Show Notes
California politics was rocked this weekend by allegations of sexual assault by Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat who was polling well in the race to become the next governor. Within days, he had “suspended” his campaign and resigned his seat in Congress, his career in ruins.
“California is a cauldron of corruption,” says author and investigative journalist Susan Crabtree in describing Swalwell’s fall and a bill pending before the state legislature that would essentially make investigative journalism of welfare fraud a crime.
“It came pretty late in the race here, and very politically timed, but it was not unexpected or surprising,” says Crabtree, a native Californian who reports on the state’s politics for RealClearPolitics. “These rumors about his sexual misconduct have been swirling for years in the California delegation.”
Despite that, many observers have speculated the sudden allegations by former female staffers of Swalwell were about the state of the governor’s race, not a sudden need for accountability. Crabtree notes that in the run-up to the state’s “jungle primary” Democrats are splitting support while two Republican candidates, Steve Hilton and San Jose sheriff Chad Bianco, may advance through the primary in the heavily Democratic state.
This week, the On Background podcast looks at Swalwell’s political demise and at a bill pending in the statehouse that would criminalize the kind of video journalism done by YouTuber Nick Shirley to expose corruption within the state’s social services programs. The bill’s author, Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D), just happens to be married to the current state Attorney General, Rob Bonta.
“This is a due process issue in California. People can lose their freedom, their family, their job and home through immigration proceedings,” she said in defending the bill. Critics have dubbed it the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” because it would among other things prohibit taking video images of illegal immigrants. Shirley became a YouTube sensation for his videos highlighting massive fraud in California’s programs to pay for hospice care and other social services, embarrassing the state’s Democratic-led government under Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Swalwell’s career survived even allegations that he had compromised himself by having an intimate personal relationship with a woman whom the FBI informed him in 2017 was a Chinese spy while he sat on the House Intelligence Committee.
But the then-House Speaker, California Democrat Nancy Pelosi “gave the signal when that the report came out about [Swalwell] sleeping with a Chinese spy,” Crabtree says. “There were calls to get him off of the committee because he was compromised. And she said ‘no.’ She pushed back on it, called it ‘isolated,’ and said there was no sharing of information.”
“She now wants to say she never knew anything about the Swalwell situation,” Crabtree says. “Well, maybe she didn’t know it personally, but her staffers knew. The staff on Capitol Hill knew. All of the East Bay politicians and San Francisco politicians knew.”
Which raises the question (after they play a video clip) of why state politicians and US Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) endorsed Swalwell’s campaign in the first place.
As a smiling Schiff said in the video clip, “They fear you’ll be successful.”
The state press also knew all of this, as well, but as Crabtree explains it, they weren’t interested in exposing Swalwell’s corruption.
“There’s a lack of accountability journalism here. It’s all access journalism,” she says, which means reporters deliberately avoid following certain stories to avoid getting punished by the powerful Democratic machine that dominates the state.
Co-host Eric Eggers notes that extends to the Washington DC press corps as well, which knew enough to have pursued Swalwell’s conduct but didn’t.
“The House investigation lasted for over two years and was closed in May of 2023 with ‘no further action being warranted.’ Less than a year later, in April 2024, a former staffer alleged Swalwell sexually assaulted her in New York City after a gala while she was heavily intoxicated,” Eggers says. “Eighteen months after that, Swalwell decides to run for governor.”
Eggers also explains that the House’s ethics committee is hardly a plum assignment because it takes a lot of work, members must scrutinize their own colleagues, and it’s impossible to raise campaign funds based on being on that committee, unlike more powerful committees such as Financial Services and the Ways and Means committee.
Congress has for decades had a taxpayer-funded system for settling workplace disputes, including sexual harassment, created under the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995. Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace, Crabtree adds, has been sounding the alarm on what amounts to a “slush fund” for members to use when they are accused of sexual misconduct while in office.
Bonta’s bill would potentially fine journalists who publish video of suspected fraudsters, prompting Eggers to ask, “So, instead we’ve decided to go after — not the people violating the law with the fraud – but to charge journalists for exposing the people who violate? Do I have that right?”
“You got that right, Eric,” Crabtree replies. The illegal immigrants that some of these nonprofit groups protect from deportation have serious felonies. That’s what I’m looking into now. When she was recently asked whether these illegal immigrants deserve attorneys even if they have serious felonies, Mia Bonta wouldn’t answer that question.”
