Former Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., directed more than $360,000 from his congressional and gubernatorial campaign accounts to celebrity defense attorney Sara Azari in the weeks after he resigned from Congress and abandoned his bid for governor, payments now under formal investigation by California's campaign finance watchdog.

The payments, documented in California Secretary of State records and first detailed by Fox News Digital, raise pointed questions about whether donor money raised to win elections was instead spent defending Swalwell against sexual misconduct allegations that ended his political career.

The trail starts eleven days after Swalwell left Congress. On April 24, his campaign cut a $50,000 check to Azari for "Legal and Accounting Services." In early May, his gubernatorial campaign made three additional payments to the same attorney, including a single $250,000 disbursement labeled "campaign legal compliance." The combined total exceeded $360,000.

A political collapse paid for by donors

Swalwell's fall was swift. After allegations from several women surfaced, accusing him of pursuing intoxicated women, pressuring employees into intimate situations, and soliciting explicit images, CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle published reporting that forced even high-ranking Democrats to pull their support. Swalwell suspended his gubernatorial campaign and resigned from Congress, issuing a statement that tried to thread a needle between denial and contrition:

"I am deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I've made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegations made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make."

He now faces criminal investigations in both New York and Los Angeles, plus a separate Justice Department inquiry into the alleged sexual misconduct. The Washington Examiner reported that the DOJ, Manhattan DA, and Los Angeles prosecutors all opened separate probes, a rare convergence of legal exposure for a single former member of Congress.

Against that backdrop, the campaign spending takes on a different character. The question is not whether Swalwell needed a lawyer. He clearly did. The question is whether campaign donors, people who gave money to elect him, should be footing the bill for his personal legal defense.

California regulators step in

They are not the only ones asking. The California Fair Political Practices Commission launched a formal investigation on May 28 into Swalwell's 2026 gubernatorial campaign committee over potential illegal use of donor funds for personal legal expenses. The New York Post reported that the FPPC probe was triggered by the ballooning payments to Azari, which grew from an initial $40,000 to more than $300,000.

FPPC Assistant Chief Christopher Burton stated in the investigation letter: "At this time, we have not made any determination about the possible violations." But the mere opening of a formal probe signals that regulators see enough to warrant scrutiny.

Campaign finance law generally prohibits candidates from converting campaign funds to personal use. Legal fees connected to a candidate's official duties can qualify as legitimate campaign expenditures. Legal fees arising from personal conduct, such as defending against sexual misconduct allegations unrelated to one's service, typically do not.

Swalwell's campaign records listed the payments under headings like "Legal and Accounting Services" and "campaign legal compliance." Those labels do not, on their own, establish that the spending was lawful. Whether the underlying services actually related to campaign activity or to Swalwell's personal legal exposure is precisely what the FPPC investigation appears designed to determine.

A pattern of questionable campaign spending

The payments to Azari are not the first time Swalwell's campaign finances have drawn scrutiny. As the Washington Free Beacon documented, Swalwell's campaign paid over $22,000 in twelve transactions to his nanny between January 1 and April 18 of this year alone. Over his career, he has spent more campaign funds on babysitters than any other member of Congress, more than $238,000 to various babysitters and daycares since 2019.

His campaign records also show thousands spent on alcohol deliveries, luxury hotels, and steakhouse dinners, a lifestyle funded by political donors who thought they were backing a candidate, not subsidizing personal comfort.

The Washington Examiner noted that Swalwell's FEC filings show he spent more than $2,500 on child care expenses using his federal campaign funds, potentially while campaigning for California governor rather than his congressional seat. Attorney Steve Roberts of Lex Politica told the outlet that if Swalwell was using federal campaign money while running for state office, "he and his campaign could be on the hook for hefty financial penalties."

The celebrity lawyer who stood by him

Sara Azari, who runs law offices in Los Angeles and New York, was described as one of the few voices willing to defend Swalwell publicly after his resignation. In April, she released a lengthy statement on X calling the allegations against him "a ruthless and shameless attempt to smear Congressman Swalwell." She added:

"The timing, nature, and coordinated rollout of these vile and heinous allegations speak for themselves."

In a separate interview with NewsNation, Azari offered a more specific defense of her client's conduct. She argued that regret does not constitute a crime, a framing that drew its own criticism:

"The fact that, you know, a day later, years later, or whatnot, you maybe had shame around what you did, or maybe you were in a relationship and shouldn't have done what you did, doesn't make it rape."

On another occasion, Azari praised Swalwell's decision to step down, calling it "a tremendous amount of accountability", though she was careful to add that his resignation did not amount to an admission. Fox News Digital reported that Azari did not respond to questions about the payments or what services they covered.

The fact that Swalwell's most prominent public defender was simultaneously receiving six-figure payments from his campaign accounts is a detail voters and donors deserve to understand. It does not prove wrongdoing. But it raises an obvious question about whether the public advocacy was legal representation, political crisis management, or something else entirely, and whether any of it should have been funded by campaign donors.

A cable news fixture until the end

Even as the allegations mounted, Swalwell remained a fixture on liberal cable news. The Media Research Center found that he appeared on MSNBC 26 times and on CNN 24 times in 2026 alone, 50 combined appearances on two networks that gave him a platform to shape his image while investigations were underway.

That media access makes the question of what Azari's $360,000 in payments actually bought all the more relevant. Was she providing legal counsel for criminal defense? Campaign compliance work? Or media strategy dressed up in legal billing codes? The campaign records do not say, and neither Swalwell nor Azari has explained.

Swalwell is hardly the only House Democrat caught up in personal scandal in recent months. But the financial dimension of his case sets it apart. Most members who resign do so and move on. Swalwell resigned and then spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of other people's money.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has set an August 2026 special election to fill Swalwell's vacant congressional seat. The voters of California's 10th District will choose a new representative. Whether Swalwell's donors will ever see accountability for how their contributions were spent is a separate matter, one now in the hands of state regulators and federal investigators.

The pattern is familiar among a certain class of elected officials who treat campaign accounts like personal slush funds. Democratic donors and operatives have faced serious legal consequences for financial misconduct before. Whether Swalwell joins that list depends on what investigators find behind those vague line items.

What remains unanswered

Several questions remain open. What specific services did Azari provide for $360,000? Does she represent Swalwell in the New York and Los Angeles criminal investigations, the DOJ inquiry, or in some other capacity? Are any of the payments defensible as legitimate campaign expenditures under California and federal law? And how do the remaining payments, beyond the $50,000 and $250,000 that have been identified, break down between his congressional and gubernatorial accounts?

Neither Swalwell nor Azari has answered these questions publicly. The FPPC has not yet reached a determination. The criminal investigations continue.

Meanwhile, other House Democrats have stepped down under their own clouds of controversy, but few have left behind a financial paper trail quite this brazen. Swalwell managed to lose his seat, face criminal probes in two states and a federal inquiry, and still find a way to bill his donors for the fallout.

Campaign donors gave money to put Eric Swalwell in office. They did not sign up to fund his personal defense. If regulators and prosecutors do their jobs, the people who wrote those checks may finally learn exactly what they paid for.