Below is my column on Fox.com on the Swalwell scandal. His resignation from Congress was expected in light of the likely expulsion and criminal investigations awaiting him. The worst, however, may be yet to come.
Here is the column:
The resignation of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Cal.) came with one of the most spectacular falls in political history. Just days ago, Swalwell was the leading Democratic candidate for governor of California and positioned to be one of two final candidates (the other a Republican). He expected that, regardless of his unpopularity, California Democrats would never vote for a Republican.
Now Swalwell has pulled out of the race, pulled out of Congress, and was even tossed out of the home of a billionaire who had been letting him crash there during the scandal.
Swalwell continues to deny the allegations and pledges to fight them.
For the record, I have been one of Swalwell’s most vocal critics for the last ten years. Yet, while I am not surprised by the allegations, I am surprised by how quickly Swalwell was abandoned by his political patrons in Congress and the unions.
In Washington, Harry Truman advised politicians that if you want a friend in this city, get a dog. However, even Swalwell’s dog Penny has yet to appear in public with him. Presumably, she is consulting with her own canine crisis team.
Swalwell has spent his entire career protected by an enabling establishment and media. He was a made man in Washington, and those who made him protected him despite years of rumors and allegations of misconduct.
He was never much of a legislator. One 2025 study showed that he was outvoted in Congress by a colleague who had died months earlier. His value was his vicious signature. He was always first to a mob. When Sen. Susan Collins received death threats, it was Swalwell who mocked her. In running for governor, he not only pledged to arrest ICE agents but to deny them driver’s licenses and jobs. He trafficked in unadulterated rage to a nation of rage addicts.
His greatest patron was Nancy Pelosi, who single-handedly saved Swalwell’s career when he was found to have had an affair with an alleged Chinese spy. She told the media, “I don’t have any concern about Mr. Swalwell.” For most of the media, that was enough and they slinked away.
When critics sought to remove him from the classified House Intelligence Committee, Pelosi shocked many by insisting that he remain in the sensitive position, lashing out at those “trying to make an issue of this.”
Now, Pelosi and the media allies are gone. Even Swalwell’s friend, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.), has morphed into Claude Rains and proclaimed that he is “shocked” by the allegations. His former campaign chair, Gallego was shown in a picture bare-chested and riding camels with Swalwell on a luxury junket paid for by Qatar business interests.
The photo has not aged well for Gallego any more than his earlier lament that the Democratic party “used to be the party of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.”
The abandonment of Swalwell is a familiar move of political triage. By letting Swalwell succumb to the scandal, Pelosi and others hope to protect the establishment from any blowback after years of enabling his career. The media, as usual, is complying.
The media will cover a scandal involving a leading Democrat if there is no real alternative. What is interesting is how the Democratic establishment is now signaling that they want Swalwell destroyed — quickly and surgically.
The media is content calling Swalwell a monster without delving into who created and released that monster. Swalwell is no self-made man. He is a made man of the Democratic establishment.
The alleged victims have lashed out not only at Swalwell but also at many in the establishment. They allege that they were rebuffed when they tried to bring their allegations to reporters.
One independent reporter said that he had been raising similar allegations about Swalwell with California Democrats from before Swalwell was elected to Congress. He was also turned away.
Swalwell had a use and that made his “appetites” irrelevant. If even half of these allegations are true, it shows the sense of license that Swalwell developed for years in Washington.
He lost that political immunity this week and now faces real legal liability. That does not mean that Democrats will not try to control the damage. They want Swalwell to take a deal to avoid any investigations that will pull other Democrats into the vortex of the scandal.
They are counting on New York and California district attorneys to produce the type of controlled explosion seen in construction where a hotel is brought down without damaging the adjacent structures.
The problem is Republicans may not just accept his resignation as the final act. They could call the women to testify and even call some of his congressional friends who took trips and partied with him. They could cite Swalwell himself for demanding such total transparency.
Swalwell’s resignation may indicate that he is now fully briefed on what lies ahead. With a criminal investigation announced in New York and one expected in California, any competent defense counsel would advise Swalwell that he needs to jettison every extraneous concern from his career to his office to his law license. Swalwell needs to fight for his liberty if these women are prepared to give statements not just to the media but to the police.
In both New York and California, the statute of limitations for rape and sexual assault were removed. The published allegations, from raping intoxicated women to leaving victims bruised and bleeding, would likely satisfy those statutes if established by the police.
