A 19-year-old Los Angeles restaurant hostess was surprised to get a LinkedIn message from Eric Swalwell – a congressman she had interacted with briefly as she escorted him and his social gathering to a desk, solely telling him her first identify.
A younger congressional staffer mentioned Swalwell despatched her flirty messages on Snapchat after speaking to her inside a Capitol Hill workplace and slipping his enterprise card into her again pocket.
Another younger lady who related on-line with Swalwell about a coverage difficulty mentioned he repeatedly despatched her suggestive messages, provided to fly her to DC, and even wrote her a letter of advice regardless of by no means assembly in particular person.
“He would Snapchat me. He’d be like, ‘What do you want to do with your future?’” she recalled. “And then he’d be like, ‘What are you wearing right now?’”
More than a dozen women who spoke with NCS described interactions with Swalwell that made them uncomfortable over the past decade, from social media messages to in-person encounters to alleged makes an attempt by the congressman to lure them to his lodge room. Some requested to not be named out of concern of retaliation.
Their accounts – none of which have been beforehand reported – add new depth to a portrait of troubling habits by Swalwell, who dropped out of the California governor’s race and resigned from Congress final month after a former staffer informed NCS and the San Francisco Chronicle that he raped her. Swalwell, who has denied the allegation, now faces felony investigations in New York and California.
None of the women who spoke to NCS for this story described sexual assaults.
But their accounts counsel that even because the Democratic rising star drew plaudits for connecting with younger voters on social media, the place he advocated for women and blasted President Trump for a historical past of sexual assault allegations, he was utilizing the identical platforms to achieve out to women and at instances to sexually pursue them.
New particulars about ex-congressman Eric Swalwell emerge
Sara Azari, an lawyer for Swalwell, mentioned in a assertion that “Swalwell categorically and unequivocally denies each and every allegation of sexual misconduct and assault that has been leveled against him.” She mentioned that Swalwell denied the accounts of among the women who spoke to NCS, and that his communications with others had been “routine and professional.”
She additionally confirmed that Swalwell had consensual relationships outdoors of his marriage.
“He had extramarital contact with women. He’s not denying that,” Azari mentioned. “But that’s very different than engaging in nonconsensual sexual misconduct.”
The evening after NCS reporters outlined the women’s accounts to Azari to hunt remark, with out sharing any of their names, Swalwell personally despatched Snapchat messages to 2 of the women. “Why are you screenshotting my snap,” he requested one lady in a message despatched round 2 a.m. Eastern, in line with a video she offered NCS.
Some women who interacted with Swalwell described him as exhibiting “Jekyll and Hyde” habits. He portrayed himself as a champion of women’s rights whereas introducing laws to assist victims of home assault, talking out in assist of the MeToo motion, and voting for a decision banning sexual relationships between lawmakers and their employees.
But on the identical time, in line with allegations shared in recent weeks with NCS, Swalwell was sexually pursuing no less than one lady who labored for him in addition to different Capitol Hill staffers, sending women unsolicited nude photographs of himself, and, allegedly, sexually assaulting two women.
The women say their experiences with Swalwell got here as he amassed energy in Congress, together with a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, and allegedly continued nicely into his front-running push to turn out to be California’s subsequent governor. His actions counsel a sample of habits that would have uncovered him to blackmail or extortion, mentioned Emma Davidson Tribbs, a founding director of the National Women’s Defense League.
“It opens people up to a level of blackmail and influence that you don’t want a public servant to have,” Davidson Tribbs mentioned. “This is a liability for democracy – it makes all of us less safe.”
From the earliest days of Swalwell’s political profession and even his faculty years, associates and associates described him as being each pushed by ambition and expertise – and at instances exhibiting regarding habits round women.
Swalwell, who was born in Iowa and grew up in the middle-class San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Dublin, California, went to Campbell University in North Carolina.
His skills had been apparent in faculty, mentioned former college students at Campbell, the place he was a sturdy member of the mock trial crew and a soccer participant. Two classmates mentioned he at instances made them uneasy with crude feedback about women.
A poem titled “Hungover From Burgundy” that Swalwell published in a Campbell pupil literary journal seems to allude to a chaotic hookup in a lodge room: “She chased and I ran/ I chased and she ran,” Swalwell wrote in 2001. “My anxious arm she bit – my scar is beautiful/ While I screamed/ She bent her lips to mine.”
