Is Ruben Gallego in trouble?

At 11:39 a.m., while going through security at the Arizona House of Representatives, I missed a call from a New York City phone number.

A few minutes later, I called back and, after a few rings, introduced myself. A voice spoke back exuberantly.

While I had requested that the disgraced former New York congressman and convicted criminal give me a call, I didn’t necessarily expect it to happen.

But this week, Santos is eager to talk about his former next-door neighbor in the Longworth House Office Building, Democratic U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego.

In the aftermath of former Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell’s resignation over multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct by a former staffer, Arizona’s junior senator is feeling the heat from a fire that remains mostly unseen.

Only time will tell whether it’s of a magnitude that could consume him — or just leave him a bit charred.

For years, Gallego was proudly public about his close friendship with Swalwell, with whom he shared a Washington, D.C. apartment as the young congressmen were climbing the ladders of power in Congress.

The two were “best friends,” Gallego has said on occasion, and their social media footprint backs that up.

But on Tuesday, an emotional Gallego made a complete break with his former bestie in a bizarrely captivating press conference that still has internet sleuths scrutinizing his erratic body language and reading between the lines of his phrasings to decipher what exactly Gallego knew.

While Gallego said he wasn’t aware of any predatory behavior or sexual assault, he was slightly more evasive about what he did know. He said that “for many years” there were rumors floating around Washington that Swalwell was “flirty,” but Gallego offered little beyond that bit of information. Instead, he claimed to have been duped and painted himself as a victim of Swalwell’s deception.

Given his close relationship to Swalwell, it’s not hard to believe that Gallego must have known something. But as it stands, there are two main questions on the mind of every Arizona and D.C. journalist.

Across the nation, newsrooms and political opposition are now investigating Gallego. It seems that a shitstorm is inbound, but whether Gallego can weather it is another question.

At the very least, it could cost him his 2028 presidential ambitions — which were a bit far-fetched, anyway.

What Gallego didn’t address at the press conference, and what reporters didn’t ask about, are the whispers that have been following him for years.

Gallego has long been rumored to engage in somewhat questionable behavior — and he almost seems to relish being a political bad boy. He’s a former Marine who drops more F bombs than any other member of Congress and has long cultivated a somewhat machismo image.

Based on years of conversation with the political class, there’s almost zero question he's done something objectionable or untoward in his life.

The real question is, what exactly was it, and how bad are we talking?

So far, most of what we know essentially boils down to Gallego being an asshole — but not a predator.

There have been plenty of vague and unconfirmed rumors. But this is politics; there are rumors about plenty of people — and a lot of them are bullshit.

Which leads us back to where we started — that call with Santos, who early yesterday said that a former Gallego staffer was about to come forward with a huge story.

Well, yes — if that is the case, then Gallego is probably “cooked.”

Or, “toast.”

But let’s all remember the source of the information here: Santos is only one of six congressmen in U.S. history to be ejected from the House of Representatives, a distinguished honor that stems from the fact that he lied about basically everything — his job history, education, where he lived and his mother’s location at the time of the 9/11 attacks, to start.

A House Ethics Committee report found that Santos spent campaign funds on products at Sephora, luxury trips and OnlyFans. A federal court convicted him of fraud and aggravated identity theft and sentenced him to more than seven years in prison (he served three months before President Donald Trump commuted the sentence last year).

So we take everything Santos says with a pound of salt. Still, the conversation was hilarious.

During Santos’ 11 months in the House of Representatives in 2023, his office was next-door to Gallego’s — which he said made him privy to the then-married Gallego’s habits.

For what it’s worth, Gallego has denied engaging in any “inappropriate behavior” outside his marriage.

I asked Santos why he was at the office so late, which he later said was a great question. He explained that while he was battling a federal indictment, he would stay at his office late and would read the discovery documents that his lawyer had sent him.

He added that he once witnessed both Gallego and Swalwell together, with two women, at the Waldorf Astoria while they were “plastered drunk” and had some rather interesting comments on the pair’s friendship.

Santos, who said he’s “blessed” and “humbled” to be back working in corporate America after “people have given me a second chance,” believes Gallego will resign or be expelled by the end of the year.

And while Santos may be a bullshit artist, he is not alone in that belief.

After speaking to a number of sources close to Gallego who are a lot more reliable, it does seem that Gallego has unflattering skeletons in the closet — but so far, no one we spoke to is aware of anything close to the level of criminality and violence that Swalwell is accused of.

But no one is willing to say much more than that at this point.

Still, the general vibe that there’s something there to find has persisted. From what it sounds like, Gallego was known among former staffers for occasional rude or vulgar behavior, anger issues, heavy partying and dating younger lobbyists — like his now-wife.

And admittedly, we’ve all seen Gallego do something kind of weird here and there.

Some are surprised that more about all that didn’t come out in the 2024 Senate race. But then again, he didn’t exactly have the most inspiring or press-friendly opponent.

His checkered past includes an allegation that Gallego — when he was chief of staff for former Phoenix Councilman Michael Nowakowski in 2009 — “harassed and intimidated” a 20-year-old intern who was laid off the next day after she complained about it. Republican Kari Lake tried to seize on the incident during the 2024 U.S. Senate election, but she didn’t mention that the intern was one of 50 people laid off and the complaint was dismissed.

In addition, a sexual harassment claim was made against him while he was a state lawmaker, which the Associated Press reported on back in 2018.

The Arizona House investigation into that incident showed that it wasn't sexual harassment as we usually think of it — he allegedly used a Spanish slur that had a sexual connotation to describe Dem Sen. Catherine Miranda, who filed the claim “based on hearsay,” she told us yesterday. (During the investigation, another lawmaker came forward and said he had used the word, not Gallego.)

Although Gallego and Miranda beefed for years at the Legislature, Miranda said the two have become friends and worked together on issues in South Phoenix. She even told us, unsolicited, that she endorses him for president.

Recently, Gallego’s texts with a conservative friend leaked to the conservative press. They show Gallego saying the Democratic Party was “not allowing women to be hot” that “Dem women look like Dem men” now.

There's been plenty of speculation about why he and his ex-wife, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, divorced in 2017. The two have kept it somewhat private, though rumors that either of them cheated have floated. But their unsealed divorce records showed the two parted on good terms, much to the dismay of Lake and her allies, who sued to unseal the records and expected to find a bombshell.

Photos of him and Swalwell riding camels shirtless on a junket with their wives in Qatar are among the most damning visual images.

All this is not exactly the most flattering look for a congressman, but it isn’t illegal.

Even some of his enemies have come out to say he may be an asshole, but as far as they know, he's not a compulsive creep.

There’s also lots of bullshit circulating, mostly from bloodthirsty right-wingers. For instance, some have claimed that Gallego is the man in a video of Swalwell pulling a young prostitute on a bed. There’s no proof either way of that — it could be a lot of people. Gallego flat-out denied it was him.

And one attempt to link Gallego to a clue in the video — some chunky black Nikes worn by the man — was clearly AI-generated.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail published a “bombshell” story on Gallego using campaign funds for his wedding, which turned out to be a rush to conclusions.

And a new position for Gallego’s press secretary that was posted to LinkedIn on Tuesday seemed like a potential flag, but as it turns out, his spox Taylor Tasler told us that she accepted a job on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff’s reelection campaign a few weeks ago.

It’s bound to be a long news cycle for Gallego, and we’ll have to see if he’s up for going through the wringer. He’s said that he’ll “release everything” that’s required of him for any legal or ethics investigations.

But the end of Gallego’s press conference seems to explain where his conscience is at.