told the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a> that Swalwell began sending her nude pictures on Snapchat and messages after she was hired by his office in 2019. She was 21 at the time.<\/p>\nIn September of that year, she said she had drinks with the congressman, blacked out and woke up naked in Swalwell\u2019s hotel bed, according to the Chronicle.<\/p>\n
In 2024, when she no longer worked for Swalwell, she said she attended a charity event honoring the congressman and met him for drinks afterward. She was intoxicated but recalled Swalwell forcing himself upon her, and that she pushed him away and said, \u201cNo,\u201d according to the Chronicle.<\/p>\n
Azari said in April that Swalwell denied all allegations of sexual misconduct and assault and would pursue \u201cevery legal remedy\u201d against those making the claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese accusations are false, fabricated and deeply offensive \u2014 a calculated and transparent political hit job designed to destroy the reputation of a man who has spent 20 years in public service,\u201d Azari said.<\/p>\n
The reporting by the Chronicle and CNN uncovering Swalwell\u2019s alleged activity prompted national headlines, forcing him out of Congress and the governor\u2019s race.<\/p>\n
At least one other relationship Swalwell had with a woman also raised concerns among law enforcement over its potential national security implications.<\/p>\n
Newly declassified documents released Monday from a White House task force reveal that Swalwell told FBI investigators in 2015 that he had a sexual relationship with a woman who was later revealed to be a suspected Chinese spy.<\/p>\n
Christine Fang, or Fang Fang, worked as a volunteer raising money for Swalwell\u2019s congressional campaign. Swalwell cut off ties to Fang after intelligence officials briefed him and other members of Congress about Chinese efforts to infiltrate the government. Swalwell was never accused of wrongdoing, a point he repeatedly highlighted when asked about his relationship with Fang in a November interview with The Times the day before he announced his gubernatorial campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll let the FBI speak for itself,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Asked whether he had sexual relations with Fang, Swalwell flatly denied the allegations. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no, no. This, it\u2019s always been bull\u2014-,\u201d Swalwell said. <\/p>\n
Winton reported from Los Angeles, Smith from Sacramento and Wilner from Washington. Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal investigation into former Rep. Eric Swalwell appeared to gain steam after agents seized his electronic devices…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1014091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[2322,1582,276,93619,405748,327,9729,181264,405750,2961,405746,224,2444,5337,6176,405747,17521,190648,6620,405749],"class_list":["post-1014090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-agent","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-california-governor","tag-civil-right-law","tag-congress","tag-drink","tag-eric-swalwell","tag-former-staffer","tag-la","tag-lonna-drewes","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-losangeles","tag-race","tag-sara-azari","tag-source","tag-swalwell","tag-time","tag-washington-home"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117131253147833070","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1014090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1014091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1014090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1014090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1014090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}