Nancy Pelosi went on CSPAN yesterday and delivered the performance of a lifetime. When asked whether Democrats knew about the mounting sexual assault allegations against Eric Swalwell before his resignation, Pelosi looked straight into the camera and said — with a completely straight face — “Absolutely not true. None whatsoever.”
Whoa! Somebody better tell Willie Brown, because he apparently didn’t get the memo.
Willie Brown — the former mayor of San Francisco, longtime Democratic kingmaker, and a guy who knows where every single body is buried in California politics — immediately contradicted Pelosi on the record. He told reporters that “there have been rumors after rumors” about Swalwell’s behavior and that both Pelosi and Adam Schiff had discussed the issues previously.
Kevin McCarthy backed him up. The former Speaker confirmed it was an open secret on Capitol Hill. “Every member of Congress knows not to let any young staffer around Swalwell,” McCarthy said. Every. Single. One.
So we’ve got the most powerful woman in Democratic politics claiming she had “no knowledge whatsoever” of the guy who sat on the House Intelligence Committee — the committee that handles America’s most sensitive classified information — while two of the most connected political figures in the country are publicly calling her denial garbage.
This is the same Nancy Pelosi, by the way, who wielded the #MeToo movement like a battering ram against Brett Kavanaugh. Remember that circus? Democrats paraded accusers in front of cameras, demanded we “believe all women,” and tried to destroy a man’s career based on decades-old allegations with zero corroborating evidence.
But when multiple women accused a sitting Democratic congressman of sexual assault — a guy Pelosi personally championed and protected — suddenly it’s “I had no idea!” Suddenly the rules don’t apply.
(Funny how that keeps happening with these people, isn’t it?)
We need to understand what’s really going on here. This isn’t just Pelosi being a bad liar — although she is spectacularly bad at it. This is the Democratic leadership admitting, through their own contradictions, that they knew about a predator in their ranks and chose to protect him because he was politically useful.
Swalwell was their attack dog. He went on every cable news show for years screaming about Trump and Russia. He sat on the Intelligence Committee even after getting caught in a honeypot operation with a Chinese spy named Fang Fang. And through all of it, the Democratic leadership kept him in position, kept putting him on television, and kept looking the other way.
Willie Brown didn’t drop this bomb by accident. The man is 92 years old and has been navigating Democratic backroom politics since before most of us were born. When he contradicts Pelosi on the record, it’s because the ship is sinking and he’s not going down with it.
Adam Schiff is staying conspicuously quiet, by the way. The same Adam Schiff who spent four years telling us he had “direct evidence” of Trump-Russia collusion that never materialized. Now he’s got nothing to say about the open secret that was apparently discussed in his presence? Classic.
The fifth accuser is reportedly stepping forward at a Beverly Hills press conference tomorrow. The Manhattan DA has opened an investigation. The House Ethics Committee launched a probe that — shocker — went absolutely nowhere while Democrats controlled the chamber.
We used to have a phrase for this kind of thing in America: enabling. When you know someone is hurting people and you cover for them because they’re on your team, you’re not an innocent bystander. You’re part of the problem.
Pelosi can go on every cable news show in the country and recite her “no knowledge” line until she’s blue in the face. Willie Brown already told us the truth. McCarthy already confirmed it. The only person buying Pelosi’s denial is Pelosi herself — and maybe the three viewers still watching CSPAN at 2 p.m. on a Monday.