Azari mentioned Swalwell “categorically denies being crude toward women during his college years nearly three decades ago” and added that the poem “is plainly a teenage metaphor about drinking — not sex.”
After transferring to the University of Maryland and getting his regulation diploma there, Swalwell returned house to Dublin, working as a prosecutor earlier than being elected to the native metropolis council in 2010. Some staffers mentioned they had been involved about his behavior of holding conferences at a Hooters restaurant, particularly when he introduced a run for Congress in 2012. “I hope he stops meeting at Hooters,” Cheri Greven, who later served as his district director and political director, remembered considering on the time. Azari mentioned that Swalwell “occasionally taking a meeting at a casual chain restaurant” was not newsworthy.
Swalwell gained his congressional race, defeating a 40-year incumbent more than double his age, and grew his nationwide profile by connecting with younger voters on social media.
In 2016, Swalwell grew to become one of many first lawmakers to hitch Snapchat, an app the place messages disappear quickly after sending. Swalwell, then 35, typically used the app himself as a substitute of delegating it to a staffer, posting quick movies virtually day-after-day from travels round his California district or his work on Capitol Hill.
“We can restore a lot of faith that people have in their democracy by opening it up a little bit more,” Swalwell told The Hill that yr. “Snapchat is a great way to do that.” The information outlet’s headline topped him “the Snapchat king of Congress.”
But Swalwell wasn’t simply utilizing Snapchat to have interaction with constituents or promote laws he supported, in line with the women who spoke with NCS.
A former congressional staffer mentioned Swalwell started sending her flirty messages on Snapchat after she met him in 2017, when she was a faculty intern. She mentioned Swalwell first observed her in the cloakroom of the Democratic caucus, a private assembly space adjoining to the House chamber for lawmakers from the social gathering and their employees.
She was on the lookout for a job and attempting to community, she mentioned, so she was excited when Swalwell took an curiosity in her. But he quickly made her uncomfortable.
“He was overly friendly with me, finding reasons to talk to me in a corner alone, or touching my shoulder, hugging me a bit too long,” she mentioned. One time, she mentioned, Swalwell wrote his private cell quantity on the again of his enterprise card and slid it into her again pocket. Her mom additionally confirmed in an interview that the lady had informed her about her interactions with Swalwell on the time.
While Swalwell by no means despatched her overtly sexual content material on Snapchat, she mentioned he despatched her flirty messages and selfies. Their interactions trailed off after she discovered one other job, she mentioned.
Azari mentioned that the lady’s allegations had been “categorically false.”
Heather Purcell mentioned she met the congressman at a TV studio through the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Purcell, who was in her twenties and dealing at a political consulting agency, had grown up in Swalwell’s district. When she launched herself to Swalwell, she mentioned, he “looked at me up and down in a way that made me feel uneasy.” Swalwell requested her about herself, touched her shoulder and wrote his private electronic mail handle on a enterprise card he gave her, she mentioned.
When Purcell obtained a new job on the Hill a few months later, she emailed Swalwell and he responded in half by sending her his private telephone quantity, in line with emails she offered to NCS. Purcell mentioned she by no means referred to as Swalwell and didn’t work together with him once more in particular person.
Purcell mentioned she felt “a gut feeling that the power dynamic did not feel right to me – that he was just trying to engage in a personal relationship when it should have been professional.”
Azari mentioned that Swalwell denied touching Purcell’s shoulder, and that his electronic mail correspondence along with her was “routine and non-contentious.”
As the MeToo motion centered consideration on women dealing with harassment in the office, Swalwell publicly positioned himself as a champion of women. He tweeted “Dems are cleaning House” when then-Sen. Al Franken resigned over sexual misconduct claims in December 2017, and voted for a February 2018 bill that banned members of Congress having sexual relationships with their staffers.
“The most important thing we can do for the MeToo movement,” Swalwell informed NCS in a June 2018 interview, is to “make sure that every woman in America is protected at her workplace… There’s a lot of women who work for powerful people who are not regarded as powerful to the media, but they have to deal with harassment and discrimination every day, and we should move quickly in Congress in a bipartisan way to protect those individuals.”
