Hunt’s nonprofit targets misogyny in Congress, statehouses
Hunt’s involvement with the Platner case began in early June when she posted a video rescinding her endorsement of the candidate after a woman accused him of abuse, according to the Journal. Democratic organizer Stacy Leafsong, who was helping another woman, Jenny Racicot, go public with allegations that Platner sexually assaulted her, saw the video and viewed Hunt as an ally who could help. With Hunt’s assistance, Racicot’s account was published in Politico, according to the Journal, dealing a fatal blow to Platner’s campaign.
“It was like a balm, a soothing connection in a really turbulent situation,” Leafsong told the Journal. “Finally we’ve got some sanity and some support.”
Hunt also coordinated with Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.), one of Platner’s strongest backers through a string of earlier controversies, to warn him ahead of the Politico report, the Journal reported. Khanna quickly pulled his endorsement after the story appeared. “I trust her judgment and I know that if there was someone she had worked with they would be credible,” Khanna said in an interview.
In the Swalwell case, Hunt and two other women — Arielle Fodor, a former kindergarten teacher known online as Mrs. Frazzled, and a political strategist who had levied her own accusation against Swalwell — gathered and posted anonymous accounts on social media, the Journal reported. With each post, more people reached out. The three women coordinated their work over a group chat. After allegations against Swalwell were published, the mood was dark, Fodor recalled. “There was no victory lap,” she said. “We just all sat there and cried.”
Hunt has said this is her generation’s #MeToo movement but that she is trying to build infrastructure to make it more enduring. “There’s this general sense of people being fed up with this idea of a class of powerful men who act with impunity and treat violence against women as a currency of power,” she said.
Hunt launched Reckoning Action in May, in the aftermath of Swalwell’s downfall, to “fight across every arena where that subjugation operates: in Congress, in statehouses, in boardrooms, in the media,” according to the Journal. The nonprofit doesn’t charge for legal services or other resources and hasn’t disclosed its donors. Hunt said she isn’t currently collecting a salary and is living off savings while she launches the organization.
Hunt denied allegations that she was politically motivated, pointing out that she had previously backed Platner and was until recently executive director of Gen-Z for Change, a progressive advocacy group. “Misogyny is a problem that is rampant in our culture and it’s beyond partisan lines,” Hunt said. “I’m not gonna tell women who come forward with credible allegations ‘I’m not going to help you because that [person is] a Democrat.’”
Hunt earned her law degree at the University of California’s Irvine School of Law and interned in the office of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.). She ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California’s 45th district in 2024, receiving 8% of the vote in the Democratic primary. She built a social-media following by filming political commentary videos from her apartment and now has roughly 220,000 followers on both Instagram and TikTok.
The nonprofit Reckoning Action has been flooded with hundreds of allegations about everyone from politicians to doctors, Hunt told the Journal. Swalwell is now facing several criminal investigations, the newspaper reported.