This episode contains explicit details and descriptions of sexual assault and rape.

We basically were just trying to verify everything as quickly as possible without uh pressuring our source to uh go on the record before she was ready.

That is, as you guys know, sometimes a very delicate balance um to to sort of build trust with someone.

It was really last week um when she finally told him her whole story with all of the details and then we worked very rapidly to uh confirm everything that we could and so once we had done that initial corroboration work I called uh Eric Swalwell directly and uh I didn't reach him.

I left him a voicemail saying that we had some some very serious allegations that we wanted to ask him about.

And I pretty much immediately got a call back from uh one of the consultants working with his campaign and I just laid out for her exactly what we had been told.

Hey everyone from KQED in San Francisco.

This is Political Breakdown.

I'm Scott Shafer and I'm Marisa Lagos.

Today on the breakdown, within hours of a San Francisco Chronicle story of a woman accusing Eric Swalwell of rape, the wheels came off his surging run for governor.

He ended his campaign and today he officially resigned his house seat.

Swalwell still denies the most serious allegations, but his career in politics is over.

San Francisco Chronicle reporter Sophia Bollag along with her colleague Alexei Koseff, broke the story Friday when a former Swalwell staffer made specific allegations about the congressman forcing himself on her after she became unable to stop him or give her consent.

She joins us now to talk about her reporting and its profound impact on California politics.

Sophia, welcome back to Political Breakdown and congratulations, if that's the right word, on this incredibly important journalism.

Thanks so much.

And we should say that we are recording this conversation at around 1:00 on Tuesday afternoon.

Well, before we get to your reporting from last week, uh we want to talk with you about today's revelation.

Another woman, this time in Los Angeles, Lonna Drewes held a press conference with her attorneys.

Tell us what she had to say.

Yeah, she essentially accuses Swalwell of drugging and raping her in an incident in 2018.

And she has said that she is going to file a police report.

She said she didn't do so at the time because she thought that it could endanger her budding political career.

There might be repercussions if she came forward.

Um but she says essentially that she was at an event with Swalwell.

That she thought of him as a friend um who was going to help her with her business and um help make political connections for her.

And she says she had just one glass of wine but then found herself extremely intoxicated.

Uh hence why she says she believes she was drugged.

Yeah.

And then she says she was back in uh Swalwell's hotel room and that he raped and choked her and that she passed out.

And so that's uh obviously the the very disturbing allegations that she made this morning at a press conference in Beverly Hills.

Yeah.

Really just horrific allegations.

And she talked about why she waited until now.

She says at the time she was considering a run for a local office.

She was a model and she also had a software company and that Swalwell had essentially promised her connections in Silicon Valley.

My delay in taking action against Eric was driven by fear, not doubt.

Fear of his political power, his background as an attorney, and his family law enforcement ties.

I have never doubted what happened.

I stand with the other women who have come forward and I will be making a report to law enforcement shortly with my attorneys.

Uh let's talk about the incredible reporting you and Alexei Koseff did.

Um, you quoted this former staffer who made these extremely serious allegations essentially about sexual misconduct.

She was aged 21 when she started working for him in 2019.

Um, can you just tell us though backing up like how did this investigation begin?

Yeah.

So, I started looking into these rumors about Swalwell that he had behaved inappropriately with young female staffers because I started hearing them uh sort of organically just from other women that I know um who are, you know, have connections with had either worked in Washington D.C.

or had sort of worked, you know, around the the Capitol.

And I, you know, in any political campaign, there's always opposition campaigns, right?

And of course, Eric Swalwell uh was at the time running for governor.

And so there were opposing political campaigns that, you know, they send out oppo on their on their candidates.

But these rumors were uh significant to me because they were coming not from any sort of opposition campaign and um I was just hearing them out in the world.

And so I started looking into it.

I started, you know, calling people, uh, you know, who, uh, had either worked at the Capitol or had connections to the Capitol to hear what they were hearing.

And I brought in my colleague Alexei because he is based in D.C.

I'm based up in in Sacramento, but he's actually in D.C.

