Sexual harassment allegations have been amplified online by Democrat-aligned politicos targeting Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., one of the leading Democratic candidates in California’s gubernatorial race.

Amid repeated denials and cease and desist letters sent by Swalwell’s lawyer, one of the alleged victims shared her story publicly for the first time, accusing Swalwell of taking advantage of her while she was intoxicated on multiple occasions, according to a bombshell report published by the San Francisco Chronicle Friday. The alleged victim’s story also included claims that Swalwell pressured her to send naked pictures of herself and sent sexually explicit photos of his own, pulled out his private parts while driving in a car with her and requesting she perform oral sex on him, among other incidents the victim said exposed how Swalwell treated her.

The unnamed female accuser, who spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle, reportedly worked for Swalwell for about two years and revealed that he started pursuing her, despite being married, shortly after she was hired as a young 21-year-old staffer in his district office. On multiple occasions, the young staffer recalls blacking out from alcohol consumption, before waking up naked in Swalwell’s hotel bed with signs she had engaged in intercourse. Swalwell allegedly distanced himself after the incident, and their relationship faded, before reuniting when she no longer worked for him, during which another incident allegedly took place. 

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“Eric Swalwell should immediately drop out,” Democratic strategist Bhavik Lathia said after the San Francisco Chronicle’s report dropped. “It is damning.” 

Former San Jose Mayor and fellow Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate in California, Matt Mahan, also called on Swalwell to “drop out.”

“To the survivor who risked everything to come forward – I believe you,” he said. “To the Democratic Party – you’d better hold him accountable,” Mahan said.

 “If we don’t, we have no credibility asking anyone else to do the same,” he continued.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a longtime friend of Swalwell who faced backlash earlier this week for trying to discredit allegations against the California Democrat, posted on Friday that he “regret[s] having come to his defense on social media prior to knowing all the information. I am equally as shocked and upset about what has transpired.”

“What is described is indefensible. Women who come forward with accounts like this deserve to be heard with respect, not questioned or dismissed,” Gallego said. “I am withdrawing my endorsement of Congressman Swalwell, effective immediately.”

Swalwell’s team did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment, but he recently said during a press gaggle that the allegations are “false,” including allegations that Swalwell previously pressured female staffers to sign non-disclosure agreements so they cannot speak out, or that he was involved in an alleged hush money settlement. 

“It’s false. And also some of the allegations I’ve seen, which is that we’ve had NDAs in the office – never. There’s never been an allegation, and there’s never been a settlement,” Swalwell insisted this week.

“This false, outrageous rumor is being spread 27 days before an election begins by flailing opponents who have sadly teamed up with MAGA conspiracy theorists because they know Eric Swalwell is the frontrunner in this race,” Micah Beasley, a spokesperson for Swalwell, also said on Tuesday.

Cheyenne Hunt, a former Capitol Hill staffer who is currently a nonprofit director at the group Gen-Z for Change, is among the voices acting as a proxy for alleged Swalwell accusers and has been helping amplify their stories. On Friday, she blasted Swalwell for “tak[ing] a page out of the Trump playbook by attempting to silence women,” with cease and desist letters he allegedly sent out late Thursday night ahead of the San Francisco Chronicle’s report sharing a first-hand account from one of Swalwell’s alleged accusers. 

Fox News Digital  has not independently verified the allegations from the report.

The alleged victim, who began working for Swalwell during his short-lived presidential campaign in 2019, said a married Swalwell, who was 38, began pursuing her, including through messages on Snapchat, which allows users to send photos that subsequently disappear after someone has looked at them. She claimed the relationship rapidly progressed as Swalwell began asking for pictures of her face, then her naked body and eventually her genitalia. When messaging, the victim alleged Swalwell would sometimes send shirtless selfies or other images of his own genitalia.

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Swalwell tried to kiss the alleged victim in her car when she drove him home from a donor meeting one night, and on another occasion he allegedly pulled out his penis while in the vehicle and asked her to perform oral sex on him. She admitted to doing so in a parking lot, but soon stopped out of fear someone might see them.  

Meanwhile, in September 2019, the alleged victim, who was then working in Swalwell’s Castro Valley district office, reportedly said Swalwell invited her out for dinner and drinks when she drank too much and blacked out. She claimed to have not even remembered leaving the restaurant, but was woken up in Swalwell’s hotel room the next day with vaginal soreness indicative of sexual intercourse. She also reportedly had a brief memory of Swalwell sucking her toes.

After the September 2019 incident at Swalwell’s hotel, the victim said the pair’s relationship faded as Swalwell distanced himself from her and began treating her more formally during public interactions. She eventually stopped working for Swalwell, but stayed in politics and noted Swalwell would occasionally remain in touch with her, including reaching out when she was looking for a job. 

However, she claimed that five years later, while attending an April 2024 charity event Swalwell was being honored at, the pair reunited. She was not working for Swalwell at this later date, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The woman indicated that she and Swalwell went out for drinks after the event, during which, once again, she became inebriated and could only remember bits and pieces about the night. 

