Sexual misconduct claims trigger resignations and broader ethics concerns in Congress
PBS News Hour - Segments
PBS NewsHour
4.1 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2026
⏱️ 4 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | After separate allegations of sexual misconduct, two members of Congress are resigning. |
| 0:06.4 | Democrat Eric Swalwell faced multiple allegations of sexual assault, including a new accuser today. |
| 0:12.9 | Swalwell denies the accusations. |
| 0:14.9 | He dropped out of the California governor's race this weekend before stepping down from his congressional seat this afternoon. |
| 0:24.6 | Republican Congressman Tony Gonzalez's resignation takes effect tonight. Earlier this year, he admitted to sleeping with a staffer who later took her own life. |
| 0:29.6 | Lisa Desjardin joins us now with more. |
| 0:32.6 | So Lisa, these new allegations against Eric Swalwell, what do we know? |
| 0:35.6 | They come from a woman named Lana Drews, and I want to warn our listeners and viewers that |
| 0:40.3 | they are quite graphic. Now, Drews says she met Swalwell in 2018. She had a boyfriend at the |
| 0:45.8 | time. She saw him as a political and business contact. At one point, she said she had a glass |
| 0:50.3 | of wine with him. And she said in her account, Swalwell told her he needed to get some papers from his hotel |
| 0:55.8 | room. |
| 0:56.3 | She went with him to the hotel room, and because of what happened after that, she believes |
| 1:00.4 | she was drugged. |
| 1:03.8 | When I arrived at his hotel room, I was already incapacitated and I couldn't move my arms or my body. |
| 1:17.5 | He raped me and he choked me. |
| 1:25.9 | And while he was choking me, I lost consciousness. |
| 1:31.1 | And I thought I died. |
| 1:34.2 | An attorney for Swalwell told the New York Times that he unequivocally denies every allegation |
| 1:39.0 | of assault against him. |
| 1:40.8 | Now, Dawes-Jew's attorney says that there are more women who have contacted them. |
| 1:44.6 | She is the fifth woman to come forward in reporting and publicly. Two others of those women |
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