And so I thought that uh, he and I working together, we might be able to find someone who could tell us uh, you know, something that we might be able to verify.

And at that point, we did not know uh how serious the allegations that we would ultimately there had been rumors of flirting or maybe extrammarital affairs.

Right.

And and you said that this really began for you guys after he was running for governor because it seems like it's been out in the ether for, you know, for quite a while.

Yes.

That's what it kind of heated up.

You're saying?

Exactly.

That's what I had been hearing.

Um, as I said, I'm I'm based in California, so I was not previously aware of these rumors, but I have heard from women who have lived and worked in Washington DC that this has been um, you know, somewhat of an open secret, but it was all very vague.

And so there weren't uh specific allegations of specific misconduct per se, just sort of, you know, the the type of whisper networks that um we used to hear about um or we heard about a lot during the #MeToo movement.

Um so that was really how this started.

What I mean, did you guys just start calling a list of former staffers?

How many people did you end up reaching out to?

Alexei and I ended up reaching out to dozens of former staffers.

And um it's Alexei who uh ultimately spoke with the woman that we focused on in our story.

Um she alleges that Eric Swalwell sexually assaulted her twice.

Once in 2019 as you as you mentioned when she was 21 and then again a number of years later in 2024 after an awards gala that they attended.

One of the things that she said was that he sent her Snapchat photos, nude photos, which is weird to be using Snapchat because like you think of young people really using that.

I mean, as she as the story unfolded for you, was there a moment where you you know, if you had any disbelief or any questions like it just kind of all fell together for you?

Yeah, the the Snapchat detail did stand out to us uh for the reasons you're saying.

Um, Eric Swalwell is obviously not a teenager.

He's not in college.

And that's a platform really mostly used by teens and college students.

There's no rule that says uh you can't use it after a certain age.

But it did sort of jump out to us.

Um on Snapchat, you uh if you take a screenshot of something that has been sent to you, it notifies the other person.

And so I think that's why uh some of the uh alleged Snapchat messages that we have reported about and that other outlets have reported about why there's not evidence of them because it's sort of designed to not uh save them.

Um we uh from the beginning um found our sources account to be credible for a number of reasons.

Uh she had a remarkable amount of detail and of course like any account that we're um planning to report on.

We uh worked very hard to corroborate details.

We reviewed text messages that she sent us from the time when she was telling her friends about these um alleged assaults.

We reviewed medical records that she provided to us.

Um, we reviewed uh footage and photographs from the events that she mentioned uh the the gala after one of these assaults happened.

Uh, we reviewed video footage from that to confirm that uh Eric Swalwell indeed attended.

Um, we obtained a document that listed both her name and his name uh on a that included like a roster of people who were going to attend.

Um, so everything that she told us that we were able to verify checked out and um, so that made us even more, you know, confident in our reporting.

Sophia, if you would take us back to give us a bit of a timeline if you would, and you went into it a little bit a moment ago, but, you know, what exactly was alleged, you know, starting with 2019.

Yeah.

So she told us that she went to work for uh Eric Swalwell in 2019.

She was very young.

She had just graduated from college and she ultimately uh he very quickly uh started texting her and sort of pursuing her in a flirtatious way shortly after she she started working for him.

Um, and he started Snapchatting her uh these messages on this this app where the messages disappear.

Um, and so it's it's hard to save them.

And uh he started asking her for uh nude photos.

He started sending her nude photos.

And she said that at first um you know she was flattered by his attention.

Um and also that she didn't want to upset him.

He was her boss.

Right.

The power dynamic here is legitimate.

Not only is she so young and just out of college, he's 17 years her senior.

He's her boss.

This is her first job.

Yes.

And so she uh you know didn't didn't want to upset him.

Um and so she at first sort of went along with it.

There was an incident that she uh described where she was driving him to an event and he tried to kiss her and she resisted.

And then there was another incident where she was driving a number of weeks later.

