for what it’s worth I think the skepticism of the claims against Swalwell is coming exclusively from people who haven’t read the claims against Swalwell

April 11, 2026 - 18:50 UTC

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the correct response to this sort of thing is "oh no! this should be looked into." and it has been; and it doesn't look good! which leads to the next step, etc.
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Al Franken had the good sense to resign for what he did, which was not rape. The least Swalwell can do is remove himself to a deserted island after serving his prison sentence and live out the rest of his life in loneliness and shame...
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Some of it is just garden variety sexism/defend anyone with a D next to their name
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I mean not the point but she very much did get an STD test
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oh yeah it’s almost entirely weird Blue MAGA freaks
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One skepticism I've read is that "Roger Stone is involved"
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Yep, and I’ve blocked every account mentioning Stone.
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I think most of them are addled conspiracy minded performative goobers, but you're a better person than I.
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I mean, sure, lots of that also
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I was suspicious when I FIRST heard about it— it seems late in the day for the primary for this to come out; but “Upon Further Review,” it is really just coincidence that these women found each other and thus the strength to go public NOW.

Eric really oughta drop out.

We’re not Republicans.
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Martin Shkreli posted a video of Swalwell making out with a woman who isn't his wife. the knives are out, he's done.
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Yeah it broke just as I was leaving the house and I went through this cycle in the course of one Lyft ride.

Folks need to read.
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In the UK a few years ago an MP was convicted of sexually assaulting a teenaged boy. After the trial a fellow MP wrote an article defending his colleague and saying the trial was a stitch-up, and in this article he admitted that he hadn't actually been in court when the victim testified
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Fun fact about Crispin Blunt is that his niece is Emily Blunt, yes that Emily Blunt

www.lbc.co.uk/article/tory-mp-defends-sex-abuser-imran-ahmad-khan-DWzDnT_2/
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I didn't read anything about it and I believe the victims
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also a reasonable position!
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Yep.

They saw "Roger Stone" and "Katie Porter", assumed it was a political op and never bothered reading further.
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Having Porter be the teaser for the story was not the best way to convince people of the validity of it.

At this point people seem to have moved to rightly wondering how so many people claim to have known this side of him and somehow he was a viable gubernatorial candidate for nearly half a year.
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And to be fair, that's not an unreasonable position to take at first.

But...

Once you start seeing corroborating paper trails, records that could be traced, and more people coming forwards, the likelihood of "political op" goes down exponentially.

Add in the reaction from people who knew him...
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“We need to wait until the evidence is in. No, I will not be checking whether the evidence is in”
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But I thought the law said INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN.... no? Did trump sdmn change that too? I missed that.
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seems like the skeptics are 3 people who have a humiliation fetish
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My very limited IL-9 posting experience surfaced very persistent, very strange accounts pushing maximum discord, and the most reasonable explanation I can come up with is that this is the Kremlin APT chugging along
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Agree. The facts are pretty appalling.
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Super Pacs run our politics & our minds. The timeline began 2019, 2024. Did they file a police report? No. They went to CNN after waiting 7 yrs & 2yrs respectively. Why did they wait?
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Yeah the big accusation in the CNN article (coincidentally the most horrifying) is about as airtight as you can get outside of a court of law.
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I was surprised (in a good way) at how good a piece of journalism that was, considering this day and age.
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maybe somewhere (Twitter) people are saying things like “maybe the STD test battery was a coincidence” or “maybe the texts were about something else” or “maybe it’s a huge conspiracy” but here all I’ve seen are the kind of sniff-test pushbacks that don’t survive looking at the evidence
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i mean, in simpler times, swalwell should've been finished off by his affair w/ the suspected chinese agent...
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there are sometimes accusations where you need to assess the credibility of someone’s words to determine the truth. this really isn’t one of them. and I haven’t even read the second set of allegations
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Women aren't going to have their names, faces, families degraded just for giggles. For most women, the LAST thing they want in their lives is scrutiny with regards to their sex life unless it's fucking true! BELIEVE THE WOMEN.
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As far as I can tell it's coming exclusively from people who *don't read*
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Aggressively uninformed is a bad keystone for a political coalition
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Disgusting.
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the Manhattan DA's office read them, and, well

