The FBI raided a $26 million Beverly Hills mansion belonging to billionaire Democrat donor Stephen Cloobeck on Tuesday — and if an ordinary American faced the same federal heat, there'd be no Malibu birthday dinner the night before, no sprawling estate to retreat to, and certainly no gentle press profiles softening the blow.
The raid connects directly to the sprawling investigation into former Congressman Eric Swalwell, with a senior law enforcement official telling the New York Post the search was linked to a sex worker. Agents carried high-powered rifles and wore night-vision goggles. They were seeking items inside the home — a source told the Post that Cloobeck kept company servers on the premises.
Cloobeck was spotted outside the mansion in tense conversation with two men hours after the raid. Attempts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful. The night before, he'd been celebrating his birthday at a Malibu restaurant, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.
This is the same mansion where Swalwell — now under investigation by multiple prosecutors in New York and California over sexual assault and rape accusations from several women — frequently stayed. Swalwell even filmed a video there in April denying sexual misconduct allegations. The following week, he resigned from Congress and suspended his gubernatorial campaign.
Follow the money: Cloobeck was among Swalwell's biggest benefactors, spending more than $1 million supporting his gubernatorial bid, contributing the maximum $39,200 directly to his campaign, and providing a $31,000 trip to France in 2024. That's the kind of access a working American will never purchase.
Both the New York Post and the Daily Caller covered the raid as a breaking story tied to the Swalwell probe. Neither outlet soft-pedaled the sex worker connection or the tactical nature of the raid. But the broader pattern holds: when connected Democrat megadonors land in federal crosshairs, the system's gravity is different. Cloobeck faces three felony counts of attempting to dissuade a witness or victim from testifying and one misdemeanor count of making annoying phone calls — charges stemming from the case against his former fiancée, Adva Lavie, a former Penthouse Pet and OnlyFans model accused of using dating apps to target wealthy older men and steal from them. He called off the wedding. The feds showed up anyway.
Cloobeck eventually booted Swalwell from the mansion, claiming he'd been deceived. "I am no longer supporting Eric," Cloobeck previously told the Post. "F—ing tell everyone I'm a libertarian. F— you, Democrat Party. I'm a libertarian now."
A man who spent over a million dollars backing a politician now claims he was the mark. Swalwell, for his part, was stopped by federal agents at San Francisco's airport in August and had his electronic devices seized. He hired celebrity attorney Sara Azari, and the six-figure payments prompted a state ethics investigation.
The feds are inside the mansion. The servers are in play. The donor and the politician are both under active investigation. The question isn't whether the powerful have different rules — it's whether anyone will actually be held to them.
