The Bipartisan Failure to Believe Women

Powerful men accused of sexual misconduct are protected by their own tribe. The women who speak up pay the price.

It’s a defining moral test of our era: whether we hold “all sides” accountable. Putting our political opponents’ feet to the fire is easy, almost instinctual. Doing the same for all leaders requires character.

In April 2026, with a Democratic congressman facing rape allegations while a Republican president’s name appears 38,000+ times in the publicly released Epstein files, the evidence is overwhelming that neither party has clean hands. The pattern is structural, bipartisan, and devastating to survivors. Understanding it requires looking at specific cases honestly — starting with the men our own side wants to protect.

Anatomy of a Reckoning: Eric Swalwell

For years, the Eric Swalwell story was primarily about a Chinese spy. Axios broke the story on December 8, 2020, revealing that a suspected Chinese intelligence operative named Christine Fang cultivated a relationship with Swalwell beginning around 2011, when he was a Dublin, California city council member. Fang bundled fundraising for his 2014 reelection and placed at least one intern in his office. The FBI gave Swalwell a defensive briefing in 2015; he severed ties immediately and cooperated with investigators. No evidence surfaced that he shared classified information, and the House Ethics Committee investigated and closed the matter in May 2023 without finding any wrongdoing.

Whether Swalwell had a sexual relationship with Fang remains publicly unconfirmed. Snopes found “no evidence to date” establishing one. Classified intelligence documents reportedly contain more intimate details, but nothing has been declassified. What is confirmed is that Republicans weaponized the story relentlessly — particularly because Swalwell had been one of Congress’s most vocal accusers of Trump over Russian collusion. Speaker Pelosi kept him on the Intelligence Committee and named him an impeachment manager weeks after the story broke. Kevin McCarthy removed him in January 2023.

Then came April 10, 2026, and the story became something entirely different.

CNN published an extensive investigation featuring four women alleging sexual misconduct. The San Francisco Chronicle published a parallel account. The most serious accuser, a former staffer who began as an intern at age 20, alleged Swalwell raped her twice — once in September 2019 and again in April 2024 — both times when she was too intoxicated to consent. She told NBC News she woke up naked in his hotel bed after the first incident and “could feel the effect of vaginal intercourse.” After the second, she said she was “pushing him off of me, saying no. He didn’t stop,” leaving her “bruised and bleeding.” CNN reviewed text messages she sent to a friend three days later: “I was sexually assaulted on Thursday. By Eric.” Two family members, a friend, and her then-boyfriend corroborated her contemporaneous disclosures. She provided medical records showing STD and pregnancy testing afterward.

A second woman told CNN that Swalwell kissed her without consent and that she ended up in his hotel room with no memory of how she got there. A third woman, Democratic influencer Ally Sammarco, went on the record alleging Swalwell sent her unsolicited photos of his genitals. A fourth alleged unsolicited explicit videos. The women described a consistent pattern: Swalwell, married with three children, cultivated young women in their twenties who were “finding their footing professionally,” made them feel special and starstruck, then escalated to increasingly sexual behavior.

Swalwell’s response was a study in contradiction. On April 7, at a Sacramento town hall, he flatly denied any misconduct and stated: “There’s never been an allegation and there’s never been a settlement.” He specifically claimed no staffer had “ever been asked to sign an NDA. Ever.” The same day the allegations broke, a document surfaced showing a former employee had signed an agreement with confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses over a workplace discrimination dispute — directly contradicting his blanket denial. In a video posted April 10, he said: “These allegations of sexual assault are flat false.” But he added: “I do not suggest to you in any way that I am perfect or that I’m a saint. I have certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past.”

What happened next was instructive. House Democratic leaders Jeffries, Clark, and Aguilar called the accusations “incredibly disturbing” and demanded Swalwell immediately end his campaign for California governor. Nancy Pelosi said accountability required transparency “outside of a gubernatorial campaign.” Adam Schiff withdrew his endorsement. Ruben Gallego withdrew his endorsement, saying he “regret[s] having come to his defense on social media.” Swalwell’s own senior staff released a statement saying they were “horrified” and stood with the accusers. The Manhattan DA opened an investigation. Major labor endorsements were rescinded. His campaign collapsed.

This is what accountability looks like when a party decides to act. But the question is whether the same standard applies to everyone.

