Rep. Eric Swalwell Continues Lavish Campaign Spending on Airfare, Foreign Hotels

Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-CA) reelection campaign is continuing its lavish spending patterns, which include foreign trips to Europe and luxury hotels, according to a pre-primary report reviewed by Fox News.

Swalwell, whose campaign has previously come under fire for spending thousands on travel expenses well outside of his California district, has maintained these spending levels into the campaign’s second quarter.

Despite Swalwell’s campaign only having two paid staffers, the campaign reportedly spent nearly $60,000 in travel expenses over the first six weeks of the second quarter from April 1 to May 18.

For example, Swalwell spent $1,752 at Paris’s Hotel La Maison Champs-Elysées, where rooms are roughly $1,000 per night. During the same period, Swalwell’s campaign spent $4,708 at Loews Miami Beach, a luxury hotel where rooms go for as much as $3,700 per night for the presidential suite.

Further, Swalwell’s campaign dropped nearly $38,000 on travel expenses from May 19 to June 30. The campaign reported a $3,538.94 expenditure on a late-May fundraising event at France’s Ritz Paris, an upscale hotel with pricey reservations and “lavish” bars.

“With bars, we set the bar high. The lavish Bar Vendôme, the stellar new Ritz Bar and the iconic Bar Hemingway each boasts a menu of cocktails, from classic to unique. One’s guaranteed to hit the spot,” the hotel’s website reads.

Given these trips are far removed from his home district, the campaign reported spending $13,312 on United Airlines flights, $7,815 on American Airlines, and roughly $1,300 on Alaska Airlines tickets.

Swalwell also spent close to $6,000 on luxury limo services, which is on top of the tens of thousands he spent in 2021 on luxury limos and alcohol.

With tens of thousands spent on travel expenses, these expenditures were more than what he spent on “communications consulting” and “fundraising services” combined, Fox News detailed.

However, after spending money on foreign trips, Swalwell now wants to use his campaign cash to help raise his children.

In May, Swalwell’s campaign lawyer reportedly sent a letter to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) asking to use campaign cash to pay for babysitters for his three children while he takes government-sponsored foreign trips.

“The congressman’s campaign lawyer argued that his status as a ‘well-known member of Congress’ and a ‘prolific fundraiser’ has gotten him ‘many invitations’ to go to events, ‘including invitations from foreign governments for information gathering visits,’ which means he would be gone on overnight trips,” Breitbart News’s Jacob Bliss detailed.