Swalwell, ironically, will now join Hunter Biden as a political refugee. (Swalwell supported in his public defiance of a congressional subpoena). Like Hunter, Swalwell lost any influence and ability to make money when he fell out of power. Hunter is now reportedly millions in debt and remaining in South Africa.
Swalwell may have to burn through his wealth in fending off these criminal investigations in multiple jurisdictions. If any of the allegations are proven, he will likely lose his bar license and ability to support himself as a lawyer.
In the end, this is no morality tale because there are no more moral figures from Swalwell to those who created or protected him. It is a Washington tale where morality, like villainy, is measured by your proximity to power.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Seriously? The first anyone heard of this loathsome creature was when it was revealed that he acted as a traitor committing treason with a foreign agent, a Chinese spy.
He should have been politically ruined by that treachery, real or imagined.
Many who rely on Turley’s daily affirmation swill drink the MAGA Kool Aid–but Turley is PAID to write the crap that he publishes. Turley had zilch to say about the Gonzales sex scandal, and his alleged victim committed suicide. Republicans didn’t demand HIS resignation. Turley has little to say about the Epstein scandal and the lengths to which Republicans have gone to hide the truth–and there MUST be something very serious about Trump and his crony wealthy pedophiles or they wouldn’t try to hard to conceal it.
Another big point–when there are sexual abuse allegations, Democrats step up. Republicans don’t. So STFU about Erik Swalwell and Hunter Biden–who was never even elected to any office, and there was never any proof of anything that JOE Biden did that was wrongful, despite Republicans trying to dig up something, anything. There is overwelming evidence of graft and corruption by Trump and his family that Turley ignores–to wit: the cryptocurrency scandal–UAE buying billions of this worthless commodity, the free flyng luxury palace gifted to Trump by Qatar, his selling those computer chips to a Middle Easterner, Saudi Arabia bailing out Jared Kushner’s failed real estate project, the lies about starting the Iran war–the list goes on and on. But, Turley just HAD to bring up Hunter Biden again today.
Preach on, brother. Couldn’t have said this any better myself. Turdley is a pathetic shill…
Democrat accused of sex scandal? The party kicks that individual to the curb.
Republican accused of sex scandal? The party circles the wagons, blames the victim and buries the evidence.
Who name names? And don’t try the Trump BS which has been continually disproven.
Did the Democrats kick JFK to the curb for sexually assaulting female interns? Did the Democrats kick Bill Clinton to the curb for raping Paula Jones and getting oral sex from Monica Lewinsky in the Oval office? Did the Democrats kick LBJ to the curb for exposing himself to female staffers. Not to mention Gary Hart that got caught on the Monkey Business with Donna Rice not his wife or John Edwards that paid a staff member to claim his Mistress’ kid he got pregnant while his wife was dying of cancer as his kid. The truth did them in not the Democratic party.
Swalwell has been getting away with this for years, the only reason they kicked him to the curb was because he wouldn’t drop out of the Governors race and he is no longer a California resident, so they were afraid he would win the primary and be found not legal to run in the runoff election.
The state supreme court already denied review. Yes, a Maryland man can be elected Governor of California.
NOTHING about Trump has “been disproven”– that’s another MAGA spin. Trump was ADJUDICATED by a jury, at a trial in which he was represented by counsel, of sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll. Since he had his day in court, and refused to testify on his own behalf, I don’t want to hear any BS attacks against Ms. Carroll, which were rejected by a jury. Epstein said Trump was his best friend for 10 years. Trump said Epstein was “a terrific guy”, that he’s “a lot of fun”, and “he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and some of them are on “the younger side”. Trump lied about the reason for the falling out–it was because Epstein was bidding against Trump for a luxury property up for sale in a bankruptcy auction. There’s lots of videos of the two of them together. There are thousands of references to Trump just in the Epstein files that have been disclosed, and we don’t know what’s in the rest of the files that haven’t been disclosed. But, we DO know that some foreign hacker has gotten into the Epstein files. Therefore, it’s not a stretch to believe that Putin has the goods on Trump. which is one reason why Trump lifted sanctions against Russia and has done nothing about Putin telling Iran where to bomb us. A 13 year old accuser who said Trump tried to force her to perform oral was interviewed 4 times by the FBI–they obviously found her story to be credible. Then, there’s the “grab them by the puxxy” admission to Access Hollywood and the Stormy Daniels matter and the lying to cover that up, all while Melania was at home with newborn Barron.
