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FBI Searches Swalwell Donor’s Mansion: Two Searches, No Charges Yet

FBI agents searched Stephen Cloobeck’s Beverly Hills mansion in the Eric Swalwell investigation, the second known search after August. No one has been charged and the warrant is sealed. What is on the record, what is alleged, and what is not established.

The J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI headquarters, on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
FBI headquarters, Washington, D.C. Photo: Ajay Suresh, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Federal agents searched the Beverly Hills home of Stephen Cloobeck, a former donor to Eric Swalwell, on October 27. It is the second known search in the federal investigation of the former congressman, after a search in August. Nobody has been charged. The warrant and its supporting affidavit are sealed. Below is what the public record shows, what has only been alleged, and what nobody outside the case knows yet.

What happened on North Roxbury Drive

FBI agents executed a search warrant early Tuesday, October 27, at a mansion on North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills. The Associated Press, citing two people familiar with the investigation, reported that the search was part of the federal inquiry into former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). The house belongs to Stephen Cloobeck, the founder of Diamond Resorts International and a former donor to Swalwell. The same AP sources said Swalwell spent time at the house before he resigned from Congress in April.

The FBI said very little. Spokesperson Lourdes Arocho told the AP: “Early this morning the FBI conducted an operation in the Los Angeles region related to an ongoing criminal investigation. We have no further comment.” ABC7 Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Times reported that the court documents are sealed.

Cloobeck was not there. His attorneys said in a statement that “Mr. Cloobeck was not home when the search warrant was executed” and that he still has faith in the judicial process. No arrests were announced. Forbes, citing the Los Angeles Times, reported that the FBI said no arrests were planned.

Fox News reported more than that. According to Fox, at least two dozen agents searched the property for several hours, and several people were led out in handcuffs and released soon after. Fox also reported that the search was linked to a sex worker said to be connected to the investigation. RSN could not confirm these details. The AP, ABC7, FOX 11 Los Angeles and Newsweek did not report them, and Fox attributed them to people it did not name.

The donor whose house was searched

Cloobeck’s money has backed Swalwell for most of a decade. Federal campaign finance records show he gave more than $23,000 to Swalwell’s congressional campaigns from 2017 on, according to the AP. Cloobeck ran briefly for California governor in 2025, then dropped out and endorsed Swalwell. Forbes reports that he gave $39,200 to Swalwell’s campaign for governor and $1 million through a super PAC supporting him.

That ended in April, after the allegations against Swalwell became public. Cloobeck told the New York Post he was “no longer associated with a man that takes advantage of women.” Forbes reported that he asked for the $1 million back and said he would no longer support Swalwell or the Democratic Party.

Cloobeck has his own criminal case, which has nothing to do with Swalwell. On May 12 he surrendered to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has charged him with three felony counts of attempting to dissuade a witness and one misdemeanor count of making “annoying telephone calls.” NBC Los Angeles reported that the witnesses in question are connected to the prosecution of his fiancée, Adva Lavie, who is charged with burglarizing and stealing from men she met online. Cloobeck posted $300,000 bail and pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Elias Dabaie, said: “These charges are false and we look forward to our day in court.”

Being the owner of a searched house does not make someone a suspect. Neither the FBI nor any court record has said whether Cloobeck is a subject of the federal investigation. Agents may simply have been looking for evidence about events that happened at his home.

How Swalwell got here

In early April 2026, Swalwell was a leading Democratic candidate for governor of California. Then the San Francisco Chronicle reported, and CNN followed, that he had sexually assaulted a woman twice, including while she worked for him. CNN reported that three other women described other misconduct, including unsolicited explicit messages and nude photos.

Things moved quickly after that. Swalwell quit the governor’s race on Sunday, April 12. On Monday, April 13, the House Ethics Committee announced an investigation into whether he had engaged in sexual misconduct toward an employee he supervised, and Swalwell said he would resign. His resignation took effect at 2 p.m. Eastern on April 14, according to ABC7. He wrote that he was “aware of efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote” and said expulsion without due process would be “wrong.” He went on: “I am deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past.” He also said: “I will fight the serious false allegation made against me.” He did not say which “mistakes” he meant.

More allegations followed. A former staffer alleged that Swalwell raped her at a New York City hotel during a 2024 charity gala, and the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed it was investigating. Lonna Drewes, a California woman, alleged that Swalwell raped her at a Southern California hotel in 2018. She said she had one glass of wine and believes he drugged her. Swalwell denied that allegation too. The AP’s reporting from October 27 says Los Angeles prosecutors were reportedly weighing charges. It gives no further detail.

Then came the August search. The AP reported, citing a person familiar with the matter, that federal agents seized Swalwell’s electronic devices at San Francisco International Airport on a Saturday. They searched his Washington, D.C., home the next day. He was not arrested. Drewes’s attorney, Arick Fudali, told the AP the “escalation” of the FBI’s investigation was encouraging.