He she was driving him to an event and um she says he pulled out his penis and he asked her to perform oral sex on him and she did briefly and then stopped um because she was was concerned that they might get caught and she felt uncomfortable.

Um, and then later she describes um going she he invited her to dinner um and and drinks.

Uh it was sort of a group outing and he bought her a number of drinks.

She got more and more intoxicated and at a certain point she doesn't remember what happened but she woke up the next morning in his hotel room and she could feel that uh they had had sexual intercourse and uh she then uh had to go and staff an event for him that he was doing in the district.

Um and this is all 2019.

This is all in 2019.

Yeah.

So, fast forward a little bit to 2024.

She's no longer working for him.

She's in D.C.

and she reaches out to him.

Um, and at that point, she thought that things had was so far in the past that maybe things she could get beyond it with him.

Is that like help us understand what it was she thought she would do in getting together with him again?

Because, you know, a lot of people are going to say, "Well, why wouldn't you stay away from this guy?"

Yeah.

So, she uh told us that she continued to have uh after she stopped working for him, um she continued to have a friendly relationship with him.

um she did use him as a job reference um because she was very early in her career and he was very powerful and so she really felt like if she burned that bridge, if she uh upset him or ruined that relationship that uh she could face really serious professional repercussions.

um and also that she would be judged very harshly.

And they messaged before the this gala that took place in 2024 uh because they were both going to be there.

And uh essentially afterward he asked her to meet up with or for drinks or they agreed to meet up for drinks and she did not plan for anything sexual to happen.

Uh she told my colleague Alexi that you know she she wanted to meet up with him to show that she was someone that uh you know who was successful and should be taken seriously.

Um, and essentially she wanted to have, you know, a professional relationship with this person who had been really instrumental in her career.

She actually spoke with CNN about that evening and I want to play a little bit of what she said.

After that bar closed, we went to another.

I went to the bathroom and I don't remember anything after that.

You don't remember anything?

I remember the next day I can see flashes of that evening of him on top of me, me pushing him off, him grabbing me.

It was a lot more aggressive.

It was aggressive.

Did you say no?

Yes, I said no.

I said I in my flash that I can recall I was pushing him off of me saying no.

And what did he do?

He didn't stop.

He didn't stop.

So that was the woman who was accusing Eric Swalwell of sexual assault uh speaking to CNN's Pamela Brown and and you also spoke with her.

You know when some of these allegations first started sort of vaguely popping up in social media ahead of your uh incredible report um and you know Swalwell made this unusual decision to really come out ahead of them and say you know I didn't do this um we've now heard since this story broke that you know a lot of the people he was meeting with for endorsements had actually asked him if he had ever behaved inappropriately and he had denied those allegations as Well, um, can you just talk about - oh and he sent cease and desist letters to these women ahead of the story publishing.

What's your kind of thoughts and response to what he had said at the time, which is like, oh, this is a political attack.

The timing is suspicious.

Um, obviously it took you guys months to put this story together.

It's actually weeks, closer to weeks really to put it together.

But yes, it was a long a long time that we had been working on it.

Um I attended the last uh public event that Eric Swalwell held.

He did this town hall event uh last Tuesday, so a week ago uh in Sacramento and that's really when he was getting these questions from reporters.

Um, obviously it takes time as you as you noted to um put together a story like this and do the kind of rigorous factchecking and corroboration that you need to do to uh you know really verify that the the things that people are telling you are worth reporting um and are credible to the extent that you're able to confirm.

And uh so so at that point no one had published any uh journalist exactly no specific allegations um no journalism outlets had published like a rigorous investigation.

Well that's a good point because there were a lot of these social influencers who have a lot of followers that were alluding to things.

there were no specifics and how did you as a journalist sift through all those rumors and you know try to figure out you know what was real what was not what was an exaggeration so on yeah our reporting was uh really completely independent of these rumors that were circulating on social media we saw them and we uh sort of interpreted them as a a sign that others were looking into them either other reporters or other you know influencers were sort of looking into them And so it it did spur us to continue asking questions and uh you know continue looking into it, but we didn't get any sources.

