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California Democrat Representative Eric Swalwell, recently kicked off the House Intelligence Committee because he’d had an affair with a Chinese spy, sure seems to know how to spend other people’s money. RedState has covered his profligate ways before, but now Fox News is reporting some new numbers that are truly jaw-dropping.

To wit, during the 2022 election cycle, Swalwell’s campaign spent nearly $583,000 on travel expenses, using donated money to pay for limousines, flights, yachts, and fancy hotels.

He even outspent former House Speaker (but still congresswoman) Nancy Pelosi, who managed to blow only a paltry $434,000 during the two-year cycle.

He spent about 3x his congressional salary in lavish travel expenses …

Eric Swalwell spent more campaign cash on travel and luxury accommodations than Nancy Pelosihttps://t.co/SLwqUS83BU

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) February 21, 2023

While most Americans are struggling with the impact of Biden’s inflation and just trying to get by, Swalwell was livin’ la vida loca at resorts around the globe. Check out some of these “political” expenses:

• $20,240 to the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, where his wife was the sales director until 2019
• $1,800 at the Paris five-star Hotel La Maison Champs-Elysées
• $3,538.94 at the Ritz Hotel Paris
• $4,708 at Loews Miami Beach
• $28,646 at Just Dreaming Yacht Charters, which, according to their website, “offers a relaxing and luxurious setting for up to 40 passengers.”
• $131,000 in childcare expenses

I bolded the childcare expenses because when I first saw the number I figured it must be a misprint. How do you spend $131,000 in childcare expenses alone? What, was each kid staying in a separate room at the Plaza for the entire campaign? Swalwell has three children, so that comes out to almost $44,000 a kid. Um… Okay.

In the “Meet Eric” section, his official website says, “Growing up in what now is California’s Fourteenth Congressional District taught Eric Swalwell a lot about hard work, strong principles, and planning for a brighter future.” Somewhere along the line he also learned that you could lead a pretty luxe life using people’s hard-earned cash they donated to him.

I understand that life has gotten more expensive under the Biden Administration and that campaign costs add up, but I’m having trouble understanding how throwing around thousands of dollars in luxury hotel stays in France helps you reach out to the California voters in your district. Possibly the costs were so exorbitant because he had to get rooms for all those staffers?

Except that he actually only had two paid aides during the 2022 election cycle. That’s probably because his seat was never really in jeopardy. He won over 69% of the vote, and the area hasn’t been represented by a Republican since 1993.

Swalwell is no stranger to creating headlines; he can be relied upon to regularly deliver ridiculous “hot takes” which he seems to think show his towering intellect but actually just make him look like a fool. Recently, as my colleague Nick Arama reported, he re-tweeted a post from Carpe Donktum that said, “I want to thank you @RepSwalwell @ericswalwell for standing up and saying the truth!”

The gullible representative shared the post thinking he was being celebrated on the internet, but it was actually a video of one of his speeches with fart noises added after almost every sentence. (If you’re into juvenile humor it’s pretty funny.)

Trump dunked on Swalwell Wednesday, mocking the Californian for getting booted off the Intelligence Committee after the affair with Chinese spy Fang Fang:

NEW!

President Donald J. Trump:

“Little respected Rep. Eric Swalwell was just kicked off the Intelligence Committee for reasons of “Integrity and lack of Intelligence” &, for having the poor judgment of dating and falling desperately in love with a Chinese Spy, Fang Fang… pic.twitter.com/898QJss75r

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) February 22, 2023

While it’s fun to ridicule Swalwell, these lavish campaign expenses do raise serious questions. Why almost $30,000 in yacht spending? All that time in Paris? Did donors really give their money thinking the Swalwell would spend over $100K of it on childcare?

When you outspend Pelosi, you know you’re really working hard at it.