Swalwell Says He Will Quit Congress Amid Assault Allegations, Ethics Probe

Eric Swalwell said he would leave Congress after a fast-moving fallout over sexual assault allegations that had already driven him out of California’s governor’s race and put his conduct under review by House investigators and New York prosecutors.

Swalwell suspended his campaign for governor on Sunday after a former aide accused him of sexual assault and other misconduct. He denied the accusations, calling them “false” and “absolutely false,” but the political damage widened quickly as the allegations moved from a campaign crisis to a question of whether he could keep his House seat.

The House Ethics Committee said Monday that it had opened an investigation into whether Swalwell violated the Code of Official Conduct or other applicable standards. The panel said it would gather more information on allegations that he may have engaged in sexual misconduct, including toward an employee working under his supervision. Separately, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office was reported to be investigating an allegation that Swalwell sexually assaulted a woman in New York City in April 2024.

The pressure on Swalwell was not limited to Republicans. More than 50 former Swalwell staff members signed an open letter calling on him to resign from Congress, and House Democrats including Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal and Eugene Vindman publicly urged him to step aside. House Democratic leadership had earlier called on him to drop out of the governor’s race, pressing for accountability while stopping short of demanding his resignation from Congress.

The collapse caps the fall of a lawmaker who was first elected to the House in 2012 and has represented California’s 14th Congressional District since 2023, after serving California’s 15th District from 2013 to 2023. Swalwell also served on the House Intelligence Committee and was one of the House managers in Donald Trump’s 2021 Senate impeachment trial, giving him a national profile that made the allegations politically significant far beyond California’s governor’s race. With a resignation now looming, the dispute has become a test of how quickly California and Congress move when misconduct claims, ethics scrutiny and criminal questions converge around a sitting member.