By that summer time, Swalwell had turn out to be a fixture on NCS and different cable information channels, talking out towards Trump.
A former Los Angeles mannequin and entrepreneur, Lonna Drewes, mentioned at a information convention and a follow-up interview with NCS that round this time, in July 2018, Swalwell drugged and raped her. Her attorneys haven’t publicly launched proof to corroborate the alleged assault, however mentioned they had been cooperating with regulation enforcement in Los Angeles who’re investigating the declare. Azari mentioned that Swalwell “categorically denies Ms. Drewes’s allegation that he engaged in non-consensual sex with her.”
The identical month, Swalwell introduced a bill in Congress geared toward forcing individuals charged or convicted of home violence to surrender firearms they owned.
In November 2018, he tweeted, “Support survivors. Believe survivors. We are with you,” in a message referencing the Trump administration’s proposal to vary the principles on how faculties examine circumstances of sexual assault and harassment.
Just a few months later, after Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, Swalwell vocally condemned Kavanaugh and defended his accusers. “What are the chances that three or four women, independently, who never met each other would have similar experiences with one person?” he requested throughout one cable information interview in September 2018. Either Kavanaugh “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,” he added.
Swalwell jumped into the presidential race in April 2019, pitching himself as a generational change agent, however dropped out inside months.
As Swalwell aimed for larger workplace, he continued having troubling interactions with women, accusers mentioned. One lady, who mentioned she had a long-term skilled reference to Swalwell, informed NCS that across the time of his presidential bid, he invited her to what she assumed was a work-related assembly at a lodge bar following a fundraiser.
After the 2 spoke about work on the bar, whereas the lady was making ready to drive house, she mentioned Swalwell took her bag from her, stopping her from leaving. He went into the lodge elevator and she or he adopted him, telling him to return her belongings, she mentioned.
She mentioned she was shocked by Swalwell’s actions and assumed he was attempting to lure her to his lodge room. When they reached Swalwell’s flooring, she mentioned, she ripped her issues from his fingers and started to yell at him.
“I said, ‘How dare you disrespect me like that,’” the lady remembered. “When the elevator was closing, he stood there with a look of shock on his face.”
The lady mentioned she feared skilled repercussions due to the encounter, and informed NCS that her longstanding work connection to Swalwell made her act in a different way.
“If it was anyone else, I’d be screaming and calling security,” she mentioned. “But this is someone I know professionally, and he’s a congressman.”
Azari referred to as the lady’s account “flat out false.”
After his presidential run sputtered out, Swalwell returned to his district and started interacting more with considered one of his junior staffers, who was 21 on the time. She described in element to NCS and the San Francisco Chronicle final month her allegations about how Swalwell had nonconsensual sexual contact along with her whereas she was closely intoxicated in 2019, and later raped her in a New York City lodge. Swalwell has denied the allegations, which are actually being investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney’s workplace.
Videos that surfaced on-line amid the escalating scandal have added additional scrutiny to Swalwell’s conduct in the next years. A pair of movies that unfold broadly on social media seems to indicate Swalwell touching and kissing a younger lady on a mattress in a lodge room.
NCS analyzed the metadata contained inside the movies and geolocated them, revealing that they had been shot in the early hours of July 13, 2021 on the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, throughout the identical interval the Swalwell marketing campaign was spending cash there. Campaign bills additionally present a number of costs to Drizly, an alcohol supply service, on July 12, 2021, and costs to 2 totally different Las Vegas steakhouses throughout the identical interval.
The full context and origins of the movies should not clear. One of the movies was first posted by Martin Shkreli, a former pharmaceutical govt who was broadly condemned for mountaineering the price of a lifesaving HIV drug. He later served time in jail for securities fraud. Shkreli declined to remark.
“We refuse to dignify a Martin Shkreli-sourced video,” Azari mentioned. She added that Swalwell “never used Drizly while in Las Vegas,” and that marketing campaign employees used the service to ship presents to marketing campaign donors and others.
Swalwell’s troubling interactions with younger women continued in latest years, in line with accounts shared with NCS, together with with women who labored in politics.
