Before allegations against Eric Swalwell surfaced in the media, they gained momentum online after a network of accusers came together to share stories of alleged assault by the California Democrat.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
This week, Democrat Eric Swalwell dropped his bid for California governor and then resigned from Congress over allegations of sexual assault and harassment. It was a lightning-fast political demise that transpired over just a matter of days. NPR political reporter Elena Moore has been looking into how it all happened and joins us now. Hi, Elena.
ELENA MOORE, BYLINE: Hey there.
CHANG: OK, so briefly walk us through this political fall from grace for Swalwell.
MOORE: Yeah. Last Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN published reporting from multiple women who accused Swalwell of a range of pretty serious allegations, from making nonconsensual sexual advances to rape. NPR has not independently verified those claims, and Swalwell has adamantly denied them. In a statement yesterday, a lawyer for Swalwell called the accusations false, fabricated and deeply offensive. But, Ailsa, these allegations quickly went viral, and the political blowback ensued from there.
CHANG: I know. It was breathtaking. Tell us more about that. Like, how did all of this happen so quickly?
MOORE: Yeah. It’s pretty remarkable. I mean, had this gone through the typical route in Congress with an investigation by the Ethics Committee, that’s a process that can easily take months or longer.
CHANG: Totally.
MOORE: Here, it all happened in a matter of weeks – in part because of the uniqueness of the movement that brought the allegations forward. It was started with a few left-leaning content creators posting on their platforms about Swalwell, and these posts prompted dozens of women to send them messages about their own experiences with the congressman.
CHANG: And how do those organizers describe the way this came together?
MOORE: Yeah. Cheyenne Hunt is one of the creators who led this effort. She decided to make a video at the end of March after Swalwell after a friend of hers told her about an upsetting experience that she had had with the congressman and asked her to make a video. Soon after, the two started working with another creator who had been getting messages from other women for months, and it snowballed from there. I spoke to Hunt about that.
CHEYENNE HUNT: It was really three girls in a group chat that were figuring out how we were going to bring this story forward, consolidate a group of women together and get their story told the right way.
CHANG: Wow. What can you tell us about that friend who first approached Hunt?
MOORE: Yeah, her name is Annika Albrecht. She’s a Democratic political strategist, and she told NPR that she met Swalwell on a college field trip to D.C. She says he offered to stay in touch and give her career advice, but then he added her on Snapchat, where the tone of the conversation shifted.
ANNIKA ALBRECHT: I was responding very platonically to his messages, and then they started to increase in no longer questionable. It became sexual harassment until it reached a breaking point where he invited me to a hotel and kept pressuring me to go to that hotel.
MOORE: And that’s when she stopped responding. NPR is unable to verify those claims, given that Snapchat messages disappear after they’re opened. But other women have come forward to describe similar stories about Swalwell, and at least two women have accused him of assaulting them after inviting them to a hotel room.
CHANG: Right. Well, Elena, what might these experiences tell us about the dynamic in Congress when it comes to holding lawmakers accountable, you think?
MOORE: Well, it’s been nearly a decade since the #MeToo movement, and I think the response we’ve seen about Swalwell fits in the context there but may also indicate a new chapter of that fight. I talked to Hunt about that. Here’s how she put it.
HUNT: I think we had a #MeToo movement, and then we had the backlash and the backsliding that came from that. And I think that it’s clear that we need to put another stake in the ground now and that the next generation of women is going to have to take up this fight.
CHANG: So where do these women go from here, you think?
MOORE: They say this is far from over and argue there’s a toxic power imbalance on Capital Hill, one that Hunt called ripe for exploitation, where staffers have big dreams and want to advance their careers, and lawmakers have this disproportionate amount of influence. So fixing that culture is the goal, but they say it starts with making women more comfortable speaking out.
CHANG: That is NPR’s Elena Moore. Thank you, Elena.
MOORE: Thanks.
Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