“Even though he had hurt me in the past, I felt like he was someone I could trust,” the alleged victim said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Because we shared this secret together, it pulled me closer to him.”

According to the San Francisco Chronicle’s reporting on the alleged victim’s experiences, one moment she did remember from the night was pushing Swalwell away and telling him “no” as he allegedly tried to force her to have sex with him. The woman reportedly texted a friend after the incident telling her she had been sexually assaulted by Swalwell. Other messages reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle reportedly showed the victim indicating she had “blacked out” but “woke up once during it and even told him to stop at one point.”

“This happened one other time when I was working with him, but I convinced myself I was an equal party in it even though same pattern: I blacked out and he had sex with me,” the alleged victim wrote, referring to the 2019 incident, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s reporting.

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The outlet also indicated it spoke with the friend the victim was allegedly texting, as well as the woman’s then-boyfriend who she reportedly told about the assault the next day. The boyfriend reportedly encouraged her to report Swalwell at the time. 

However, she did not go to the authorities at the time, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, because she was afraid she would not be believed. Medical records reportedly showed she did obtain a pregnancy and STD test a week following the incident.

Swalwell subsequently messaged the alleged victim after the 2024 incident and told her not to tell anyone about their interaction that night, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “He even sent me a message: you said you didn’t remember anything last time i hope you do now,” the alleged victim reportedly texted her friend three days after the incident. “And i said: yeah I’m trying to forget thanks.” 

“He was sending messages like we just had a romantic encounter like he knows what he’s doing,” the alleged victim also allegedly wrote to her friend at the time. “He was gaslighting me into thinking it was consensual.”

Swalwell’s alleged victim began talking to the San Francisco news outlet roughly a month ago, as she was weighing whether to go public with her allegations as they began anonymously surfacing online. 

The victim was confused how the rumors began, considering she only told family and a small group of friends about the incident. The victim reportedly called the Swalwell campaign in March to see if her name had surfaced among the rumored victims, to which one of Swalwell’s staffers reportedly asked her to vouch for Swalwell. 

“He was so confident that I would stay silent that he wasn’t scared,” she said of Swalwell.

“I have no skin in the game of who becomes governor of California, but I feel people have a right to know whether the person who leads a state that is a safe haven for so many women actually treats women with dignity and will protect their rights,” continued the woman, who still works on Capitol Hill, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “No one protected me from him, and so I have to protect the other young women like me who aspire to work in this field and he could prey upon.”

Late Thursday night, Swalwell’s attorney, Elias Dabaie, sent a cease-and-desist letter that Hunt, one of the individuals amplifying Swalwell’s accuser’s claims, argues is an effort to intimidate those trying to speak up about Swalwell’s history with women. 

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“Today we learned [Swalwell] is intimidating survivors, serving cease and desist letters on those coming forward with stories of sexual harassment and abuse. He sent this threat in the dead of night — another attempt to delay the truth,” Hunt wrote on social media, attaching a copy of the first letter of the cease and desist letter she claimed to have obtained.

“This is what it looks like when powerful men get caught,” Hunt continued. “These cease and desists are a disgusting abuse of power against brave women who are courageously working together to share their stories. It begs the question: if Swalwell has done nothing wrong, as his campaign claims, why not let the women tell their stories in the light of day? Our team remains steadfast. We will not relent. The women will not recant.”

The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that it had confirmed the authenticity of the letter. Fox News Digital reached out to the attorney who sent the letter to confirm the authenticity of the letter independently, but did not immediately receive a response. 

Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic front-runner in the hotly contested California governor’s race, was accused of sexual assault by a former staff member in a report published on Friday.

The woman said she and the Northern California congressman had a consensual relationship at times, but that he sexually assaulted her twice when she was too inebriated to consent, according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The woman was 21 years old when she started working for the congressman, who is nearly two decades her senior, and said she did not report the incidents to police because of fears she would not be believed.

“I have no skin in the game of who becomes governor of California, but I feel people have a right to know whether the person who leads a state that is a safe haven for so many women actually treats women with dignity and will protect their rights,” this woman, who was not identified because she is the alleged victim of sexual assault, told the Chronicle. “No one protected me from him, and so I have to protect the other young women like me who aspire to work in this field and he could prey upon.”

Swalwell on Friday denied the accusations.

“These allegations are false and come on the eve of an election against the front-runner for governor,” he said in a statement. “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.”

State Supt. Tony Thurmond and San José Mayor Matt Mahan, other Democrats running for governor, immediately called on Swalwell to drop out of the race.

Allegations of inappropriate behavior by the congressman have been circulating on social media and in political circles for weeks. On Thursday, an attorney representing Swalwell sent a cease-and-desist letter to a person demanding that they stop accusing the congressman of sexual assault.

Two days earlier, the congressman denounced online claims that he had inappropriate relationships with young congressional staff members.

“It’s false,” he told reporters after a town hall in Sacramento, saying he had never behaved inappropriately with female staff members or had a sexual relationship with a staff member or an intern, and denied allegations that his staff members were asked to sign nondisclosure agreements or entered into legal settlements.