Two women who had been quoted in NCS’s earlier story mentioned that Swalwell started sending them messages on Snapchat after connecting with them on social media in 2021, together with sending them sexually specific messages and unsolicited nude photographs and movies of himself.
Another lady informed NCS she acquired sexually tinged messages and movies from Swalwell. The congressman first messaged her on Twitter to talk about her work in latest years. Over the course of a number of months, Swalwell would message her when he visited her metropolis, typically suggesting she go to him at his lodge, which she interpreted as him propositioning her. Swalwell additionally urged he may assist her along with her profession.
She shared screengrabs of her conversations with Swalwell with NCS. In two movies Swalwell recorded and despatched to her, which NCS reviewed, he’s absolutely clothed and posing for the digital camera.
“I tried to pivot it into a professional conversation, but he didn’t want that,” she informed NCS. “I didn’t want to be propositioned by a married congressman.”
For a former congressional staffer who labored for one more member of Congress in a totally different state, flirty messages with Swalwell developed into a consensual sexual relationship over a number of years.
The lady, who met Swalwell in 2020, mentioned he began sending her messages on Snapchat in 2021, after she left her job. The two had consensual sexual activity a number of instances in accommodations over a number of years, she mentioned. They despatched one another specific movies and photographs, she mentioned, together with Swalwell sending her nude photographs of himself and movies of him masturbating. She recorded among the Snapchat movies, which confirmed Swalwell’s face and bare physique, and confirmed them to NCS.
“His stories would be his, like, congressional content, but then he would be sending me dick pics,” she remembered.
Just a few weeks earlier than he introduced he was operating for governor, he despatched her one other specific video. In the center of his marketing campaign, he reached again out to share upcoming journey plans, she mentioned.
While the lady says their sexual encounters had been consensual, in retrospect, she believes their relationship might have had an inappropriate energy imbalance.
Azari famous that the lady was now not working in Congress throughout her interactions with Swalwell. “There was no supervisory or professional relationship and, accordingly, no power imbalance,” she mentioned, calling the concept “absurd.” She mentioned that the lady had repeatedly despatched Swalwell messages asking “for financial assistance and to serve as a professional reference,” together with as not too long ago as earlier this yr.
In some circumstances, Swalwell provided to professionally assist women who he was messaging on social media. He wrote a regulation faculty letter of advice on Congressional letterhead for one lady who informed NCS that she had by no means met him in particular person.
The two related in 2021 after she reached out to Swalwell about a coverage difficulty he was engaged on, she mentioned. While their exchanges had been initially skilled, he quickly started sending her more flirty Snapchat messages, she mentioned. In one late-night message, she remembered, he requested her whether or not she was carrying “sexy pajamas.”
After Swalwell wrote the advice letter for her in 2022, which NCS reviewed, she mentioned he informed her he may fly her out to go to him in Washington. “He never was direct and explicit, but it was like, come, let’s have fun, wink wink,” she recalled. After that, she mentioned, she stopped speaking with him.
Azari mentioned that Swalwell “has authored hundreds of letters of recommendation over more than 20 years in public service.”
Other women described receiving messages from Swalwell after on a regular basis encounters – from restaurant employees who served him to a lady who stopped to say good day.
Sanam Vivansia, a Washington, DC, actual property agent, mentioned she met Swalwell in 2021 after going as much as introduce herself when she noticed him strolling in town. The two started exchanging flirty messages over Instagram and textual content, which she offered to NCS.
In October 2021, she mentioned, she was sharing a late-night Uber with Swalwell and a pal in San Francisco when Swalwell requested her to return again to his lodge room. She later confronted him in a textual content message shared with NCS, saying, “You made me feel really uncomfortable.” Swalwell responded by disputing her recollection, saying her description “is not what happened.”
Her pal who was in the Uber along with her informed NCS that he didn’t hear the change however that she informed him instantly after that Swalwell had requested her to return to his room with him.
Azari mentioned that each Swalwell and Vivansia “were accompanied by friends” and that after they met late at evening, “the suggestion to continue to a hotel bar was made in a group context, as it was the only venue open at that hour.” Vivansia “appeared intoxicated and was not acting rationally,” she mentioned. Azari added that “if necessary, a third-party witness who was present can corroborate the circumstances,” however didn’t present NCS the identify or contact info for that witness.
