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Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., is facing heat for trying to discredit a user on X who said sexual misconduct allegations against Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who is running for governor, will end up “kick[ing] his a–.”
Gallego, who has been friends with Swalwell for many years, also defended Swalwell for being “targeted” in a separate post on social media, arguing he is the subject of sexual misconduct allegations because he is “in first place.”
Swalwell has fiercely denied the allegations being elevated on social media by Democratically-aligned politicos, including Cheyenne Hunt, a former Capitol Hill staffer who is currently a nonprofit director at the group Gen-Z for Change, and Arielle Fodor, a “political content creator,” teacher and mother who dubs herself “Mrs. Frazzled” online.
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“Yeah I’m gonna be so real with you…Swalwell is a wrap. I’ve seen what I needed to see,” Fodor wrote on X under her pseudonym. “He isn’t going to sue ANYBODY over talking about this because discovery would kick his a–. Why this man ran for governor is BEYOND ME.”
In direct response, replying to a X post quoting her comment, Gallego shot back: “This person started to posting for the first time 3 days ago…”
Gallego’s post came at 1:53 a.m. on Tuesday night, and was subsequently followed up with another defending Swalwell: “When you are in first place, is when they target you,” Gallego said in the second tweet several hours later. “Eric is a fighter and he will win the Governors race.”
“WHOA this is a very very bad look by Gallego. There is no reason for him to proactively smear Dem women and advocates when 1) he should just wait for the reporting to come out, and 2) the race isn’t even in AZ,” Democratic campaign strategist Bhavik Lathia said in a reply to Gallego’s initial remark.
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When reached for comment, Gallego and Swalwell did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment, which included questions about whether they wanted to respond to critics who have suggested Gallego is trying to discredit women raising the allegations, as opposed to speaking to them directly.
“‘Believe all women until it’s politically inconvenient,'” conservative political strategist Alec Sears also said in response to Gallego.
“Ah yes the recency of someone’s social media posts are definitely indicative of whether something’s true or false,” added Managing editor at the Media Research Center’s Newsbuster’s Curtis Houck.
A Substack website tied to Fodor, aka Mrs. Frazzled, says she has an entire subscriber base and runs a newsletter called “Frazzled About Education.”
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“If I were you, I’d be more worried about my own skeletons instead of trying to discredit women. And the for the record, Mrs. Frazzled has a storied internet platform, and dedication to amplifying Democratic organizations such as Defense of Democracy. You could’ve googled her,” Democrat political strategist, Simone Kathleen Rossi, said in response to Gallego’s post about how Fodor cannot be trusted.
Gallego and Swalwell have been colleagues and friends dating back at least a decade, and were paling around in Qatar in 2021 during a now-infamous Qatari Business Council-funded trip to the Middle East nation. They were infamously pictured taking a camel excursion along the Persian Gulf together with their spouses during the trip, which included a stay at a luxury Four Seasons hotel in Qatar and other activities and meetings.
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