Disgraced former Congressman Eric Swalwell had his devices seized by the FBI this past weekend. Federal agents were waiting at San Francisco International Airport when he stepped off a flight on Saturday. They served him with a warrant and took his white iPhone and MacBook Pro. Court records show the devices were seized at 8:25 p.m. According to Just the News, he cooperated.
Source: FBI evidence inventory of devices seized from Eric Swalwell at San Francisco International Airport on August 15, 2026
This is the same man who spent years on nightly television trying to smear innocent Americans with the Russian Collusion narrative. Now he stands accused of rape by multiple women, and federal investigators have collected muliple electronic devices.
The following day agents showed up at his Northeast Washington home with another warrant. He and his wife weren’t there, according to Raw Story.
This traces back to the sexual assault allegations that blew up his career in April. Multiple women came forward within days of each other. A former staffer claimed he assaulted her on two separate occasions when she was too intoxicated to consent, the first time in 2019, while she was still on his staff.
The second was in 2024 in a New York hotel after a charity gala. She said she blacked out, woke up during it, and told him to stop. Other women described unsolicited nudes and explicit messages sent over Snapchat and text. Manhattan and LA County already had open probes.
A fifth woman, Lonna Drewes, held a press conference and accused Swalwell of drugging her drink in 2018 at a West Hollywood hotel. She said he then raped and choked her until she lost consciousness, adding that she thought she was going to die. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department later opened an investigation into her claim.
Swalwell denied everything. He called the main allegations false and political. He did admit to “mistakes in judgment” in a vague statement while announcing he was dropping out of the California governor’s race. Days later he resigned from Congress under threat of expulsion.
The whole thing collapsed fast.
All of this came after Swalwell had locked down strong Democratic establishment support. He’d been endorsed by Senators Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego, more than 20 members of Congress including his campaign chairs Jimmy Gomez and Adam Gray, plus major labor groups like SEIU California and the California Teachers Association.
Almost every one of those endorsements disappeared within hours of the Chronicle story. Gomez himself is now under a House Ethics investigation over separate sexual misconduct allegations.
Endorsements disappeared. Colleagues from both parties pushed for him to go. What had been a strong early position in the governor’s race evaporated in less than a week.
This is the same Eric Swalwell who went on national television to defend the women who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, demanding they be believed. He positioned himself as a champion of the #MeToo movement and voted to ban sexual relationships between members of Congress and their staff.
In public he lectured the country about protecting women from powerful men. In private, according to multiple women, he was the powerful man they needed protection from, sending unsolicited nudes, pursuing staff, and facing allegations of sexual assault when the women were too intoxicated to consent.
Airport stops and home searches are not something the FBI does lightly, especially with a former member of Congress. This weekend’s device seizures reveal the federal investigation is still active and is looking at possible violations of 18 U.S.C. § 242 (deprivation of rights under color of law), among other statutes.
This has nothing to do with the old Christine Fang file. The White House released earlier this week. In them, Swalwell admitted he had casual sex with the suspected Chinese spy more than once between 2012 and 2015. He told agents it was casual and that he never dated her. Fang had helped with fundraising and placed interns in his office; a significant security risk.
The timing is almost poetic. Days after the public learned the details of his relationship with a suspected Chinese spy, federal agents confiscated his devices. What remained of his carefully constructed public persona,the one that once allowed him to lecture the country on morality and democracy, collapsed four months ago. Now the evidence is in federal hands.
Swalwell, normally quite vocal, has for some reason stayed mostly silent since leaving office.