That Dog that Hasn’t Barked: Trump and the Epstein Files

Donald Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is the most extensively documented friendship between a sitting president and a convicted sex trafficker in American history. The facts are not in dispute. Trump told New York Magazine in 2002 that he had known Epstein for fifteen years, calling him a “terrific guy” and adding: “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” Flight logs presented at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial confirm Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet at least seven to eight times between 1993 and 1997 — a fact Trump flatly denied in 2024, saying “I was never on Epstein’s Plane.” Trump’s phone number appeared in Epstein’s address book. NBC archival footage from 1992 shows Trump and Epstein chatting and pointing at women at a Mar-a-Lago party. Epstein attended Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples. Virginia Giuffre, Epstein’s most prominent survivor, was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell while working as a teenage spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago.

The question of whether Trump participated in Epstein’s abuse is more complex. Giuffre herself, in a 2016 sworn deposition, withdrew earlier claims that Trump flirted with her, testified she could not recall seeing Trump at Epstein’s homes, and said Trump never behaved inappropriately toward her. In her posthumous memoir published October 2025 — Giuffre died by suicide in April 2025 — she wrote warmly about meeting Trump and made no allegations against him.

But other evidence creates a more troubling picture. A 2011 email from Epstein to Maxwell, released in the document dumps, reads: “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. [VICTIM] spent hours at my house with him.. he has never once been mentioned.” Maxwell replied: “I have been thinking about that.” A 2019 email from Epstein stated that Trump “of course he knew about the girls, as he asked Ghislaine to stop.” The White House called these “selectively leaked emails” creating a “fake narrative.” Stacey Williams, a former Sports Illustrated model, alleged in October 2024 that Trump groped her in front of Epstein at Trump Tower in 1993, describing it as a “twisted game” between the two men.

The most serious allegation came from a woman using the pseudonym “Katie Johnson,” who filed a federal lawsuit in 2016 alleging Trump and Epstein forcibly raped her when she was 13 years old at Epstein’s Manhattan residence in 1994. The lawsuit included a declaration from a witness claiming to have seen multiple sexual encounters. The case was withdrawn days before the 2016 election after the plaintiff’s press conference was canceled due to reported threats. Snopes found the case was promoted by Norm Lubow, a former Jerry Springer Show producer, though the investigating attorney later insisted the woman “told the truth.” FBI documents released in 2026 detailed this same complaint. Additional FBI files contained allegations from other women, including one claiming Trump forced a 13-year-old to perform oral sex roughly 35 years earlier. The DOJ stated these claims were “unfounded and false.” No criminal charges have ever been filed against Trump in connection with Epstein.

What is not in dispute is how aggressively the Trump administration worked to control the Epstein narrative. On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump promised to release the files. Once in office, he resisted. In February 2025, AG Pam Bondi staged a theatrical event handing binders of already-public material to right-wing influencers at the White House. In July 2025, the DOJ released a memo concluding no “client list” existed and no further disclosures were warranted. Trump personally lobbied Republicans against the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Elon Musk, during his departure from his White House adviser role, posted and then deleted that the files weren’t released because “Trump’s name was in them.” The law passed only after a discharge petition forced the issue — 427 to 1 in the House.

When the files came out, the pattern of selective withholding was striking. NPR’s February 2026 investigation found the DOJ had removed or withheld dozens of pages from the public database, including FBI interview records with women who accused Trump of sexual abuse as minors. One accuser had been interviewed by the FBI four times — a level of investigative seriousness that distinguished her claims from routine tips — yet only one transcript was initially released, and it did not address the Trump allegations. When DOJ eventually released 16 additional pages in March 2026, it blamed the omission on files “incorrectly coded as duplicative” — but could not explain why only the three interview summaries naming Trump were affected. AG Bondi was fired by Trump on April 2, 2026, reportedly in part over her handling of the files. Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress opened investigations into the missing files.

Trump has never been criminally charged. He says the files “totally exonerated” him. But the documented pattern — the long friendship, the flights, the quote about young women, the emails between Epstein and Maxwell, the DOJ’s selective withholding of accuser interviews — demands the same scrutiny that any reasonable person would apply if the president were a Democrat.

The Partisanship Corruption of Moral Judgment

Academic research confirms what these cases illustrate. A Princeton and University of Arizona study published in the American Journal of Political Science found that partisans are significantly more likely to view out-party members as guilty of sexual misconduct and in-party members as less guilty. The Society for Personality and Social Psychology summarized the broader finding: “The more strongly one identifies with their political party, the more likely they are to believe in myths surrounding sexual assault and downplay the severity of sexual assault as a problem.”

