Eric Swalwell spent years lecturing the country about law, order, and accountability.
Now the FBI is at his door — and his airport gate.
Federal agents seized his electronics and searched his home in a widening criminal probe that has left one of the Democrat Party’s most self-righteous voices with a lot of explaining to do.
What the FBI Did and When
FBI agents stopped former California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell at San Francisco International Airport recently and, armed with a search warrant, took possession of his cellphone and other electronic devices, according to sources familiar with the investigation who spoke with CNN and Fox News Digital.
The very next day, agents executed a second search warrant at Swalwell’s home in Washington, DC, removing additional property from the residence as evidence.
Swalwell was not arrested or detained, Fox News Digital reported. He cooperated throughout, according to sources cited by the Daily Mail, which first reported the airport seizure.
His attorney did not respond to requests for comment from multiple news organizations.
Two women who have spoken publicly about alleged sexual misconduct by Swalwell also told CNN they spoke with the FBI as part of the same investigation.
The Allegations That Ended His Political Career
The cascade began in April when the San Francisco Chronicle published allegations from a former Swalwell staffer who claimed he had sexually assaulted her twice — once in 2019 and again in 2024 — while she was too intoxicated to consent. The woman worked in Swalwell’s office from 2019 to 2021, according to NBC News.
That same day, CNN published a separate report detailing allegations from four women total. Democratic influencer Ally Sammarco was among them, telling CNN that Swalwell had sent her unsolicited photos of his genitals. Sammarco later confirmed her account to NBC News as well.
Model Lonna Drewes held a press conference the day Swalwell resigned from Congress, alleging he had drugged, raped, and choked her in a California hotel room in 2018. “When I arrived at his hotel room I was already incapacitated, I couldn’t move my arms or my body,” Drewes said at the press conference. “He raped me and he choked me and while he was choking me I lost consciousness and I thought I died.”
Drewes filed a police report with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department after the press conference. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced it opened an investigation into her allegations. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is also investigating allegations against Swalwell, a source familiar with that investigation told ABC News.
At least six women have now allegedly made accusations of some form of sexual misconduct against the former congressman, according to reporting from multiple outlets. Forbes reported that at least a dozen other women described interactions with Swalwell to CNN that made them uncomfortable.
Swalwell has denied the allegations. In a video posted to social media in April, he said, “These allegations of sexual assault are flat false. They did not happen. They have never happened. And I will fight them with everything I have.”
In his resignation statement posted on X, Swalwell wrote that he was “deeply sorry” to his family, staff, and constituents, adding, “I will fight the serious false allegations made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make.”
He also wrote, “I am aware of efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote against me and other members. Expelling anyone in Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong. But it’s also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties. Therefore, I plan to resign my seat in Congress.”
A Political Career Built on Glass
The FBI seizure lands at a particularly ugly moment for Swalwell, who had been a frontrunner in the California governor’s race before the allegations became public in April. He dropped his gubernatorial campaign and resigned his House seat within days of the Chronicle’s initial report.
And that is not the only federal cloud hanging over him.
Just days before the airport seizure, the White House Government Transparency Task Force released declassified FBI files related to Swalwell’s relationship with Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese intelligence operative also known as “Fang Fang.” President Trump declassified the records, and they were released as part of what the White House described as a broader effort to expose foreign threats to US elections.
Those declassified documents revealed that Swalwell acknowledged to the FBI in 2015 that he had a physical relationship with Fang on a “handful of occasions,” with their last physical encounter occurring in March 2015, according to Fox News. The FBI formally opened its investigation involving Swalwell and Fang in 2014 under the codename “Freshman Fifteen,” according to a declassified Interim Authority memorandum cited by the Federalist. The investigation centered on allegations that campaign contributions were being exchanged for internship placements in Swalwell’s congressional offices.
The FBI ultimately concluded it found no federal statutory violation by Swalwell and removed him as a subject of the probe in 2017. The House Ethics Committee conducted a separate two-year investigation into his relationship with Fang and closed that case in 2023 without action.
But the sexual misconduct investigation is an entirely different matter — and it appears to be gaining momentum rather than winding down.
The San Francisco Chronicle also reported that Swalwell faces a state inquiry into his use of campaign funds to pay lawyers. According to state financial records cited by the SF Standard, Swalwell used more than $300,000 in campaign funds to pay his attorney.
Attorney Cheyenne Hunt, who has been working with accusers, told CNN she has been working “with a number of women who are in the process of coming forward and sharing their stories of sexual harassment and even alleged abuse at the hands of Eric Swalwell.”
Most of the accusers, according to Forbes, were women in their 20s who worked or had an interest in politics, and who say Swalwell pursued them under the guise that he could help advance their careers.
This is the same Eric Swalwell who spent years on the House Intelligence Committee accusing others of impropriety, who served as an impeachment manager, who posted warnings to Trump supporters about the “wreckage” coming their way. He called the Mar-a-Lago search a matter of accountability. He presented himself as a champion of women and working people.
And now FBI agents are standing at his airport gate with a search warrant.
The probe is not finished. Multiple law enforcement agencies are involved, multiple jurisdictions are investigating, and multiple women are on the record. The seizure of electronics suggests investigators believe there may be digital evidence relevant to the allegations — communications, messages, or other material that Swalwell’s devices could contain.
Swalwell has denied assaulting anyone. Every allegation against him remains unproven in a court of law, and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence that the legal system affords. But the breadth of the investigation — federal agents, state prosecutors in Manhattan, the Los Angeles County Sheriff — is not the profile of a probe going nowhere.
The man who spent a decade telling Americans that no one is above the law is now learning what it feels like when that principle gets applied to him.
Sources: CNN, Fox News Digital, NBC News, ABC News, San Francisco Chronicle, Daily Mail, Forbes, SF Standard, the Federalist
