Congress has a habit of creating weeks with so many occurrences that, in any more tranquil time, each story would have dominated the news cycle. One of those days was Monday, April 13, 2026. Two members of Congress declared their intention to resign. The sitting president’s $10 billion defamation case against one of the biggest newspapers in the nation was dismissed by a federal judge. Additionally, the president himself spent a portion of the morning responding to inquiries about why he had uploaded an AI-generated image of himself that appeared to heal the sick in the manner of a religious painting. The image had been online for less than 12 hours before being discreetly taken down after well-known conservative supporters publicly objected.
Gonzales and Swalwell left in such close succession that it was hard to ignore the political choreography. Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, announced his intention to leave Congress on Monday afternoon, citing accusations of sexual assault and misbehavior that he has publicly refuted and described as “flat false.” That same morning, Swalwell was the subject of a formal investigation by the House Ethics Committee. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office also declared that it was looking into a certain 2024 accusation.
Several Democrats, including Teresa Legerál of New Mexico, who declared she would back an expulsion vote, had come to the same conclusion as Republican members, who had been urging Swalwell to resign. While acknowledging the requests for expulsion, Swalwell’s statement challenged the premise, stating that it was wrong to do so without due process and within days of an allegation, but it was equally wrong to have his duties sidetracked. He declared his resignation. A few hours later, Texas Representative Tony Gonzales announced on social media that he would submit his resignation from Congress on Tuesday.
Important Information
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Date | Week of April 13, 2026 |
| Rep. Eric Swalwell | D-CA — announced resignation April 13, 2026 amid sexual misconduct allegations; House Ethics Committee opened investigation same day; Manhattan DA also investigating allegation from 2024 |
| Rep. Tony Gonzales | R-TX — announced retirement from Congress April 13, 2026, shortly after Swalwell; Ethics Committee probe over affair with staffer who later died by suicide; admitted to affair in March; had already dropped 2026 reelection bid |
| Expulsion Context | House leadership had been set to hold expulsion votes for both members; both departures effectively end Ethics Committee jurisdiction |
| Trump $10B WSJ Lawsuit | Dismissed April 13 by U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles — ruling found Trump “came nowhere close” to pleading actual malice; filed July 2025 over WSJ story on bawdy letter allegedly in Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday album; Trump allowed to refile by April 27 |
| Trump-Pope Feud | Trump criticized Pope Leo XIV Sunday night as “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy”; posted AI image of himself as Jesus-like healer; image deleted Monday after backlash from conservative supporters including Marjorie Taylor Greene |
| Pope Leo XIV Response | “I have no fear of the Trump administration” — told reporters aboard papal plane he would continue preaching the Gospel |
| Other Ethics Cases | Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Rep. Barry Mills also under Ethics Committee scrutiny; Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) vowed to force expulsion vote when Cherfilus-McCormick’s process concluded |
The Gonzales case involved various circumstances and had been developing for a longer period of time. In March, he acknowledged having an affair with a staff member who committed suicide. Relationships between members and their staff are forbidden per house rules. An investigation had been started by the Ethics Committee. Until the Swalwell case established a political structure that made it possible to remove one member from each party in order to punish misconduct without changing the partisan balance in an evenly divided House, the majority of Republicans had not asked for his resignation.
Even though the calculation was not made public, senators accepted it in private. Since the Ethics Committee can only look into current members, both withdrawals essentially terminate the committee’s authority over the people.
The other big Washington news on Monday was the $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, which received a little less attention than it probably deserved considering the size of the sum. Trump filed the lawsuit in July 2025 in response to a Journal article about a leather-bound birthday album put together for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003.
According to the newspaper, the album included a sexually suggestive letter signed by Trump that included a drawing of a nude woman and the words “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” The letter was not written by Trump. In a Miami ruling on Monday, U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed the case, concluding that Trump’s petition “nowhere close” to sufficiently pleading the “actual malice” criteria necessary for a public figure to win a defamation lawsuit. Since the decision was without prejudice, Trump’s legal team has until April 27 to refile, as he promised on Truth Social.
The Trump-Pope feud persisted in running concurrently with all of this, creating the kind of news cycle topic that is actually hard to classify under any traditional genre. On Sunday night, Trump shared an AI picture of himself in a white robe with a glowing hand on a sick man’s forehead, surrounded by flags, fighter aircraft, and eagles.
This came just after he made a long Truth Social post denouncing Pope Leo XIV as “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy.” Before it was removed, Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a screenshot and stated that she “completely denounced” it. Riley Gaines claimed she was unable to comprehend it. By Monday morning, the picture had vanished. Trump told reporters that he believed it portrayed him as a physician. The Pope assured reporters that he would continue to talk and that he was not afraid of the Trump administration.
This week, ethics, lawsuits, social media, and the unique chaos that has become the ambient condition of the second Trump term have taken up a significant portion of Washington’s bandwidth. Meanwhile, the Iran war continues, the strait blockade remains in place, and a motion of no confidence in the Irish government is filed on another continent. It’s actually unclear if Congress is taking action against Trump or just coexisting with him. There are weeks when it doesn’t really matter.