Last week, disgraced Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) chum, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), was indignantly defending his pal. Now that Swalwell is resigning, Gallego is suddenly endorsing ethics accountability for Swalwell. Besides being a liar and a backstabber, Gallego is also a hypocrite, given his own shady past with women.
The Arizona senator, who served his wife divorce papers without notice just before she gave birth to their son and then insisted she needed to pay his attorney's fees, is assuming a cloak of self-righteous shock at Swalwell's scandals. Gallego can spare us the hypocritical posturing.
When you are in first place, is when they target you. Eric is a fighter and he will win the Governors race. https://t.co/CSDwEnR3Xu
— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) April 7, 2026
On April 7, Gallego was enthusiastically defending Swalwell and claiming the latter was a strong California gubernatorial candidate, as you can see above. That same day, the senator scoffed at the credibility of the allegations. Then, as of April 10, Gallego was already trying to cover his own backside. “I regret having come to his defense on social media prior to knowing all the information. I am equally as shocked and upset about what has transpired,” he asserted.
Fast forward to Monday, and suddenly Gallego is burning with righteous indignation. Most of the country knew Swalwell was sleeping with women he shouldn’t be sleeping with — Chinese spy Fang Fang, anyone? — and yet Gallego, who was Swalwell’s “best friend,” didn’t have an inkling? Give me a break.
But Gallego pompously declared, “I support the ethics committee’s investigation and believe Eric Swalwell is no longer fit to be a Member of Congress. He should be expelled from Congress. I want to be clear: I had no knowledge of the allegations of assault, harassment, and predatory behavior against Eric Swalwell.”
Related: Eric Swalwell Resigns From Congress
He then tried to pretend he was a victim instead of an enabler. “I trusted someone who I believed was a friend, but it is now clear that he is not the person I thought I knew,” Gallego sniffled. “The women who have come forward have shown courage. They deserve to be believed, to be supported, and to see justice served.”
But while Gallego is not facing allegations of sexually assaulting multiple staffers as Swalwell is, his past is hardly squeaky clean. In fact, perhaps his extreme about-face on Swalwell is a desperate attempt to deflect any scrutiny from himself as Swalwell's friend.
You see, in December 2016, Gallego abruptly filed for divorce against his wife, Phoenix city councilwoman Kate Gallego, and filed on the very same day a motion to seal the case file. Kate Gallego, who was pregnant at the time, responded in February 2017 to the filing by saying she had no "knowledge of information sufficient to form a belief" that the marriage was "irretrievably broken" as Ruben claimed. To top it off, Ruben wanted to force his pregnant wife to pay his bill for the divorce proceedings. The Washington Free Beacon, which succeeded in opening the case file, noted that Gallego moved to seal the case even before his wife knew about it:
It was Ruben Gallego who moved to seal the record back in 2016. In his memorandum making the case to the court, he noted that Kate Gallego had "not yet been served" with divorce papers, nor had "her attorney entered an appearance" in the case, but that she was "likely to give birth any day."
Gallego also successfully argued that he not provide any “long-term spousal maintenance,” even though she was giving birth to his child. About a year later, Gallego met 25-year-old Sydney Barron, who was 14 years younger than him, and to whom he proposed soon after.
And that's why Gallego can keep his mouth shut about Swalwell's scandals.