For example, uh for our story through these political influencers who are also at the same time talking with some of these women um and and making these sort of like vague posts about uh that there were allegations without specifics.

And Eric Swalwell on Tuesday basically uh completely denied everything.

And at that point, like I said, there wasn't a story out there.

Um but he said there was no truth to any of the allegations that were floating around.

Uh that it was just a political attack and uh that was that was essentially how he tried to get out ahead of of this story.

What was your kind of thinking?

Because, you know, we all know as members of the media when you're working on an investigation, you're trying to sort of balance, you know, getting everything right and being really intentional about the timing of when you ask for response from these types of things, you know, when you kind of tip your hand to the person who's the subject, like how were you guys all thinking about the timing of your story as these rumors started sort of gaining steam?

Yeah, we basically were just trying to verify everything as quickly as possible without uh pressuring our source to uh go on the record before she was ready, right?

Um that is, as you guys know, sometimes a very delicate balance um to to sort of build trust with someone and uh my colleague Alexei did that with this source over a period of weeks.

Mhm.

Um and uh it was really last week um when she finally told him her whole story with all of the details and then we worked very rapidly to confirm everything that we could and as I mentioned uh were not able to find any inconsistencies in what she had told us.

Um, and so once we had done that initial corroboration work, I called uh, Eric Swalwell directly and uh, I didn't reach him.

I left him a voicemail saying that we had some some very serious allegations that we wanted to ask him about and I pretty much immediately got a call back from uh, one of the consultants working with his campaign.

And I just laid out for her exactly what we had been told and I asked for a response.

Um that is important because of course if there was some detail that uh you know we had been given by our source that was not true and they had some evidence for example if he and we had by that point already confirmed that he was in the locations where she said that he was um during these alleged assaults.

But um if they had some piece of evidence that some part of that wasn't true, that he was actually in a different location or he was with a different person, uh we we would have run that down and and they did not they provided uh one uh friend of his who was uh with him after the the gala, but um he did not uh he wasn't there long enough to to really dispute anything that our source had told us.

So, the Chronicle story publishes in the afternoon on Friday and then shortly thereafter, CNN runs its story with the same person you had spoken to and some other women as well.

Yes.

And then late Friday, Swalwell releases a videotape and let's just hear a little bit of what he had to say.

These allegations of sexual assault are flat false.

They are absolutely false.

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.

Sophia, what do you make?

I mean, I know you're not a psychologist, uh, but what do you make of the way he his the strength of his denial?

Because when we talked to him, uh, earlier in the week, he said he wanted to be a protector for California.

I mean, what do you call that?

It's chutzpah.

It's like I don't know what you call it.

It's just like this sense of invulnerability.

It It is.

And and yeah, I that statement that he made as you were playing it just now, it is kind of remarkable because he has since uh I don't want to say he's walked it back cuz he has continued to deny sort of in general the allegations though he has not he's denied the sexual assault allegations or he says this most serious allegations but he's apologized for mistakes he's made.

He said it's between him and his wife.

He sort of seemed to acknowledge infidelity in a subsequent statement.

So, it's very unclear.

I mean, in a way, it probably makes sense.

The most these are potential criminal acts.

And we know that the Manhattan DA has opened an investigation, a criminal inquiry.

Alameda is considering it.

Now, in Los Angeles, you have a woman going to the sheriff's department and asking for an investigation.

So, I mean, I I think it makes sense that he would that that would be what he focuses on, but it is it it when you parse his statements, it's a little unclear as to what he's owning up to, so to speak, exactly.

He has not engaged specifically with really any allegations.

He hasn't said anything like uh one woman says I was in this location at this time and that's not true or anything like that.

that um he hasn't really engaged at all publicly with any of the specifics.

And I think that that initial statement that he put out by video at that point um his uh supporters, his top endorsers, um members of his uh campaign, people had who had worked with his campaign were already starting to quit or rescind their endorsements of him.

Um, but it really was a remarkable statement from him because it didn't really acknowledge any of that and was really just this flat denial, this vow to continue fighting, which is what you do if you're a politician if you think you still have a shot.