And, where do you MAGAs get off trying to spin reasons for Democrats dropping support for Swalwell? MAGA media does nothing but lie and distort everything against Democrats. How do you know what Swalwell has been “getting away with”? You don’t. There have been NO investigations. But, Trump’s history of misogyny, cheating on wives (all 3 so far), and demeaning women DOES go back for decades.
@Aninymous
No, the Professor does his blog for free, every day, and we are given the opportunity to comment, for free, everyday. You are paid to comment, every day.
No one believes anything you say, and no one is going to make a decision based on anything you were paid to post here, particularly when you do it with the assistance of an algorithm (which ironically, your employers likely have to pay for). You are pot and kettle personified, no matter how many usernames you utilize, and nobody cares.
I misspelled Anonymous on purpose, because you are a useful (useless, to us) An-idiot.
They know that, trolls lie, that’s what they do. They know they are lying. The truth has nothing to do with trolling. Trying to upset people is what trolling is all about. Mr. Turely believes in free speech so doesn’t censor/ban them like liberal sites do to anyone that diagrees with them.
Try going on the HuffPo or WaPona and writing lies about liberals, or exposimg those two publications lies and you will be banned immediately and forever instantly.
James, you are delusional.
When you say that Turley does this blog for “free”, it calls into question your ability to read and comprehend.
Note the first 6 words of today’s piece, “Below is my column on Fox.com…”
90% of his pieces are variations on this theme:
“Below is my column from The Hill…”
“Below is my column from the New York Post…”
He receives handsome payments from multiple sources for these columns. The vast majority of his pieces here are posted after having been published elsewhere, and he obviously makes a lot of money doing this, because there is no advertising or subscription for this “blog” that is nothing more than a venue for him to agitate and enrage the MAGA mob and shill for his stupid little books. He is making out like a bandit from his contracts with multiple publications, as well as the money generated by book sales to MAGA morons like you, who come here for your daily dose of the “rage” that Turley so hypocritically denounces.
@Anonymous
No. And you remain an idiot, very likely a paid one, we all know. We will all blow right past you, as we always have, enjoy eating our dust.
And thanks for ceasing the impersonating me, appreciate it.
Wow, you really have drunk the Koolaid !!
Almost every column Turley posts here has appeared elsewhere, and has been bought and paid for by the likes of Rupert Murdoch who owns Fox and NY Post.
And almost every column here contains this phrase,”As I discuss in my book…”
Turley is making a huge amount of money from his ridiculous “blog” and stupid little books that idiots like you buy.
Turley is conning you and playing the MAGA mob for suckers, just like Trump, the leader of your cult.
Turley is PAID to write the crap he writes, just like he is PAID every time he goes on Fox and posts things on the NY Post, Fox.com and other MAGA media. Sometimes, the things he posts here were posted elsewhere first. And, I’m not paid anything by anyone to express the truth. As one of the signs I carried at a recent anti-Trump rally said: “No one is paying me. I hate you for for free”. I have no clue what “algorithm” you are referring to. The things I post are FACTUAL–like the outcome of Trump’s trial with E. Jean Carroll, like his Access Hollywood comment, like the Epstein birthday book with the outline of the nude woman that was described by a victim who helped put it together before it was ever made public, like the ever-changing reasons for starting a war with Iran, like the gift of the flying palace by Qatar, the $2 B purchase of worthless cryptocurrency by UAE, like Saudi Arabia bailing out Jared Kushner and then Trump refusing to address the murder of Jamaal Kashoggi, a US-based journalist, murdered by MBS, the head of Saudi Arabia. How about the numbers for inflation, unemployment, the cost of petrol and Trump’s historically-low polling? Then, there’s the lies Trump told to get into office–a precipitous drop in the cost of groceries right away, the promise of no new wars, denying knowing anything about Project 2025, then hiring Russell Vought, one of the authors? Then, there’s the 180 or so Executive Orders Project 2025 had drafted up ready for his signature on day one. These are all facts.
Your worse than Turely as you write thrdr woke liberal crap lie comments for free. What a dunderhead.
Posted earlier and I don’t see it, so forgive the repeat, if it is. There must have been a great deal of damning evidence in his files (like a mini-Epstein files) that would have damaged the DNC going int the midterms – one week to this conclusion is unheard of. And, as with Biden, the dems are happy to throw anyone under the bus in pursuit of power, and happy to tolerate just about anything if it allows them to hold onto power. I know he was one in a box of dominoes, and I hope more and more fall, there is no defending of the modern left as an entity, for free people, and far too many of us have forgotten we are free.
Yes, DC has always been a swamp, but the levels of depravity and chicanery we are seeing today are unprecedented on the modern left. Watergate would be a mere trifle today by comparison, and yes, it is largely JUST the left.
