Swalwell resigning from Congress after sexual assault accusations

Amna Nawaz:

Democrat Eric Swalwell of California announced today he will resign his seat in Congress after reports from multiple women accusing him of sexual misconduct, including in one case rape.

In a statement this afternoon, Swalwell wrote -- quote -- "I will fight the serious false allegations made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make."

Earlier today, the House Ethics Committee had launched an investigation, as some of his Democratic colleagues called for his expulsion from the chamber. And, over the weekend, he also ended his campaign to be governor of California.

Our congressional correspondent, Lisa Desjardins, is here now with the latest.

So, Lisa, just remind us, what exactly were the allegations brought against Eric Swalwell?

Lisa Desjardins:

Rumors first rose over social media for the past few days, but starting on Friday and over the weekend, we saw reporting first from The San Francisco Chronicle and then CNN, bombshell, specific accusations against Congressman Swalwell.

CNN said that four women accused Swalwell of misconduct. Most were anonymous. One was named. Now, those charges range from unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos, to unwanted touching, to one accusation of rape.

Now, we have not independently verified those charges. The rape accusation in both stories is similar. It's made anonymously by a woman who says, when she worked for Swalwell, he took her out for drinks and then she passed out, and she believes she was raped while she was passed out by Swalwell.

She says, years later, after she stopped working for him, she again was alone with Swalwell. And she says, that time, that she was raped after she said no to intercourse with him. Now, Swalwell says none of that happened. He has maintained his innocence about that sexual misconduct.

But he did say he made some mistakes against his wife. Now, the question then is, why did he resign today? Let's look at more of his statement that he came out with.

He wrote, "I am aware of efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote against me and other members. Expelling anyone in Congress without due process within days of an allegation being made is wrong. But it is also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties."

Essentially, two things there. He's saying he doesn't want the precedent of due process being rolled over. And he's also saying it seems he feels the votes might have been there to expel him.

Now, of course, all of this came after he was in a major election battle, as you said. I reached out to Swalwell personally. I have covered him for years. I have not heard back.

Amna Nawaz:

You have as part of your reporting been talking to staff and others. And it's -- you have learned that staff saw red flags for years? Is that right?

Lisa Desjardins:

That's correct.

This is something you often think of as a whisper campaign. This is unfortunately one of the major systems of protection for some Hill staffers. Now, I learned from two different staffers who I have known for a while, have covered and worked with in the past.

One told me that multiple times they knew of Swalwell reaching out to interns, in one case Swalwell asking an intern for their Snapchat address to communicate that way, which it's not easy to understand why a member of Congress would want to Snapchat with a young intern.

The other staff telling me that Swalwell -- he saw that -- Swalwell on the floor of Congress, taking young women there after hours, and that the idea was that was sort of something he did repeatedly. Now, both of them saying that there was a whisper campaign to tell some interns and other young women especially to stay away from him.

But that's the problem with a whisper campaign. It depends on being in the right place, having the right person looking out for you.

Amna Nawaz:

Now that he's resigned, there's no need to expel him. But where does all of this leave some of the other efforts to expel other members of Congress?

Lisa Desjardins:

That's right.

And this is breaking news right now. I have confirmed with two different sources that we now expect Tony Gonzales, the Republican from Texas, to announce his plan to resign tomorrow. Now, as many of our viewers will remember and we have covered before, this last month, Gonzales admitted that he had a sexual relationship with a former staffer who died by suicide.

We also in the last week saw reports that another former staffer of Gonzales' came out and said that he sent her explicit and unwanted messages. Sleeping with staffers by members of Congress is explicitly against House rules. There was bipartisan backlash against both Gonzales and Swalwell.

Both were up for potential expulsion. We're seeing both of them reacting to that right now. Now, one example here, Gonzales' fellow Republican Byron Donalds spoke yesterday.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

These allegations are despicable and they demean the integrity of Congress. These things are just completely unacceptable. As far as I'm concerned, both gentlemen need to go home.

Lisa Desjardins:

Now, the Swalwell expulsion really grew from Democratic calls for their own member, for Swalwell to leave.

Democrat Teresa Leger Fernandez, she heads the Congressional Women's Caucus. She said Swalwell needed to go. And I spoke to her earlier. She said the entire ethics process is deeply flawed.

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM):

We need to fix our ethics process because it needs to work faster. It needs to be easier for women staffers to report what's going on.

Lisa Desjardins:

Do you think there's a broader culture of sexual misconduct on the Hill?

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez:

I do believe that that's a problem, until there is accountability, which means you lose your job because of sexual harassment.

And there could never be consent in that power position, right, that you need to be -- both have a public accountability and then accountability in the House rules. And this will make a difference, I think.

Lisa Desjardins:

The question of accountability is not over because Swalwell and Gonzales were not alone. You can see in this photo two other members of Congress, Florida Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. The Ethics Committee has found that she fraudulently kept and used hundreds of thousands of dollars in COVID relief money.

They are planning on issuing a punishment for her in the next couple of weeks. And Republican Cory Mills of Florida, financial and sexual misconduct charges. Both of them have said they are wrongly accused.

Now, Amna, only six members of Congress have ever been expelled in history, mostly because they're usually -- they get in a position where they just resigned, rather than face a two-thirds vote. It's a high bar to expel them, but this was in consideration.

Amna Nawaz:

Meanwhile, I know you have been reporting on the ethics process, talking to current and former staffers about that culture. What did they tell you it's like on the Hill right now?

Lisa Desjardins:

I have spoken to so many current and former staffers today, senior, junior, former interns, everyone. And they all agree that after the MeToo movement, which we covered, I think, well, here on the "PBS News Hour," on the Hill, there were changes.

However, they think, in recent years, those changes have been ignored and have been rolled back. And what I heard was really the idea of a culture that is an underlying subterranean, as one person called it, problem.

Let's look quickly at the system right now on the Hill for dealing with these ethics problems. Lawmakers and staff are required to get sexual harassment training every year. Now, there are also multiple offices where misconduct can be reported.

But most of those offices can keep those investigations secret and they take a long time. Part of that is, of course, they want to be thorough. There is due process, of course, to members and staff members who are accused. But there are many critics who say that's gone too far now and that it's protecting those who are doing the wrongdoing in this case.

There are, of course, many professional, supportive offices in Congress. I don't want people to think that the entire place is dangerous. However, I am convinced by my talks today that we really have seen a reckless sometimes and often careless deepening culture of harm on Capitol Hill.

Amna Nawaz:

Lisa Desjardins, great reporting, as always. Thank you.

Lisa Desjardins:

You're welcome.