By Daniel Trotta<\/p>\n
April 10 (Reuters) – U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat and a leading candidate for governor of the state, has been accused of sexual assault by a \u200cformer congressional staffer, accusations he forcefully denied as false and politically motivated.<\/p>\n
Several leading Democratic politicians responded \u200cby urging Swalwell to end his campaign for governor.<\/p>\n
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Friday that a woman who previously worked \u200bin Swalwell\u2019s district office accused him of two nonconsensual sexual encounters, one while she was employed by him in 2019 and another in 2024 after she had left his staff.<\/p>\n
The woman, whom the newspaper did not name, was quoted as saying she had been too intoxicated on both occasions to consent, according to the report.<\/p>\n
The \u200cformer staffer later told CNN that \u2060Swalwell had raped her during the later encounter, which Swalwell strongly denied.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pushing him off of me, saying no,\u201d the woman told CNN on camera but \u2060in shadow to disguise her appearance. When asked how he responded, the woman said, “He didn\u2019t stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
CNN reported that three other women had accused Swalwell of separate instances of sexual misconduct, including unsolicited explicit messages or photos. Swalwell denied \u200bthose \u200bclaims as well.<\/p>\n
“These allegations are false and come on \u200bthe eve of an election against the frontrunner \u200cfor governor,” Swalwell said in a statement to the Chronicle and CNN.<\/p>\n
“For nearly 20 years, I have served the public – as a prosecutor and a congressman – and have always protected women. I will defend myself with the facts and where necessary bring legal action. My focus in the coming days is to be with my wife and children and defend our decades of service against these lies.”<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Swalwell \u200cdid not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.<\/p>\n
The \u200baccusations have jolted the campaign. U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, another nationally \u200bprominent Democrat, withdrew his endorsement and urged \u200bSwalwell to leave the race. The California Teachers Association, the largest teachers\u2019 union in \u200cthe state, suspended its support. The House \u200bDemocratic leadership, including Hakeem Jeffries, \u200bthe leader of the Democrats in the chamber, said Swalwell should “immediately end his campaign.”<\/p>\n
In a large field of candidates from multiple parties, Swalwell has been widely considered one of the leading contenders \u200bto advance to a runoff in \u200cCalifornia’s nonpartisan voting for governor. The top two finishers in June’s primary will advance to \u200bthe general election in November, even if they are from the same party.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bDaniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by William Mallard)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Daniel Trotta April 10 (Reuters) – U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat and a leading candidate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,72422,9,8,115174,24115,115175,2531],"class_list":{"0":"post-262191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-democrat","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-congressional-staffer","13":"tag-eric-swalwell","14":"tag-leading-candidate-for-governor-of-the-state","15":"tag-sexual-assault"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}