www.cnn.com/2026/04/11/politics/manhattan-da-investigation-eric-swalwell?cid=ios_app
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just to be clear for the folks at home: the Manhattan DA is not run by Donald Trump's DOJ, it is run by the local NYC government
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Wow, good for them. That account of what happened in NYC was the most detailed & most disturbing. Glad they are investigating.
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I’d think the fact that one of his accusers is a verified Vote Blue No Matter Who poster (laudatory) who often shares viral MSNBC bait House floor speeches (also laudatory) would be enough of a clue that this isn’t some 5D chess MAGA hit job
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Yee-ah, a knee-jerk skepticism for internet blasts is healthy, imo, but it was clear pretty quickly that a bunch of people had known about this for a long time (which is something that needs to be dealt with immediately)
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"Internet blasts"? They were reported pieces of journalism by respected outlets, not randos on the TL posting out rumors.
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That's always how it is. It's so hard to come forward, to make it public that the cost-benefit ratio only tips towards exposure when it's airtight; if people familiar with the claims are skeptical, it doesn't get put out there except in rare cases
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Only for people who only see the headlines to go "well, anyone can *say* anything"
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Yeah, I got a reply that said, “ Oh, sorry, I didn’t read the whole article so I didn’t know there was corroboration.”
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They're hoping to ride it out on vibes
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I maintain that a plethora of emojis on a profile signals obtuse and painfully cringey takes on just about everything. It’s the calling card of a very specific shade of “blue” online warriors.
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so has ryan grim changed his endorsement in this race to swalwell yet
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Also, not for nothing, when Pelosi says it's time to dump him, it's time.
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As others have pointed out, this isn't a court of law. The primary isn't to judge legality; it's to judge likeliest to win. The plausibility of the accusations makes him no longer a viable candidate. His candidacy is tainted because the accusations ARE credible, not just because they exist.
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It's from folks who don't want them to be true.
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sure but it’s more than that
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Admittedly funny to see all the Franken dead enders come out of the woodwork.
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And by funny, do you mean incandescent with rage? Because that’s my reaction.
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“Al” is their special parasocial friend because they laughed at his jokes on teevee and therefore has to be innocent
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Yeah, the people still insisting he got run out of office over one tasteless photo and ignoring the 8 other women are the ones talking about "waiting for all the evidence to come in." 🙄
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Broadly speaking I think you're right. I've definitely been arguing with a few people who have been citing specific excerpts from the CNN article though unfortunately
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Agreed. In my case, it took reading the CNN article and then seeing the posts of women in-the-know on instagram to convince me -- Swalwell's toast.
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Even if you are a person who is skeptical due to the timing (understandable), I don't know how you can read the SF Chronicle article and think he's innocent. It was clear to me that the woman accusing him of sexual assault is telling the truth. Overwhelming evidence.
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They sought her out. If she was a plant, that is an incredibly lucky coincidence.
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Repeatedly having sex with blackout drunk young women is intentional. He needs to go.
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This.
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My first reaction was ‘I hope he did it because he’s well and fully cooked’. And then I looked a little closer and there’s more than enough real time corroboration. So he’s gotta go.
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Honestly, a picture of his face should do it. He is so visibly That Kind of Guy.
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Make people more stupid when AI is already helping young people to become more braindeaf
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these swallwell stans are working my last nerve. guess i have to mute his name like i did with nazi tattoo lunkhead
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In a lot of circles on Twitter that skepticism is now being channeled into "accounts that I don't like were right about Swalwell and I am mad at them about it" which is example one million of why Stan Culture leaking into politics was a terrible thing for politics
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I assume many people feel this is similar to Tara Reade. However, the differences, once you read the Chronicle's report, are glaring. It looks like we will discover a Cosby-style drugging. This is sad. I keep wondering if we will see the texts and (ugh) photos.
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Middle aged married congressman communicating with interns via Snapchat”… I’ve heard enough, frankly.
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Interns…
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Yeah for all my criticisms of CNN, I gotta give them kudos here they've done an excellent job corroborating the claims of the victims and from what they've reported the evidence is pretty damning.

Like there's no way he survives this and who knows there might be possible jail time.
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Sometimes I don't feel qualified or just don't have the energy to evaluate these things and I just keep my mouth shut because it turns out no one was waiting with baited breath for my quarter-assed take.
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