Um and uh his it's it's been really remarkable to see how quickly his chances of you know having any sort of viable uh bid or political life really quickly eroded in the wake of these allegations becoming public.

Yeah.

And just a few weeks earlier we saw something similar.

the New York Times investigation into Cesar Chavez and uh alleged rapes on his part and his you know names came off of buildings and streets and you know statues were covered up.

Um does this signal that and you know what's happened to Swalwell now?

Does it signal do you think that we're in a new era of holding powerful men accountable?

I I do think so.

It's hard to imagine this swift of a response pre- #MeToo movement just because unfortunately uh we've seen so many examples of this and so I think uh not that the allegations that we've reported aren't shocking.

I think they are uh but we have seen similar things happen before and I think that you're you really see that it the the the effect of all of those stories that came forward in in 2018 and 2019.

You're really seeing the effect of that in the response here.

Well, that's what strikes me.

I mean, unfortunately, the underlying behavior and the fear that these women feel about coming forward to it exists, right?

And so I don't think you can say we're in a brand new era, but I wonder if the swiftness of the response and really the fact that nobody credible has questioned like these allegations.

Does that surprise you?

Did you expect this type of response to the reporting?

You know, I think this came together so quickly and uh we were so focused on just verifying the details that we could and and and being very fair to the congressman and giving him a chance to respond.

We really that was part of the reason also that we were rushing to corroborate things quickly to give him a chance to respond.

Um and and we did our best to to give him as much time as we could.

um the you know the swiftness with which his gubernatorial campaign and his career in Congress unraveled.

I I can't think of a a similar example.

I mean you mentioned Cesar Chavez.

Um but that's obviously a very different situation.

Um and you know it all of these uh stories like this the specifics are different.

Um, but I do think that the fear that uh women have of coming forward um and and men if they have been abused is it it's common through a lot of these when you're talking about powerful people um who have allegedly sexually assaulted people.

Um it, you know, at when I was first starting to to hear these rumors, it did occur to me, you know, maybe if this were true, people would have already come forward.

And I think you're really seeing in the stories, um that are coming out now, um both in our reporting and the reporting that other outlets like CNN have done, you've really seen why people did not come forward originally.

Um, and everybody has sort of different uh specific reasons, but a lot of it comes down to uh in the specific case that Swalwell was so powerful.

Um, he, you know, was on cable news all the time.

Weighing in on whatever the latest news was with Trump.

He was just so famous and so powerful in Congress.

And he, you know, people felt that he really had the ability to ruin people's careers.

Seemed like he was going to be the next governor potentially.

He sure did.

Before we let you go, what are you going to be looking for in the coming days and weeks?

It seems or hours, you know, everything changes so quickly.

Yes.

Well, we're continuing to uh follow up on leads and uh you know, talk to to anybody who might have stories about uh experiences that they've had uh with Eric Swalwell.

um and and really try to get to the bottom of how how widespread um or how uh how how many inappropriate relationships he may have had.

At this point, uh there are five women um who have come forward, at least when by the time we we started taping this, um with some sort of allegations of of inappropriate behavior.

Um but uh you know we're continuing to to follow up on on any leads that we get and of course um you know we haven't talked much about the impact on the governor's race.

Um but that is huge.

She has suspended his campaign.

He was um by some measures the front runner and so now that race is weeks before ballots are are going out um is completely upended.

So I think that's what we'll be continuing to follow living through history.

Absolutely.

Sophia Bollag, congratulations again to you and your colleague Alexei Koseff for the reporting you did and will continue to do, I'm sure.

And thanks for being here today.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for having me.

All right, that is a wrap for Tuesday, April 14th.

Political Breakdown is a production of KQED.

Our engineer is Chris Griley.

Our producers Izzy Bloom.

Our video team includes Matt Morales, Alex Tran, Gilare Zada, and Vivian Morales.

I'm Marisa Lagos.

And I'm Scott Shafer.

Thanks for listening.

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