representative Swalwell was polling third — behind Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco of the GOP. Yet his marketing campaign — and profession — are effectivel yover after a sequence of ladies got here out alleging sexual misconduct by the congressman.
Here’s the most recent on the allegations towards Rep. Eric Swalwell
The rumors had apparently been circling for years.
“[H]is behavior towards women was known by all levels of our local government and the Alameda County Democratic Party,” as one reporter put it.
And when people requested why the reporter hadn’t reported the story out, he defined that he’d tried repeatedly. “I can’t force women to speak out, and when they chose not to, I didn’t push. I also knew that Swalwell was known to threaten litigation.”
Eric Swalwell has give up the California governor’s race after bombshell claims he sexually assaulted a number of ladies. REUTERS
Now, Swalwell is dealing with prison investigations and mounting calls to resign from Congress after suspending his gubernatorial marketing campaign.
Many of his supporters had shortly retracted their endorsements — from the SEIU to Nancy Pelosi to Adam Schiff. The government council of the highly effective California Labor Federation voted unanimously to withdraw its help.
Swalwell denied the allegations, to no avail.
The claims cowl a vary of alleged misconduct. A former staffer says that she was raped by Swalwell whereas drunk in Manhattan in 2024. She instructed CNN she pushed him off her and mentioned no, however he didn’t stop.
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It was their second sexual encounter, the girl mentioned, each after nights of heavy ingesting; the primary episode was in 2019, after Swalwell despatched her images of his penis and he or she reciprocated with nude images. “She said she found the attention flattering, but also felt nervous because he was her boss,” CNN reported.
One night time, she gave him oral intercourse in his car. Another night time, they bought drunk collectively at a bar and he or she woke up in a resort room, bare subsequent to him. “She said it wasn’t clear to her at the time that she had been sexually assaulted, but that she later realized that the encounter was not consensual because she had been so intoxicated.”
Another girl exchanged textual content messages with Swalwell and ended up being kissed by him in a bar with out her consent, she mentioned, additionally after heavy ingesting. Another girl mentioned he despatched her obscene messages.
The ladies’s tales comply with a related sample: Swalwell would show “close interest in their lives when they were in their twenties and finding their footing professionally, making them feel special and even starstruck,” defined CNN.
The messages would then flip more and more sexual, but the ladies continued writing back. “Many said they reciprocated and engaged with him in part because of his position of power.”
The congressman admitted to “mistakes in judgement in the past” however issued one other defiant rebuttal of the recent allegations leveled at him. Getty Images
Let me state clearly that I’m no fan of Eric Swalwell. I discover his political persona to be gross and divisive. Moreover, if he really raped any of these ladies or assaulted them, he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
But it’s additionally simple that the allegations described by CNN and different shops embrace a lot of what looks like gray space.
The ladies engaged in mutual, reciprocal, consensual flirtation within the DMs, adopted by consensual heavy ingesting. They could not have needed to do it, however they didn’t relay these emotions to Swalwell “because of his position of power.”
Gross, sure. Lecherous? Undeniable. A betrayal of his marriage vows — completely. Every girl can attest to how dehumanizing it’s to be despatched an unsolicited dick pic.
But how shocked are you able to be in case you’ve already despatched a nude?
Again, to be clear, if he then proceeded to behave with out their consent, knowingly crossing boundaries that they have been explicitly setting out, and even pursuing sexual contact once they have been clearly incapacitated, that will be a crime.
But it’s more troublesome to make the case after the sufferer has willingly participated in a sexual encounter.
I think that’s why no one reported on these apparently well-known tales.
So why now?
Because now it’s within the pursuits of the Democrats, and the media, to sacrifice Swalwell.
The Democrats appear to have determined that their best shot at profitable the race and beating the Republicans is consolidating their candidates, who’re coming in at third, fourth, and fifth place.
Beyond politics, it looks like now we have misplaced the flexibility to differentiate between immoral conduct
— like being a married man hitting on a younger girl — and prison conduct, like assault and rape.
And that doesn’t simply harm males; it hurts ladies.
Because once we obscure the query of consent, we make it not possible, by definition, for ladies ever to consent in any respect.
Batya Ungar-Sargon is a weekend anchor and the host of “Batya!” on NewsNation. She writes at batyaus.substack.com
