Eric Swalwell has been reaching out on social media to women who have accused him, and that activity is tied to how his troubles became public.
What are you doing, man? The former congressman who saw his political life collapse within days is still on Snapchat, and he reportedly used it to message women who allege misconduct. That continued use of social platforms helped grow his profile and, according to reporting, contributed to his unraveling.
A New York Times piece traced how social media amplified both his reach and the accounts against him, naming Annika Albrecht, Ally Sammarco, Lonna Drewes, and an unnamed former staffer who alleges Mr. Swalwell raped her twice—once in 2019 and again in 2024 at a New York City charity event after she had left his employment. Ms. Drewes alleges a separate 2018 rape. Those accounts were collected and amplified in part by content creators and a liberal influencer, Cheyenne Hunt, who helped connect people with similar stories (via NYT) [emphasis mine]:
Mr. Swalwell had developed a reputation as a digital native, a person who seemed to have a deep understanding of how to harness the power of social media.
In the end, social media would also play a critical role in his undoing.
It was on social media where early whispers of sexual misconduct accusations against Mr. Swalwell swirled after he entered the California governor’s race last year. After hearing similar chatter and allegations directly from women, two Democratic influencers built a network using some of the same platforms that his accusers said he had used to connect with them.
Cheyenne Hunt, one of the influencers, said she connected some of the accusers with one another. She also told the former aide who eventually alleged in news reports that Mr. Swalwell had sexually assaulted her in a New York hotel that other women were preparing to come forward. The content creators later used social media to collect stories from the women and generate interest online.
[…]
Mr. Swalwell entered the governor’s race in November, hoping to capitalize on his national image as a Democratic attack dog and his ability to reach voters on social media. He invited several influencers to a kickoff meeting on Zoom last year, recognizing their power in the modern era.
Among the content creators Mr. Swalwell won over was Arielle Fodor, known online as “Mrs. Frazzled.” Ms. Fodor, a former teacher who posts about Democratic politics, promoted Mr. Swalwell to her audience, hailing him as “a politician who acts like a normal human and not a robot.”
Almost immediately, Ms. Fodor received several private messages warning her to stay away from him, she said in an interview. She said she wanted to find out more.
[…]
Mr. Swalwell is still using Snapchat. As recently as this week, Mr. Swalwell communicated directly with a former intern on the app and asked her why she had taken a screenshot of their chat history, based on images provided to The Times, though the messages were not sexual in nature.
Sara Azari, Mr. Swalwell’s attorney, appears repeatedly in reports arguing the accusations lack corroboration and that the more salacious encounters were consensual. If the defense wants to defuse this, advising their client to stop reaching out to people on social apps would be a basic step. Instead, the steady stream of awkward messages only reinforces the “creepy Eric” narrative in the public eye.
The legal team’s handling — compared unfavorably in some quarters to other high-profile counsel — has not helped the optics. A recent appearance on CNN slipped into a trainwreck of errors and tone-deaf moments, and clips of that segment circulated widely online, undercutting efforts to shift the conversation away from the allegations and onto procedural points.
Mr. Swalwell abandoned his run for California governor on April 12 and stepped down from Congress two days later, on April 14, the same day Ms. Drewes held a press conference about her allegations. Those moves closed one chapter but did not erase the online threads that brought these stories together.
The pattern here is familiar: a political figure uses social media successfully, then the same tools expose personal behavior that damages reputation and career. For Swalwell, the fallout was immediate, public, and tied directly to the platforms he relied on to build his profile in the first place.