Watergate took 26 months. Monicagate took 7 months. Here there are no tapes, no blue dress. It’s like the Kathleen Willey and Tara Reade stories without the love.
As usual every scandal, this party blames that part for hypocrisy. When will people become disenchanted with their own party entirely, realize they are all corrupt, duh, and act accordingly? Stop fighting each other, clean up the disgusting slimy mess together, and start over. This can’t be fixed by blind partisans or fighting factions. The first method the powerful use to control the people is to keep them fighting amongst themselves.
The politicians ALL are bought, in the control of a foreign nation, and prove by their actions they wish us all dead. Any person covering for any of them shows a distrust of their own self, with the insecure need to obey an authority figure. Try freedom.
I recall a smug Eric Swalwell during the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh a few years ago.
I’ve always described him as an attack dog on a short leash. It just shows the Democrats control Washington and unfortunately the voting public believes it as just a Trump attack from far right republicans.
@Catherine
I do, too. These people are disgusting. That they think we have forgotten anything that has transpired over the past six or more years is what they think of our intelligence levels. Never, ever, as an unaffiliated voter, voting for a dem again.
Lindsey Graham has now been in office for 12,478 days without a single female staffer accusing him of sexual harassment.
https://x.com/Macheter0/status/2043428786721403356
I guess he likes them young.
My little sister wore shoes like that (except smaller, of course) in the ‘70s.
I guess everything really does come back into style.
“Not that there is anything wrong with that”
—–Seinfeld
Maybe we should ask his male staffers
Sure is a big ole smile on the senator
However, even Swalwell’s dog Penny has yet to appear in public with him. Presumably, she is consulting with her own canine crisis team.
====
Killing me Smalls ⬆️⬆️⬆️😺😺😺
Right now these are ONLY “allegations”. I give everyone, everybody including Dirtbags like Swalwell, the benefit of a doubt on allegations. BUT, if they’re true. he’s a Violent Sexual Predator, or VSP, and belongs in prison.
Follow the Herpes trail, all roads lead to “Dirtbags like Swalwell”.
Would it surprise you if he hides in the corner and he gets away with it?
What’s the exculpatory evidence? Oh, testimoney.
I learned a new word. It’s due process. Maybe there’ll be some this time?
Republicans need to give Swalwell a chance to prove he’s not Mazie Hirono or Hank Johnson dumb and has accumulated enough get-out-of-jail dirt on the Pelosi crime family to cut himself a deal. That said, if he has dirt on Hillary I’d suggest protective custody.
Where’s X/George?
He’s probably checking AI to see how to justify rape and assault.
Eric Swalwell is another Bill Clinton, the latter who used his power differential against female staff members like Monica Lewisnky, knowing they would bow to his every whim and urge. Blame Hillary on the latter. Perhaps Nancy Pelosi is to blame for these women being victimized by Swalwell considering “everyone knew” about Eric. In the following interview aired by CBSNews (thanks to Bari Weiss), these women raise an excellent point: they prevented Eric Swalwell from victimizing women in the future from his political perch.
Meanwhile Kristi Noem’s husband was a secret transvestite who dissed his wife and children to an online female dominatrix for years, and fantasized about having fake big breasts and a bit arse. Then there is Rep. Cory Mills, Rep Tony Gonzalez, and likely others in Congress who are creeps.
This ⬆️⬆️⬆️ video is devastating to Swalwell.
Exculpatory evidence? Just say no. If it continues report it. See a lawyer before report. 😂.
I’m sorry, Swalwell is an abuser it seems. Hope there’s evidence. Can anyone believe Monica sued for nothing after she was pawned off to Jordan? 😂 Paula Jones 850 thousand.
Bad business and Epstein’s dead, and Brunel dead. Dangerous, it’s dangerous.
Swalwell is the embodiment of all that is wrong – deeply wrong – with our public servants. There is zero accountability – no matter who does what that is wrong or doesn’t work, no price is paid. There is zero integrity – no matter who does what that is wrong or doesn’t work, nothing changes. Working, acting, amenability to compromise to advance the public good is PR camouflage – no matter who does what that is wrong or doesn’t work, nothing gets done, despite majority public approval for the proposed end result. And then there are those who wonder why Congress polls so dismally… so many of them are Eric Swalwell in one way or another, to greater or lesser degree, and the leadership is OK with that as long as it serves their tribal partisan purposes. Hear nothing, see nothing, speak nothing, defend to the death … until it hurts the image of the cause, then turn your back. Meanwhile, honor, dignity and integrity (not to mention simply effectiveness!) cry out for recognition, to be the basis for accountability – recognize those who do wrong and shun them! Cast them out – surely there are politicians who lack the repugnant elements of a Swalwell and can serve instead? It would appear that is not a favored criterion for selection… but then, I repeat myself.
