The Air Marshals Keeping Watch On Eric Swalwell

On August 8, former Representative Eric Swalwell boarded a United Airlines flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Washington, D.C. He didn’t know it, but federal agents were watching him throughout the nine-hour trip.The FBI had asked the Federal Air Marshal Service to covertly monitor Swalwell on board and to watch him use his electronic devices, to see whether its officers could visually ascertain his passcodes, according to records I obtained that have not previously been reported on. Air marshals are trained to blend in with other passengers and quietly keep tabs on their subjects, who are usually suspected terrorists or potential hijackers, not politicians.But Swalwell is an enemy of sorts to the Trump administration. For years, the Democrat has been one of Donald Trump’s most visible political antagonists, having served as a manager in the president’s second impeachment trial. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has called Swalwell a “scumbag” on national television. And FBI Director Kash Patel, the leader of the agency that wanted Swalwell monitored, described him as one of the “corrupt actors of the first order” in his 2023 book, Government Gangsters.The directive for air-marshal surveillance said that Swalwell was the “focus” of an FBI investigation, but it didn’t provide additional details. Law enforcement has good reason to investigate the 45-year-old. This past spring, a former staff member accused Swalwell of twice raping her while she was intoxicated. A woman in California accused Swalwell of drugging and raping her after he’d promised to assist with her career. Three more women have accused Swalwell of making unwanted advances and sending them lewd text messages, including nude pictures of himself. Swalwell has denied the allegations, but authorities in Los Angeles and Manhattan have opened a criminal investigation. In April, as the number of accusers mounted, Swalwell suspended his campaign for governor of California and resigned from his seat in Congress.A week after the flight from Germany, Swalwell got off another plane at San Francisco International Airport. FBI agents were waiting for him with a search warrant. They seized his mobile phone and personal computer. (It’s not clear whether, by that point, the FBI knew the passcodes to unlock those devices.) The next day, agents searched Swalwell’s home in Washington, D.C. Documents filed in federal court in California suggest that the bureau is investigating Swalwell in connection with the sexual-assault cases in Los Angeles and New York.Despite the seriousness of the accusations against Swalwell, many aspects of the FBI’s request to the Federal Air Marshal Service were unusual, current and former officials told me. For one thing, the FBI does not usually investigate sexual assault. For another, asking air marshals to obtain a subject’s electronic passcodes is considered out of the ordinary even for traditional subjects of surveillance, one former official said. The agency presumes that requests for assistance from the FBI, which are not unusual, are relevant to a legitimate investigation. But the bureau’s behavior here undermines that confidence, the former official added.The request to monitor Swalwell was classified as “Special Mission Coverage,” a term for ad hoc requests from law-enforcement or intelligence agencies that don’t involve people on security watch lists. The FBI’s decision to ask air marshals for help also puzzled some former law-enforcement officials I spoke with, who asked why the FBI hadn’t put its own agents on the plane to conduct surveillance, which would have been a routine matter.Given the public evidence and the history of the Trump administration’s efforts to investigate or discredit Swalwell, current and former officials and security experts told me that they have trouble imagining that the federal government would have gone to such lengths if the accused were not one of the administration’s least favorite people. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they didn’t want to provoke reprisals.Sara Azari, Swalwell’s lawyer, told me in a statement that Swalwell has been in contact with the Department of Justice throughout the assault investigation. “Not once were we asked for Mr. Swalwell’s phones or devices. Had the DOJ asked, we would have complied, as we have with every other request,” she said. Azari called the air-marshal surveillance an “extraordinary escalation” against her client, who has not been charged with a crime.The FBI declined to comment. The Transportation Security Administration, which runs the air-marshals service, didn’t respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment.The midair surveillance of the former lawmaker is not the only unusual step the federal government has taken in this case. The warrant used to seize Swalwell’s electronic devices cited a civil-rights statute that historically has been applied to police officers who abuse their authority while acting “under color of law.” It traces its origins to the 19th century and was used in the 1960s to charge local police in Mississippi who conspired with Klansmen to murder civil-rights workers. Decades later, two of the police officers who’d beaten Rodney King were convicted under the law. And it was used to bring federal charges against Derek Chauvin, the officer convicted in Minnesota of killing George Floyd.The FBI hasn’t publicly articulated its rationale for applying the law to Swalwell. But one theory, according to legal experts I spoke with, may be that he used the power of his office to intimidate his alleged victims into silence. Prosecutors might believe that there’s evidence of coercion or threats in Swalwell’s electronic communications.But it’s not clear that the law would apply to a legislator as it does to law-enforcement officials, who have the power to detain people. “Mr. Swalwell’s private relationships between consenting adults have nothing to do with his office, his authority, or his official duties,” his lawyer said.The fact that details about the search of Swalwell’s devices and home are publicly known is also a departure from usual law-enforcement procedure. The inventory of what the agents took from him at the San Francisco airport, which should have been kept under seal, was somehow made public.Under Patel, the FBI has publicized its investigative steps against high-profile suspects before they have been charged. In August 2025, Patel posted on X about an imminent FBI action just as agents began raiding the home of former National Security Adviser John Bolton, a Trump critic. Broadcasting a secret operation in advance could tip off a suspect and potentially put agents in physical danger. At least one news organization appeared to have known ahead of time about the Bolton raid. A month later, Patel posted that “the subject” in the murder of Charlie Kirk was in custody, hours before it was true. He also posted details about leads that agents were following in the Kirk case, which could have jeopardized the investigation.Read: The FBI director is MIAIt’s possible that the FBI is interested in Swalwell for reasons that go beyond his alleged treatment of women. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating his employment of a nanny from Brazil. Swalwell is also among the Trump critics whom Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte criminally referred to the Department of Justice over alleged mortgage fraud. Swalwell has never been charged, however, and experts have pointed out that Pulte’s allegations against officials probably reflect paperwork errors, not genuine attempts to defraud lenders.Swalwell was also once a subject in a counterintelligence investigation of a suspected agent for China’s intelligence service. But in 2017, the FBI cleared him, and the Justice Department didn’t file charges. A former U.S. official familiar with the case told me that the representative had cooperated with investigators after they’d presented him with evidence that the woman he knew might be a foreign operative.Last month, the administration made the unusual decision to publicly release classified FBI files related to that investigation. Swalwell’s conservative critics have long been obsessed with the case of Christine Fang, known as Fang Fang, who the files show was suspected of working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The files helped the public understand more details about Chinese espionage. But they also revealed that Swalwell had admitted to having a physical relationship with Fang. Embarrassing Swalwell might have been the point of disclosing the documents.Patel has made no secret of his contempt for Swalwell. During a House Judiciary Committee hearing last September, when Swalwell was a member, they sparred over whether Trump’s name appeared in files from the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, and what Patel had told then–Attorney General Pam Bondi about the matter. Swalwell accused Patel of being evasive and showing “consciousness of guilt.”Swalwell then cited Patel’s book, in which Swalwell’s name appears on a list of “deep state” actors. Twenty of those people, Swalwell said, had already been investigated or faced “adverse actions.” He asked whether Patel would recuse himself from any investigations of the people he had named, including Swalwell.“I’m going to borrow your terminology and call bullshit on your entire career in Congress. It has been a disgrace to the American people,” Patel said. The two men spoke over each other.Finally, the FBI director answered Swalwell’s question. “No,” he said, he would not recuse.Madison Hahamy and Marie-Rose Sheinerman contributed research to this story.*Illustration Sources: Tierney L. Cross / Bloomberg / Getty; Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc / Getty.