After he dined at a Los Angeles rooftop restaurant in 2021 the place Clara Miklaucic labored as a hostess, and spoke along with her for much less than quarter-hour, Swalwell discovered her on LinkedIn and messaged her to thank her, she mentioned.
He provided to put in writing Miklaucic, who was 19 on the time, a letter of advice regardless of assembly her solely as soon as, in line with screenshots of messages she offered to NCS. Swalwell despatched her his private telephone quantity and informed her he thought her identify was “beautiful.”
Miklaucic mentioned she thought Swalwell’s flirty messages had been “strange and predatory,” so she by no means referred to as or texted him.
“I remember being surprised getting a message from him since I didn’t give him any information, other than probably my first name,” she mentioned. “He was literally over double my age.”
Azari mentioned that Miklaucic’s account didn’t mirror “wrongdoing or misconduct,” and added that Swalwell typically “connects people” in hospitality jobs along with his spouse, who additionally works in the trade. “Swalwell did share his phone number broadly,” she added.
Similarly, Swalwell met Amanda Koski, a former Hill staffer and political operative, when she served him and his household whereas waitressing at a DC pizza restaurant. He requested for her telephone quantity and later began messaging her about her involvement in politics, she informed NCS. He additionally added her on Snapchat and adopted her on Instagram.
After she informed Swalwell she was working on the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he requested the place she was staying and urged that they hang around, in line with messages reviewed by NCS. Koski responded “absolutely!” however informed NCS that Swalwell’s invitation made her really feel uncomfortable. They by no means met on the conference, she mentioned. “I’m like, ‘You’re married with three kids, I’ve met your wife,’” Koski added.
Azari mentioned Swalwell initially requested for Koski’s contact info so he may assist join her to his crew to assist her discover work on Capitol Hill, and argued that Koski’s characterization of occasions was unreliable as a result of she had despatched Swalwell “repeated follow-up requests” for favors or help.
The evening after NCS spoke with Azari concerning the women’s claims, Swalwell despatched Koski a Snapchat message at 1:57 a.m. Eastern – asking why she had screenshotted his chats and together with screencaps of texts between the 2 of them.
“Given the accusations against him, attempting to gaslight or intimidate a woman on Snapchat at 2:00 a.m. isn’t overly becoming of a person who has ‘done no wrong,’” Koski informed NCS.
Another lady who spoke to NCS acquired a comparable message from Swalwell at 1:40 a.m Eastern that very same evening. When she noticed a notification concerning the message, “my whole chest got tight” and she or he “immediately started crying,” she mentioned.
“He has devolved so far from who I thought he was,” the lady mentioned.
Azari mentioned Swalwell despatched the women messages as a result of he obtained a Snapchat notification about them screenshotting previous exchanges with him. Swalwell’s “intent was acknowledgment, not intimidation, and nothing in his messages was threatening in content, tone, or substance,” she mentioned.
When Swalwell introduced he was operating for California governor in November 2025, among the women who’ve accused him of misconduct mentioned they had been shocked and troubled. But most mentioned they believed they had been the one individuals he had mistreated, so that they stayed silent whilst he rose in the polls.
That modified after a group of liberal social media influencers began sharing rumors of Swalwell’s habits on-line. Women who had experiences with Swalwell started to achieve out to the influencers, who later related them with NCS and different media shops.
After NCS and the Chronicle printed tales concerning the allegations towards Swalwell on the afternoon of April 10, most of his endorsers raced to retract their assist. Within days, he had dropped out of the race and departed Congress.
In the wake of Swalwell’s resignation, the women he interacted with are actually struggling to grasp how he ascended in politics on the identical time they say he continued pursuing them in private.
One former Swalwell intern and present senior congressional staffer, who mentioned she had been impressed by Swalwell politically and credited him for supporting her profession, mentioned she was now reevaluating different experiences with him through the years.
“It’s really, really painful to, of course, square that with a person who has very much pushed boundaries, who has made me uncomfortable many times,” she mentioned.
Before rumors about Swalwell’s habits began to emerge, “I kind of pushed it to the back of my brain,” she mentioned. “I hadn’t really thought about it. And now it’s literally all I can think about.”
NCS’s Kristen Holmes and Thomas Bordeaux contributed to this report.