Last week at San Francisco International Airport, FBI agents stopped former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and seized his cell phone and MacBook Pro. The next day, they showed up at his Washington, D.C. home with a search warrant.
This is the former Democratic congressman who sat on the House Intelligence Committee for 13 years.
The device seizure is part of a federal investigation into sexual assault allegations made by at least six women against the former California congressman. Swalwell resigned from Congress back in April 2026 and dropped his California gubernatorial bid after CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle detailed the accusations. His seat was filled in a special election won by Aisha Wahab.
The criminal probes aren't limited to the feds. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department have both opened their own investigations. Four women have confirmed to reporters that the FBI contacted them directly as part of the bureau's inquiry.
One of Swalwell's accusers, former staffer Lonna Drewes, alleges the assault occurred in 2018 — while Swalwell was still a sitting member of Congress. Lawyer and advocate Cheyenne Hunt, who has been working with the accusers, put it plainly: "There is a cultural reckoning taking place across the country... abuse, misogyny, and violence against women are no longer just liabilities — they're disqualifiers."
Swalwell issued a statement that tried to split the difference: "I will fight the serious false allegations made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make." The precise nature of those admitted "mistakes" remains conveniently vague.
And then there's the other elephant in the room — the one with ties to Beijing. Declassified FBI documents confirmed that Swalwell had multiple sexual encounters with Christine "Fang Fang" Fang, a suspected Chinese intelligence operative whose parents were reportedly known Chinese intelligence officers with ties to China's Ministry of State Security. The FBI's own records show the last encounter occurred in March 2015. They first interviewed Swalwell about Fang two months later, in May 2015, and again in March 2016.
He stayed on the Intelligence Committee anyway.
That's the part that should stick with you. A man the FBI had to sit down — twice — to discuss his romantic entanglement with a suspected foreign spy continued to receive classified national security briefings for years afterward. He spent that time lecturing the rest of us about Russian collusion and the sacred duty of protecting American intelligence assets.
Swalwell was not arrested or detained during Saturday's device seizure. He walked away from SFO without handcuffs. But the FBI doesn't grab a former congressman's electronics at an airport terminal because they're curious about his playlist.
Thirteen years on the Intelligence Committee, a relationship with a suspected Chinese agent, and now at least six women saying he assaulted them. The phone the FBI took Saturday night might have answers. The real question is why it took this long to ask for it.