Sammarco said Swalwell eventually began to send her messages that "I thought had a weird connotation to them," but she said she "trusted that he was an established figure who wouldn't put his credibility on the line."

Eventually, he asked her to communicate via Snapchat, a messaging app that deletes messages after they're sent. She said she thought it was unusual for a man in his 40s who was married and had children to be using such an app, but she was afraid of possibly losing such an important professional connection.

She said the messages again started out professional but then slowly became more explicit.

"He was sending me photos of his face….he was drinking in a lot of them. He would ask me if I was drinking too or tell me I should have a drink with him," she said. Sammarco said he never directly asked her to send him any explicit pictures of her, but that one night he sent her a photo of his penis.

[...]

Albrecht said one night, Swalwell invited her to a hotel to meet him, and it was "very clear what the connotation was." She says she didn't respond.

"I keep thinking about how lucky I am that didn't go to that hotel," Albrecht said, referring to the Chronicle's report detailing the accusation of a woman who said that after going out for drinks with Swalwell in September 2019, she woke up naked in his hotel bed with little recollection of the night, which Swallwell denies.

"It was terrifying to get on the phone with those women and hear their stories about how they were drinking with him and suddenly woke up in bed next to him with no recollection of how they got there," Albrecht said.