The Fang Fang files are a separate matter

The Beverly Hills search came right after renewed attention to an older story, Swalwell’s contact with Christine “Fang Fang” Fang, a suspected Chinese intelligence operative. On August 17, the White House Transparency Task Force released declassified FBI records on that relationship, ABC News reported. Fox News reported another release of declassified records on Monday, October 26. RSN could not determine whether the October release contained anything that was not already in the August set.

As ABC described the records, Swalwell told FBI investigators in May 2015 that he had physical relations with Fang “on a handful of occasions” but never dated her. A later interview summary says he “barely remembers the event because he had taken an Ambien prior to Fang arriving.” The FBI did not find a crime. A 2017 memo said agents had “not found violations of federal corruption statutes perpetrated by Congressman Eric Swalwell,” and the closing memo said the investigation “did not reveal evidence of a quid pro quo exchange between Fang and the Congressman or his office.” The House Ethics Committee opened a probe in 2021 and closed it in 2023 without taking action. That same year, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy removed Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee because of the Fang contact.

Swalwell’s attorney, Sara Azari, responded to the August release: “There is nothing new here.” She said he “did nothing wrong, and there was no basis to charge him with any offense.”

No public evidence connects the Fang records to the current criminal investigation. The current case is about allegations of sexual misconduct. The Fang investigation was a counterintelligence matter that closed years ago without charges. Both stories involve the same man, but nothing on the record shows they are legally connected.

Proven, alleged, not established

On the record:

  • The FBI carried out a court-authorized operation in the Los Angeles region on October 27 as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. The FBI confirmed this.
  • Swalwell resigned from Congress effective April 14, 2026, while facing calls for an expulsion vote. He confirmed this in his own statement.
  • Cloobeck faces state charges of attempting to dissuade a witness in an unrelated case and has pleaded not guilty.
  • The FBI’s own records say the Fang investigation found no corruption violation and no quid pro quo by Swalwell.

Reported by credible outlets, citing unnamed sources:

  • The Beverly Hills search belongs to the Swalwell investigation. (AP, two sources; ABC7.)
  • Swalwell stayed at Cloobeck’s home before he resigned. (AP sources.)
  • In August, agents seized Swalwell’s devices and searched his D.C. home. (AP, one source.)

Alleged, and denied by Swalwell: the sexual assault and rape accusations made by at least two women, plus the misconduct accounts of three others reported by CNN.

Not established:

  • Which federal law is being investigated. Sexual assault is usually a state crime, and the FBI has not said what gives the federal government jurisdiction here.
  • Whether Cloobeck is a subject or simply the owner of a place where evidence might be.
  • The handcuff and sex worker details. Only Fox News reported them.
  • Whether the Fang releases have anything to do with the criminal case.
  • Whether anyone will be charged.

The case for patience, and the case against it

Swalwell’s defenders have a point. He spent years as one of President Trump’s loudest critics, served as an impeachment manager, and accused FBI Director Kash Patel of digging up the Fang story for political reasons. The current administration released old counterintelligence files about him in August, and Fox News reported another release the day before agents showed up at a donor’s door. His attorney says the Fang material contains nothing new. A search warrant is not a charge, and Swalwell has not been charged with anything.

Their argument has limits, though. The sexual misconduct allegations did not come from the Trump administration. A San Francisco newspaper and CNN reported them first. A Democratic district attorney in Manhattan opened his own investigation. Swalwell resigned before the House voted, and in his resignation statement he acknowledged unspecified “mistakes.” A federal search warrant also needs a judge to find probable cause that evidence of a crime will be found in the place to be searched. Judges have now made that finding at least twice in this case, once for Washington in August and once for Beverly Hills in October. That does not prove Swalwell or anyone else is guilty. It does mean the investigation is more than a news cycle.

RSN has watched this pattern before. In 2015 we reported that federal agents were seeking records from former Rep. Aaron Schock, an Illinois Republican who had resigned months earlier. Schock was indicted in 2016. In 2019 he made a deal that let him avoid a felony conviction, and the charges were dismissed that September. Resignations, searches and leaks do not tell you how a case will end. The same goes for the timing of disclosures about politicians under investigation, a question RSN looked at in 2016 when James Comey explained why he told Congress about the reopened Clinton email inquiry days before an election.

What to watch

  • The warrant papers. Media organizations sometimes ask courts to unseal search warrant affidavits. If that happens here, the affidavit will name the statute under investigation.
  • Manhattan and Los Angeles. State prosecutors can bring charges whatever the FBI decides.
  • Cloobeck’s own case. He is a defendant in a state witness-dissuasion case, which could affect whether he cooperates with federal investigators.
  • The Justice Department’s next move. After two searches and more than six months, DOJ owes the public either charges or a closed file. A federal investigation into a former member of Congress that stays open forever helps neither the accusers nor the accused. RSN has covered what happens when politically charged prosecutions reach a grand jury and when a judge orders prosecutors to answer under oath.

Sources

Featured image: FBI headquarters (J. Edgar Hoover Building), Washington, D.C. Photo by Ajay Suresh, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed against the cited sources before publication.