Eric Swalwell — the former congressman who somehow managed to get caught up with a Chinese intelligence operative, sit on the House Intelligence Committee anyway, face multiple ethics complaints, get accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, and STILL walk around Washington like he was the main character — just got busted spending $75,000 from his defunct campaign account on personal expenses. Hotels. Food. Uber rides. From a campaign that doesn’t even exist anymore.
Most politicians at least wait until they’re OUT of trouble before they start the grift. Swalwell can’t even do corruption right.
Let’s unpack this beautiful disaster, because it’s like watching a guy fall down a flight of stairs in slow motion and somehow hit every single step on the way down.
Swalwell’s campaign is dead. Over. Finished. He resigned from Congress in disgrace — which, for a Democrat, takes an almost Olympic level of scandal. The campaign account should have been shut down, donated to charity, returned to donors, or literally anything other than what Swalwell did with it, which was apparently treat it like his personal Amex Black Card.
Seventy-five thousand dollars. On hotels, food, and Uber rides.
Pop quiz: What kind of hotels is Eric Swalwell staying at? Because $75K buys a lot of Hampton Inns. We’re guessing he wasn’t exactly roughing it at a Motel 6 off the interstate. No, no — this is the same guy who managed to expense his lifestyle while serving in Congress. Old habits die hard. Especially when the money isn’t yours.
And the Uber rides! Can you imagine being Eric Swalwell’s Uber driver? You pick up a disgraced former congressman reeking of scandal, and he tips you with money that some retired lady in California donated because she thought he was going to “fight for democracy” or whatever bumper-sticker slogan he was selling. That donor thought she was helping save America. Instead, she bought Eric a ride to brunch.
Ka-ching!
The campaign finance rules on this are actually pretty clear. When a campaign shuts down, leftover funds can go to charity, to a political party, or back to donors. What you can NOT do is use the money to fund your post-political lifestyle of hotel stays and takeout. That’s not a gray area. That’s not a technicality. That’s just stealing with extra steps.
But this is Eric Swalwell we’re talking about. The man has the survival instincts of a lemming and the self-awareness of a golden retriever chasing its own tail. He got romantically entangled with a Chinese spy named Fang Fang — yes, that was really her name — and when it came out, he acted like it was no big deal. “These things happen.” Sure, Eric. Every member of the Intelligence Committee gets compromised by a foreign asset. Totally normal Tuesday.
The Democrats didn’t even remove him from the Intelligence Committee at first. They circled the wagons. Pelosi said she had “no knowledge” of the situation, which is Washington-speak for “please stop asking me about this.”
Then came the sexual misconduct allegations. Multiple accusers. Then came the ethics complaints. Then came the resignation. And now — the cherry on top of this scandal sundae — we find out he’s been raiding his own dead campaign’s piggy bank to pay for dinner and hotel rooms.
This is what happens when there’s no accountability. Swalwell skated on the Chinese spy thing. He skated on the Intelligence Committee thing. Democrats protected him at every turn. So why WOULDN’T he think he could spend campaign cash on personal expenses? Nobody’s stopped him from doing anything else.
That’s the real story here. It’s not just that Swalwell is a walking scandal factory — it’s that the Democrat Party let him become one. They had a dozen opportunities to cut him loose and they didn’t. They looked the other way on Fang Fang. They looked the other way on the misconduct allegations. And now they’re going to look the other way on $75,000 in misused campaign funds because admitting Swalwell is corrupt means admitting they enabled it.
The guy managed to turn a congressional career into a personal slush fund, a national security liability, and a punchline — all at the same time. That takes a special kind of talent.
So here’s to Eric Swalwell, the scandal that keeps on giving. Somewhere out there, a retired schoolteacher who donated $25 to his campaign is finding out it went toward his Uber Eats order at a four-star hotel. And somewhere in Beijing, Fang Fang is reading this article and thinking, “Even I didn’t take him for THIS much.”
