Here's the thing. You can resign from Congress, suspend your gubernatorial campaign, and still — apparently — run a fully operational donor-funded legal-defense operation out of the wreckage.
Eric Swalwell's dormant campaign committee reported paying roughly $150,000 to the San Francisco law firm Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP between May 17 and June 30, according to financial disclosures filed Friday. That follows a $50,000 payment to the same firm before May 16, previously reported by the New York Post. Swalwell has used the firm since 2016 and has paid it over $300,000 in campaign funds over the years, describing the expenditures as responses to 'politically motivated actors.'
The legal spending comes on top of a separate California ethics probe into more than $300,000 in payments made to celebrity defense attorney Sara Azari, who has publicly defended Swalwell against the allegations. A spokesperson for the California Fair Political Practices Commission told The California Post there are no updates on any investigations.
Swalwell's political collapse began in April after the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN published allegations from multiple women accusing him of rape, sexual assault, and other misconduct. He has denied the allegations while acknowledging what he called 'mistakes in judgment.' He suspended his gubernatorial campaign on April 12 and resigned from Congress days later. Prosecutors in Manhattan and Los Angeles County are now investigating alleged rape incidents.
The campaign's spending history is not limited to attorneys. Swalwell's committee has previously drawn scrutiny for expenditures on chauffeured black cars, alcohol deliveries, and babysitters.
The bipartisan response was swift, if overdue. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) introduced legislation this week to ban the use of federal campaign funds for costs related to sexual misconduct allegations — covering settlements, judgments, private investigators, and legal fees. Reimbursement would only be available if the candidate is ultimately found not liable.
'Money donated to support a political campaign should not become a personal legal-defense fund for alleged sexual misconduct,' Khanna said in a statement.
Voltage take: The Khanna-Luna bill names a principle that should have been obvious: donor money is a political trust, not a personal rainy-day fund. That it took a case this egregious to produce the legislation says something unflattering about how long the practice has been tolerated on both sides of the aisle. The free-market case here is simple — donors are investors, and investors deserve to know their capital isn't being quietly redirected to keep a defunct politician out of a courtroom. Read the changelog: campaign finance law has a serious loophole, and it ships a fix only when the scandal is impossible to ignore.
