Federal agents raided a Beverly Hills mansion belonging to billionaire Stephen Cloobeck on Tuesday morning as part of an investigation into former Rep. Eric Swalwell, Fox News has learned. At least two dozen FBI agents hit the massive property at around 6 a.m. local time and searched it for several hours. Several people were taken out in handcuffs, though they were all released shortly after.
Talk about taking the probe where the sun doesn’t shine. FBI is elbow-deep into Swalwell and what they find might stink worse than you could imagine. Just another upstanding Democrat, right?
Cloobeck wasn’t home when agents executed the search warrant. His attorneys confirmed that and said he “continues to have faith in this country’s judicial process,” which is lawyer-speak for “please stop looking at us.” The raid was linked to a sex worker reportedly connected to the broader Swalwell investigation, and Cloobeck is a longtime financial backer of the disgraced former congressman’s political campaigns. Nothing says “I believe in a candidate” like getting your mansion raided by the FBI over him.
For those who need a refresher on how Swalwell ended up here, Eric Swalwell FBI investigation lays out the full, remarkable collapse of a man who once served on the House Intelligence Committee. At least five women, including one former staffer, have accused Swalwell of sexual misconduct or rape. He resigned from Congress in April, withdrew from California’s gubernatorial race, and watched FBI agents seize his electronic devices at San Francisco International Airport back in August. He was not arrested or detained at the time.
If all that weren’t enough, the White House this week declassified documents related to a separate FBI probe into Swalwell’s relationship with Christine “Fang Fang” Fang, a suspected Chinese intelligence operative. According to the declassified FBI records released Monday by the White House’s Government Transparency Task Force, Swalwell told agents he had “physical relations” with Fang on a handful of occasions, with their last encounter in March 2015. Fang’s parents were reportedly considered known Chinese intelligence officers, and she had suspected ties to China’s Ministry of State Security. A sitting congressman. On the Intelligence Committee. Outstanding.
Swalwell spent 13 years in Congress before leaving under threat of expulsion. “I will fight the serious false allegations made against me,” he wrote when he resigned. “However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make.” So to summarize: the allegations are false, but also he made mistakes. Clear as mud. On top of all this, Cloobeck himself was arrested earlier this year in an unrelated case involving charges of attempting to influence witnesses in a criminal case against his fiancée, because apparently everybody in this story is having a very bad year.
The investigation continues to expand, and authorities have offered no details on what they found inside the Beverly Hills mansion. Swalwell, meanwhile, is out of Congress, out of the governor’s race, and very much still in the FBI’s calendar. For a guy who spent years lecturing America about threats to democracy, he sure has kept federal law enforcement unusually busy.