The Ford-Reade comparison is the clearest illustration. When Christine Blasey Ford accused Brett Kavanaugh, Democrats demanded an FBI investigation, held televised hearings, and rallied behind her testimony. When Tara Reade accused Joe Biden of sexual assault with arguably stronger contemporaneous evidence — CNN’s Jake Tapper noted that “Blasey-Ford didn’t have the same contemporary records Tara Reade has” — the response was dramatically different. The New York Times initially buried the story. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who championed Ford’s case, dismissed Reade’s claims as “absolutely ridiculous.” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who led calls for Al Franken’s resignation and championed Ford, supported Biden. Biden himself gave Christine Blasey Ford “the benefit of the doubt” but never applied that standard to Reade.

Republicans applied identical selective morality in reverse. Trump won the presidency in 2016 despite the Access Hollywood tape and over a dozen accusers. He won again in 2024 after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll and awarded $83.3 million in defamation damages — a verdict upheld by the Second Circuit in September 2025. Pete Hegseth was confirmed as Defense Secretary despite a 2017 sexual assault allegation and a $50,000 settlement, with his former sister-in-law submitting a sworn affidavit that his second wife “feared for her safety.” Only two Republican senators voted against him. The House Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” Matt Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old and made over $90,000 in payments to women likely connected to sexual activity; Trump nominated him for Attorney General.

The spring of 2026 produced a perfect controlled experiment. Swalwell (D) faces sexual assault allegations from four women. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) admitted an affair with a former staffer who died by suicide in September 2025 after he pressured her for sex via explicit texts. A second staffer also accused Gonzales of sending explicit messages. Republicans moved to expel Swalwell. Democrats responded by moving to expel Gonzales. Neither party primarily motivated by concern for the women involved. Both treating misconduct allegations as partisan ammunition.

The Machinery of Impunity

Andrew Cuomo’s political resurrection is perhaps the most revealing case study. He resigned as governor in August 2021 after the state attorney general’s investigation found he had harassed thirteen women. In 2026, he is the frontrunner for New York City mayor, polling at 32%. He told the New York Times: “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have resigned.” His accuser Charlotte Bennett dropped her federal lawsuit — not because she lost, but because of what The 19th News described as “an astonishing number of invasive discovery requests and outrageous statements” designed to “embarrass and humiliate her.” Bennett said she believed she’d “be better off dead than endure more of his litigation abuse.”

This is the machinery of impunity. NDAs silence survivors — a Stanford and Lift Our Voices study found they “mainly protect employers, not individuals.” Litigation abuse exhausts accusers into submission. Partisan media ecosystems ensure that supporters of the accused never encounter the full weight of evidence against him. And the ultimate message to every woman considering coming forward is delivered by the outcomes: Trump is president. Cuomo may be mayor. Gaetz was nominated for the nation’s top law enforcement job. The women who spoke are poorer, more traumatized, and largely forgotten.

The Epstein case makes this architecture visible at an industrial scale. Investigative reporter Julie K. Brown put it plainly: this case is still an example of how there are two systems of justice in this country — one for people who have money and power, and one for people who don’t. The National Women’s Defense League found 400 allegations of sexual harassment against 145 sitting state lawmakers between 2013 and 2024. Their researcher Emma Davidson Tribbs noted: “There are very short memories. And that’s not just frustrating for the movement, but it’s so harmful for survivors, and reinforces this idea that even if you come forward, the system is not going to change.”

A study in Frontiers in Political Science connected this directly to democratic legitimacy: “Hostile sexism lessens the ability of candidates accused of sexual misconduct to be held accountable. The ability to maintain accountability is central to democratic legitimacy.” When voters excuse misconduct because the accused shares their party, they are not protecting their values — they are abandoning them.

What To Do When the Accused Is on Your Side

The only distinction that matters is believing credible women regardless of who the accused is. The Swalwell case tests Democrats. The Epstein files test Republicans. The Cuomo comeback tests New Yorkers. The Hegseth confirmation tested the Senate. Every single one of these is a test of the same principle.

The women who accused Swalwell had contemporaneous text messages, corroborating witnesses, medical records, and a consistent pattern across multiple independent accusers. The women in the Epstein files had FBI interview records serious enough to warrant repeated follow-up investigations. E. Jean Carroll had a jury verdict. Charlotte Bennett had an attorney general’s investigation. Tara Reade had contemporaneous records. Christine Blasey Ford had a polygraph and Senate testimony. In every case, the question was never really whether the evidence was credible. The question was whether the accused was on our team.

The phrase “the ends justify the means” has become a governing philosophy in an era where holding power is treated as an existential imperative. But the means are not incidental to who we are — they are definitional. A movement that protects predators because they vote the right way is not a movement worth belonging to. A party that believes women only when the accused wears the other jersey is not defending women. It is using them.

The evidence points to a single conclusion. Believing credible women is a test of character. And both sides are failing it.

The only question left is whether we care enough to demand better from the people who claim to represent us.

Starting with our own.

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