The fact that mishandling of assault cases and gender-based crime cases so often pairs with mistreatment or demeaning treatment of survivors, that just highlights the depth of the problem in the system.

That's exactly right.

One of the survivors who came to me for help told me that when she went in to be interviewed by a detective after she was raped, the detective's first question to her was, how often have you cheated on your husband? Another survivor said to me that her detective said to her, you know, are you really sure you want this guy arrested? You know, who knows? You could end up dating this guy.

And the survivor said to me, when I heard him say that, I asked myself, how can I possibly get an unbiased investigation from this detective? And she was right.

The detective went on to do a very shoddy job.

minimal investigation of her case and then close it down while there were a lot of investigative leads still on pursuit.

So it's both of these issues.

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what those intersections can mean, can look like in terms of criminal justice and sexual assault.

Where would you begin with that?

So the events this past few days really do show a lot of progress that we have made.

The fact that these young women came forward is progress.

It's pretty clear that when they first told friends and family members that they trusted, it's pretty clear that they received support and weren't blamed and disbelieved.

Um, the fact that when the allegations were made, it was taken seriously and the consequences were immediate.

There's a letter from fifty, um, staffers of Eric Swalwell's congressional staff and compa-campaign that came forward to supportThe survivors and yes, the political leaders who spoke out and called him to step down.

These things are encouraging.

Has the movement overreached at all, in your view, making men in general, uh, more f- unfairly seen as suspect and also to the detriment of more justice and more actual assaults?

What, what would you say to that group?

So I'm so glad you raised this, Brian, and I would love to address both of those points.

So first, the idea of a political hit job, and thank you for bringing that up because invariably, when there's a high-profile case like this, we hear the backlash panic that says, "Now anyone can accuse anyone of anything and end their career," and that is just not the case, and that is not what happened here.

The reason we saw such a quick mobilization of political leaders calling on Swalwell to drop out is that the circumstances of this case were extraordinary.

The, the women who spoke up were credible.

They were women who had nothing to gain and a lot to lose by coming forward.

Um, uh, they were candid about things that complicate their story.

So the events of the past few days really do show a lot of