The allegations of inappropriate behavior come at a pivotal time in the race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. The primary is June 2, but ballots will start landing in voters’ mailboxes in less than a month.

The race to lead the nation’s largest state remains up for grabs, with eight prominent Democrats and two top Republicans jockeying to finish in first or second place in the primary and advance to the November election.

Swalwell, 45, is among the leading Democrats. He had the support of 13% of likely voters in a recent UC Berkeley poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. That places him tied for first place among Democrats with former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, with billionaire Tom Steyer not far behind.

Swalwell has won the support of powerful unions, including the California Teachers Assn., along with Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and many of his Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives.

CTA President David Goldberg called the allegations “incredibly disturbing and unacceptable.”

“We are immediately suspending our support. Our elected board will be meeting as soon as possible to follow our union’s democratic process to determine next steps.”

Rusty Hicks, the chairman of the California Democratic Party, said victims must be believed and also reiterated his call for Democratic candidates to gauge their viability.

“The allegations against Congressmember Swalwell are deeply disturbing,” he said in a statement. “Any person engaged in misconduct must take responsibility and be held accountable for their actions — including a Member of Congress and candidate for Governor. Finally, my call for all — repeat, all — candidates for Governor to ‘honestly assess the viability of their candidacy and campaign’ still stands. In fact, that call is more important now than ever before.”

Concern began brewing among Democrats before the allegations were published on Friday.

The woman told the Chronicle that she was hired in 2019 to work in Swalwell’s Castro Valley district office when she was 21. He quickly began pursuing her, sending messages and then nude pictures on Snapchat.

In September of that year, she said she had drinks with the congressman, blacked out and could feel the effect of intercourse when she woke up naked in Swalwell’s hotel bed, according to the report. In 2024, when she no longer worked for Swalwell, she said she attended a charity event honoring the congressman and others and met him for drinks afterward. She was intoxicated, but recalled Swalwell forcing himself upon her and pushing him away and saying, “No,” according to the Chronicle.

The Chronicle corroborated her report with texts she sent a friend at the time and interviews with the friend and the woman’s then-boyfriend. The Chronicle’s reporters also reviewed medical records about a pregnancy and STD texts a week after the alleged assault. She told them she had kept quiet about the alleged assaults because of fears about professional and personal repercussions.

Cheyenne Hunt, a Laguna Hills attorney and executive director of a progressive advocacy group, and social media influencer Arielle Fodor, known online as Mrs. Frazzled, are among those publicizing the allegations online. Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who has sparred with Swalwell in the past, amplify the allegations on social media as well.

The Times has not independently corroborated reports of inappropriate behavior.

Many politicians have survived allegations of sexual impropriety, notably President Trump, who was accused of rape before winning the White House in 2016; former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who admitted in the 2003 recall election to behaving improperly during his movie career, and Newsom, who admitted to having an affair with a married staffer while mayor of San Francisco.

Swalwell, a former prosecutor, is married and has three children. The Iowa native briefly ran for president in 2020. On Thursday, he canceled a town hall in Palm Desert, reportedly because he was sick.

He has previously spoken out against sexual misconduct, most recently in support of women who told the New York Times that they were assaulted by legendary farmworker organizer César Chavez.

“The women who have come forward are carrying years of pain. Speaking about that takes real courage,” Swalwell wrote in a tweet last month. “Ana Murguia, Debra Rojas and Dolores Huerta are speaking with clarity and strength. I stand with them and condemn all instances of sexual assault.”

The congressman also defended women who accused Brett Kavanaugh, then a nominee to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, of sexual misconduct in 2018.

“The more and more cases that are separate and independent that look the same, pretty soon a prosecutor starts to say to a jury … that the arrows are pointing in the same directions and what are the chances that three or four women independently, who never met each other, would have similar experiences with one person,” he said on MSNOW’s Ari Melber in September 2018 amid Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings.

In Congress, Swalwell has been a prominent critic of President Trump, serving as a manager of the second impeachment of the president and frequently blistering Trump on cable news shows.

In late March, the Washington Post reported that FBI Director Kash Patel may release documents about a decade-old investigation about Swalwell’s connections with a suspected Chinese spy. Swalwell cut off ties with Christine Fang, or Fang Fang, in 2015 after intelligence officials warned him and other members of Congress about Chinese efforts to infiltrate legislators’ offices. Swalwell was was not accused of impropriety.

After news of the potential release of the files broke, Swalwell accused Trump of trying to sway the gubernatorial election and weaponizing the federal government against his political enemies.

Swalwell’s attorneys filed a cease-and-desist letter with Patel and the FBI. No documents have been released as of Friday.

He was previously accused of mortgage fraud by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte. Swalwell sued Pulte last year but dropped the suit this month.

In the gubernatorial race, Swalwell has faced criticism from fellow Democrat Tom Steyer that he was ineligible to run for governor because he did not truly live in California. Earlier this year, a Sacramento County judge ruled against a similar claim made by a conservative filmmaker.