US House committee to investigate Eric Swalwell over sexual assault allegations

The House ethics committee on Monday announced it had opened an investigation into the Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell, a day after he dropped out of the California governor’s race amid reports of sexual assault and misconduct.The bipartisan committee said in a statement that it would scrutinize “allegations that [Swalwell] may have engaged in sexual misconduct, including towards an employee working under his supervision”.Swalwell, who polls showed was leading the race to replace Governor Gavin Newsom, suspended his campaign Sunday after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a female former staffer said the congressman sexually assaulted her twice. CNN published a similar account hours later, as well as allegations from three other women of Swalwell sending them unwanted explicit photos or messages.In a statement ending his campaign, Swalwell, a seven-term congressman, said he would “fight the serious, false allegations that have been made – but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s”.“To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past,” he said.The investigation comes as pressure builds in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives for lawmakers to expel Swalwell and other lawmakers who face accusations of wrongdoing.A top target is Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican who acknowledged having an extramarital affair with a staffer who later died by suicide. Other lawmakers have called for the expulsion of Cory Mills, a Florida Republican who is accused of a variety of ethical lapses, and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Florida Democrat who has been indicted on federal charges related to funnelling $5m in disaster relief funds from her company to her campaign.All are under investigation by the House ethics committee, which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.On Monday, the Democratic congresswoman Nydia Velázquez said “Swalwell, Gonzales, Cherfilus-McCormick, and Mills should resign. If they refuse, they should be expelled.” The Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace had over the weekend endorsed expelling those members, writing on X: “Time to clean House.”The Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna said that she would introduce a resolution to expel Swalwell, while the Democrat Teresa Leger Fernández said she would introduce another to remove Gonzales from his seat.“As I’ve said, Gonzales and Swalwell are not fit to serve in Congress given their sexual transgressions against women who work for them. They should resign or be expelled,” Leger Fernández said.Expulsions of House members require a two-thirds vote of the chamber, and happen rarely. Only six members have been forced from office, the most recent being the New York congressman George Santos, a fabulist who was expelled in 2023 after the House ethics found he misused campaign funds. He pleaded guilty to an array of federal fraud charges, but Donald Trump later commuted his sentence.Swalwell’s exit from the governor’s race in heavily Democratic California complicates a contest from which no clear frontrunner has yet emerged.The leading Democratic candidates now include the former congresswoman Katie Porter, Tom Steyer, a billionaire entrepreneur who ran for president in 2020, former health and human services secretary Xavier Becerra and San Jose’s mayor, Matt Mahan.Trump has endorsed the former Fox News host Steve Hilton, whose main challenger among Republicans is Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside county.