Rep. Ro Khanna told the Daily Mail he deliberately withheld his endorsement from fellow California Democrat Eric Swalwell because he had heard persistent rumors about Swalwell's conduct with women, and now says he finds it "hard to believe" that donors and close allies never heard worse.

Khanna's remarks land as Swalwell's political career collapses in real time. The 45-year-old ex-congressman resigned his seat and canceled his California gubernatorial bid this week after at least five women accused him of sexual misconduct, with some alleging rape. Both the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department have opened criminal probes into the former lawmaker.

The question Khanna is raising, who knew, and when, is the kind Washington hates most. It points not just at Swalwell but at the ecosystem of colleagues, bundlers, and political operatives who kept him viable for years.

Khanna draws a line between gossip and abuse

In a sit-down interview with the Daily Mail, Khanna was blunt about why he kept his distance. But he also tried to draw a careful distinction between private behavior and criminal conduct.

"Look, I had heard rumors about womanizing. So that's why I didn't endorse him. But I had no idea about the extent of it, that he actually was having totally inappropriate relationships with subordinates, that is, against the rules, and that he was engaged in alleged date rape and rape."

Khanna called the allegations "sickening and shocking" and said he was "glad he's left." He then turned his focus outward, toward the people around Swalwell who, he suggested, must have known more than they let on.

"Again, I don't know the particulars, but I will say that I find it hard to believe that all these years people were close to him, or endorsing him or supporting him, that no one heard about some of this."

He went further, saying those insiders "had an obligation to speak up." That phrasing matters. It shifts the moral weight from one disgraced politician to the broader circle that propped him up, a circle Khanna is pointedly not naming.

The congressman also tried to explain why hearing rumors about womanizing did not, in his view, require him to sound the alarm. He framed it as a matter of proportionality.

"There's a very big difference between someone's private life and someone abusing power. What Swalwell did was not engage in affairs. What Swalwell did is abuse power with his own staff and potentially rape folks."

Khanna added that he does not "believe that we have an obligation to shame people if they're having an extramarital affair," calling that "morality police" territory. But he said it is his "job to speak up if there's someone who's abusing their staff or engaged in sexual assault." When asked whether he would have reported Swalwell had he known the full scope, Khanna answered simply: "Yes, of course."

Gallego: 'We all heard rumors'

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, one of Swalwell's closest political allies, offered a similar but more guarded account. Gallego chaired Swalwell's failed 2020 presidential campaign and traveled with him to Qatar in 2021. He said this week that he did not know about Swalwell's sexual relationships with staffers.

At a press conference, Gallego acknowledged the open secret that Khanna also referenced. "Look, we all heard rumors in Washington, D.C., about Eric Swalwell for many years," Gallego said. But he added: "I never saw him engage in any of the predatory behavior, harassment, sexual assault."

The gap between those two sentences is worth examining. Rumors circulated "for many years." Gallego ran a presidential campaign for the man. Yet he says he saw nothing. That may well be true. But it raises the same uncomfortable question Khanna is posing: if everyone heard the rumors, why did no one look harder?

It is a pattern familiar to anyone who watched the Democratic Party's internal divisions play out on other fronts, a willingness to tolerate problems within the ranks until they become politically untenable.

The accusations and the criminal probes

The allegations against Swalwell are severe. At least five women have accused the former congressman of sexual misconduct. One of them, Lonna Drewes, appeared at a news conference in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, where she accused Swalwell of drugging and date-raping her in 2018.

Swalwell denied wrongdoing but acknowledged making "mistakes in judgment" and apologized to his wife, Brittany Watts. The full text of his denial has not been made public in available reporting.

The political fallout was swift and decisive. AP News reported that Democratic rivals, congressional allies, and labor unions quickly abandoned Swalwell and urged him to exit the governor's race. Several House Democrats went further, calling for his resignation from Congress, with some saying they would support expelling him. "I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made, but that's my fight, not a campaign's," Swalwell said as he suspended his gubernatorial campaign.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal framed the matter as bipartisan: "This is not a partisan issue. This cuts across party lines."

Perhaps. But it is worth noting how quickly Democrats moved to distance themselves once the story broke, and how slowly they moved before that, when the rumors were just rumors and Swalwell was still a useful vote and fundraiser. The same party that has seen Pelosi criticize fellow Democrats over other matters has rarely turned that scrutiny inward on personal conduct until forced.

Two law enforcement agencies are now involved. Both the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department have opened criminal probes into the former lawmaker. The basis for those investigations, whether they stem from formal complaints by accusers or referrals from other sources, has not been publicly detailed.

The 'culture' question and what comes next

Khanna used the Swalwell case to call for institutional reform. He said the situation "shows that the culture needs to change in Congress, that there needs to be stricter rules for reporting when staff members are abused."

That is a fair point as far as it goes. But it also raises an obvious follow-up: if the culture is broken, who broke it? Swalwell served in Congress for over a decade. He ran for president. He sat on the House Intelligence Committee. He was a regular on cable news. None of that happens without a support network of donors, endorsers, and party leaders who vouch for you along the way.

Khanna himself acknowledged that dynamic. "I had heard about the womanizing enough for me to say, 'I'm not going to endorse him,'" he said, "but my guess is that there may have been other people who knew that he was actually engaged in abuse of his own staff."

That guess deserves answers. Who were those people? What did they know? And why did they stay quiet? These are the questions that distinguish a scandal from an accountability reckoning. The pattern of Democratic leaders clashing with their own leadership on policy matters is well documented. Whether that same willingness to break ranks extends to policing personal misconduct within the caucus remains an open question.

Khanna himself has never been shy about making bold public demands. His willingness to speak now, after Swalwell's career is already finished, is notable. But speaking up after the fact is not the same as blowing the whistle when it matters.

The accountability gap

Swalwell is gone from Congress. His gubernatorial campaign is dead. Criminal investigators in two jurisdictions are reviewing the allegations. For the accusers, Drewes and the other women, that may eventually bring some measure of justice.

But Khanna's remarks point to a second layer of failure that no criminal probe will address. If rumors about Swalwell's behavior circulated in Washington for years, and both Khanna and Gallego say they did, then the system that was supposed to protect staffers and hold members accountable failed long before the first news conference in Beverly Hills.

Swalwell acknowledged "mistakes in judgment." His colleagues acknowledged hearing rumors. Nobody acknowledged doing anything about it until the story went public and the political cost became unbearable.

That is not accountability. That is damage control dressed up as conscience. And until the people who heard the rumors and said nothing are willing to answer for their silence, the "culture change" Khanna is calling for will remain exactly what it has always been in Washington, a talking point for the day after.