Again spare us the crocodile tears. Turley is ignoring the Republican members in a similar situation, and of course Trump, who is an adjudicated sexual assaulter.
Aha! The old “I know you are but what am I” defense. Masterful!
What a great analogy, professor! “They are counting on New York and California district attorneys to produce the type of controlled explosion seen in construction where a hotel is brought down without damaging the adjacent structures.”
Fortunately for all reasonable people who pay attention, the internet is forever.
The MSM has lost so much credibility that the podcasts and YouTube ads that replaced it will be showing Republican campaign ads using Democrats’ past against them, like the Gallego/Swalwell videos.
But that will also be hard for the dying MSM to completely ignore.
I always say that Democrats and their propaganda media own hypocrisy, but this example, showcasing Pelosi’s extreme and vulgar hypocrisy, is even more that I would have expected.
Swalwell’s and Pelosi’s repeated and unjustified attacks on Brett Kavanaugh, alleging he did something Swalwell had been doing for years with underaged rape victims and Chinese spies, is the forever-preserved showcase for their lack of integrity.
They and their MSM enablers will all live in infamy and ignominy.
The Dems made Swalwell because the 40 year incumbent, the accomplished but irascible, Fortney “Pete” Stark, had become sn embarrassment to them.
Stark was a USAF veteran who made his money by starting and running a bank, before turning his attention to public service. He supported every healthcare initiative including the dread Obamacare. But he didn’t suffer fools gladly. Town Halls were a nightmare. Yet his constituency was likely to return him to office till he fell over dead. What to do?
Then Californians passed a ballot measure to do away with traditional primaries. All comers would be on the June ballot, with the top two finishers of whatever party competing in the fall.
Swalwell was an ambitious nobody. A well scrubbed former ADA, an Iowa boy who had grown up in Dublin, CA, and who now sat on its city council. He was backed by the Dem establishment and the legacy media.
He attacked Stark for having made and kept money. But most of all, for raising a family near D.C. Stark was an absentee Congressman, not one of them. Swalwell would be back in the district every weekend. Recently divorced, probably in his childhood bedroom, with model airplanes and Pinewood Derby cars still on the dresser.
Being not-Stark but still a Democrat, Swalwell was elected.
Then in 2019, Swalwell had the hubris to think he could tap his Iowa roots,and become the first Congressman in over a century to become President. From the house near D.C. where he was raising a fsmily.
I would think he was especially valuable to the Democratic party leaders who created him because of his weaknesses. That allowed them to completely control him, and then easily discard him when he was no longer useful.
The democrats run a mafia-state.
I don’t understand the grammar in PT’s last paragraph.
I would take the word more out of his first sentence. Not a morality tale bc there are no moral figures in it.
Ok, thanks
Narrowing the field of Dems running for California Governor, doesn’t surprise me Dems throwing one of their own under the bus.
Swalwell threw himself under the bus, mo one else is to blame.
And just how many of these frankenmen/women/its are there living within federal, state and local governments? Creating useful tools is the function of all power structures but the communist/socialist/liberal bunch seem to be rather good at it because it requires a cadre of cultish fools to accept this sort of human usury.
Dear Mr. Turley, to me the larger question is why would young women fall into his trap? After 70 years of lectures from the Women’s Liberation Movement and other left- and right-wing folks, how did these young women miss it? Why didn’t they think more of themselves than to let this monster attack them? One of the women is speaking out sometime this morning about Mr. Swalwell. Perhaps from her testimony we will be able to gain a clue as to why this continues to happen post the “Me, Too” movement.
Because women want what they socially can’t have. A married man with power? Like a bugzapper to a flurry of moths
Sort of unless they are starry eyed and in love? They need to know they’re fools. Maybe the reason they don’t report.
As someone who has observed humanity from a barstool, I know there are women who feel guilty about wanting to have sex, but being drunk is a valid excuse, in their minds.
As Jimmy Buffett sang a half-century ago;
‘”So, barmaid, bring a pitcher, another round of brew
Honey, why don’t we get drunk and screw”
Never blame a victim of a violent crime of which they have no control over….
They haven’t been trained to report. Women just hope it’ll go away.