"The View" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said on Monday that Rep. Eric Swalwell's reputation with women was an "open secret" that made him exploitable by America's enemies.
Swalwell, D-Calif., has suspended his campaign for California governor after he was accused of sexual assault, as well as multiple reports alleging other misconduct with women. Swalwell has acknowledged "mistakes in judgment" but claimed the assault allegations against him are false.
Griffin, returning to "The View" after a stint on maternity leave, noted reports that Swalwell's alleged misconduct was not a surprise to many observers.
"Swalwell sat on the intel committee, and there were allegations he had a suspected Chinese spy, Fang Fang, who was associated with him in his office," she said. "Now, he was not found to have engaged in wrongdoing, but to me, my spidey senses from having worked at the Pentagon go off, which is it was an open secret that he had issues with women, that he was somebody who was susceptible, potentially to heavy drinking, to impropriety with women."
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Griffin added that allegations like those made against Swalwell were "disqualifying."
"I think we need to remember that winning isn't everything, and you lose the plot when you think that," Griffin said. "When somebody does something that's beyond the pale, that should be it, and we should move on and get back to that kind of society."
"I think of the victims. These allegations are horrible. They're well-documented. This is, I mean, deeply reported," she added.
The other victim of the situation, she argued, is "the American public," arguing that even the reputation of habitual sexual scandal makes one look vulnerable to bad actors from America's rival powers.
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"America's adversaries look for how to exploit that," she continued. "So that, to me, pinpoints it was openly known. Nobody did anything about it. But thank God that now Democrats, Adam Schiff and others and others have called for him to step aside, and he did the right thing by doing it."
Swalwell has also been urged by some Democrats to resign from Congress.
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"The accusations were 2019," co-host Sara Haines added. "This is post-MeToo, which was not just a 'let's dig out the ones that have done wrong things.' It was a loud warning that people will not be silenced anymore, and he arrogantly did that again in 2019."
Fox News Digital reached out to Swalwell's campaign and did not receive immediate reply.
