In the span of a week, four American men became public faces of violence against the women and girls in their lives.
On Friday, April 10, the San Francisco Chronicle published the account of Lonna Drewes, a former congressional aide who says Rep. Eric Swalwell drugged, choked and raped her in 2018. Three other women described other misconduct. By Monday, April 13, he had announced his resignation.
Within hours of Swalwell’s announcement, Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas also announced he was resigning. He had spent months denying a sexual relationship with a staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, who worked in his Uvalde office and died by suicide in September.
She set herself on fire.
Gonzales, who is married with six children, sent text messages asking Santos-Aviles to send “a sexy pic,” and continued doing so after she told him he was “going too far.” Gonzales admitted the affair weeks earlier on a conservative talk show. “I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has,” he had said. “And my faith is as strong as ever.” But this self-professed spiritual confession does not account for what the messages show: a boss who held power over his subordinate’s salary and career, who refused to take no for an answer, and who kept pressing after she told him to stop.
