One night in my 20s, I was out in Washington with other young political staffers when two Republican congressmen, twice our age, began sending us Stoli Dolis and moving in on us. One of them followed me to the bathroom, and before I even opened the door, he pinned me against the wall and stuck his tongue down my throat. I was too stunned to do more than push him away.
The next day I saw the congressman again in a House building elevator. He showed just a flicker of recognition as he introduced me to his teenage daughter, who was only a few years younger than I was. It was appalling, but I also understood it to be an inescapable part of the culture of Washington politics. If I said something, chances are I would have sabotaged only myself while the congressman would have suffered few, if any, consequences.
What so many people knew did not keep Swalwell from climbing the party ranks.
Twenty years later, when I was communications director to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat, his right-hand man, Rick Jacobs, kissed me on the mouth in front of my staff while we were celebrating a successful city event. Not long after, Jacobs kissed my husband on the mouth in front of me. Jacobs has denied these incidents, but these were just two among numerous accusations of sexual harassment against Jacobs, including a successful lawsuit against the city by an officer on Garcetti’s protective detail.
We all knew about his behavior, including the mayor, who has denied knowing about it despite multiple reports showing that, for years, he witnessed it, talked about it and did nothing to stop it.
In Garcetti’s case, I spoke out, helping to delay his confirmation as ambassador to India for more than 600 days. But, as is often the case when insiders blow the whistle on sexual misconduct, I was ostracized by former colleagues for speaking the truth. And I was stunned to see former President Joe Biden continue to champion Garcetti, with his administration directly lobbying senators to vote for him anyway.
Forgive me, in the light of that experience, if I’m less than impressed by the political reaction to the scandal that has brought Eric Swalwell’s political career to an abrupt end. It’s heartening that women who have alleged he harassed and raped them in the workplace have found the courage to come forward — it’s never an easy decision. And it’s heartening that, even as Swalwell has denied the allegations, these women were believed quickly for the most part. (The Justice Department, Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department are all investigating.)
But don’t ask me to applaud Swalwell’s political friends and sponsors for running away from him at full tilt after the latest, most damaging revelations broke, or to applaud Republicans attempting to make political hay out of his downfall. Where were any of them before the big news broke at the end of last week? Swalwell’s troubling behavior around young women has been an open secret in Washington for years.
As former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told “This Week”: “Every young staffer knows not to let young staffers get around Swalwell or Matt Gaetz.” Notably, he said it after the scandal had already broken.
Only when scandals explode and the damage becomes unavoidable do the parties rummage through their rhetorical toolkit for the language of moral outrage.
The Republicans, naturally, have seized on this to paint the Democrats as hypocrites, hopelessly corrupt or both. But this is dangerous terrain for them, too. This is the party that, when a woman accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, rushed through a limited investigation of the claims to protect him. (Kavanaugh denied the accusation.) They have continued to give a free pass to President Donald Trump despite a court finding him liable for sexually abusing journalist E. Jean Carroll and disturbing allegations against him in the Jeffrey Epstein files, which have yet to be fully investigated, including sexual abuse of a minor. (The president has appealed the Carroll verdict to the Supreme Court and denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein.)
What so many people knew did not keep Swalwell from climbing the party ranks. It did not deter his allies and donors from encouraging his run for California governor. It did not stop Democratic leadership from putting him on the House intelligence committee, whose members have been particularly susceptible to blackmail, and keeping him there even after Republicans started asking questions about his relationship with a young Chinese woman whom the FBI suspected of being a spy. (The bureau did not accuse Swalwell of wrongdoing.)
Neither party wants to admit it, but both foster a culture that too often has enabled predators in positions of power while cowing those around them into silence. Only when scandals explode and the damage becomes unavoidable (Swalwell on the Democratic side, Tony Gonzales of Texas, who also resigned this week, on the Republican side) do the parties rummage through their rhetorical toolkit for the language of moral outrage. Even then, the goal is almost always to score political points, not to secure justice for the victims.
It’s certainly better, in Swalwell’s case, that politicians recognized the problem later rather than not at all. I, for one, appreciate the apologies of those who supported Swalwell for years, even though, as Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., put it this week, “we all heard rumors in Washington.” What, though, are they going to do when the next predatory politician comes along? Because there most certainly will be a next one.
I’d like to believe that Democrats and Republicans alike can learn from their mistakes, that they can remember silence is complicity and start holding abusers accountable long before extraordinary circumstances force their hands. I know, it’s a lot to expect. It involves breaking the long-standing omertà that binds them and recognizing that predators can only commit their crimes when powerful enablers allow them to get away with them.
Ultimately, it is we, the voters, who endow our representatives with political power, and we need to demand that they speak out against injustice not just when it benefits their party, but when it makes a difference.
Naomi Seligman is a political strategist and the chief strategy officer for the Washington-based legal nonprofit Whistleblower Aid.