Complaints accuse Eric Swalwell of using campaign funds to pay live-in nanny who lacked work authorization

Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat and frontrunner in the state's governor's race, faces a pair of federal complaints alleging he violated immigration and employment law by keeping a Brazilian nanny on his household payroll, and paying her with campaign money, during a period when she reportedly had no legal authorization to work in the United States.

The complaints, filed with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor, center on Amanda Barbosa, a 33-year-old from Rio de Janeiro who came to the U.S. in January 2021 on an au pair visa and was hired by Swalwell that fall to care for his three children. The DHS complaint, dated Feb. 16, and a newer Department of Labor complaint filed Tuesday, both allege the congressman and his wife, Brittany Swalwell, took steps to keep Barbosa employed even after her work authorization lapsed.

Swalwell has called the allegations "absolutely false" and vowed to "fight them with everything I have." He did not respond to a request for comment from the New York Post, which first reported the details of the complaints. There have been no findings of wrongdoing. But the paper trail laid out in the filings, and in federal campaign-finance records, raises pointed questions about how the congressman handled both his household staffing and his donors' money.

The money trail: from campaign coffers to childcare

Federal Election Commission data, reviewed and analyzed by the Post, show Barbosa received $3,914 in campaign funds in 2021, the year Swalwell hired her. In 2022, that figure ballooned to $46,930. Her au pair visa was set to expire in December 2022, and as that deadline approached, Swalwell began the process of sponsoring Barbosa for a green card through a permanent labor certification application the Post reviewed.

Then the payments stopped, at least the ones bearing Barbosa's name. During 2023 and 2024, FEC records show no direct campaign payments to her. Instead, $52,262 in campaign expenses labeled "childcare" were written off to Swalwell himself, as if he were reimbursing his own account for the cost. The complaints allege this was a workaround: a way to keep Barbosa employed off the books while she lacked valid work authorization.

By 2025, Barbosa was back on the books. FEC data show she received $38,905 in campaign funds from Swalwell that year. The Department of Labor told the Post that the permanent labor certification was approved in 2024, which could explain why her name reappeared on the filings. But the gap, roughly two years of alleged under-the-table payments, is the core of the complaints.

The FEC had issued a 2022 opinion giving Swalwell the green light to use campaign contributions for overnight childcare if the expenses resulted from travel for campaign events. That opinion, however, does not appear to authorize paying a live-in nanny's full-time salary year-round, much less funneling those payments through personal reimbursements to the candidate himself. Fox News reported that the complaint alleges over $52,000 in reimbursed campaign childcare expenses was used as a workaround to keep Barbosa employed.

Social media photos and a vanishing online footprint

The DHS complaint leans heavily on Barbosa's own social media presence, or what remains of it. Her since-deleted Facebook account reportedly contained photos showing her caring for the Swalwell children at family events throughout 2023 and 2024, a period when the complaints allege she had no lawful work authorization.

The complaint quotes those images directly:

"Barbosa appears in numerous social media photos with the Swalwell family throughout 2023 and 2024, indicating continued close association and ongoing childcare responsibilities despite the absence of known lawful work authorization."

Among the photos cited: Barbosa holding the Swalwells' youngest child at the annual White House picnic in both 2023 and 2024, and taking the children trick-or-treating on Halloween in 2024. These are not images of a casual family friend. They depict someone performing the duties of a full-time childcare provider, at events a sitting congressman attended in an official capacity.

Barbosa's LinkedIn profile, a screenshot of which was included in the complaints, listed her as a private childcare provider working continuously from 2021 to the present. That profile has since been deleted. Barbosa could not be reached for comment.

The Swalwells are not a family that needed to cut corners on childcare costs. The Post reported that Eric and Brittany Swalwell brought home more than $400,000 in combined income. The question raised by the complaints is not whether they could afford a nanny, it's why they allegedly used donor money to pay one, and why the payment structure shifted precisely when Barbosa's work authorization was in doubt.

The man behind the complaints

The complaints were filed by Joel Gilbert, a California filmmaker and activist who has made Swalwell a target. Gilbert also filed a separate complaint with the FEC in February, alleging the congressman spent more than $200,000 in campaign funds on personal babysitting. Gilbert told the Post that Swalwell is already under investigation by the FEC over that complaint, though no findings of wrongdoing have been announced.

Gilbert did not mince words. As Breitbart reported, Gilbert told the Post:

"It's a brazen disregard for the law. He's harboring and employing an illegal."

Swalwell's defenders may dismiss Gilbert as a politically motivated antagonist. That's a fair point to raise. But the complaints don't rest on Gilbert's word alone. They rest on FEC payment records, a labor certification application, social media photos, and a LinkedIn profile, all of which either remain in the public record or were captured before deletion.

The FEC was not immediately available for comment.

A campaign already in free fall

The nanny allegations land on a campaign that was already unraveling. Swalwell's gubernatorial bid took a severe hit Friday, when four women came forward with sexual assault and misconduct allegations. The nanny complaints, filed separately and covering different legal territory, add a second front of scrutiny at the worst possible time. The open primary is June 2.

Online betting odds have already shifted. The Post reported that billionaire progressive Tom Steyer has gained ground in the governor's race as Swalwell's troubles mount.

None of this is new territory for Swalwell when it comes to controversy involving foreign nationals. The congressman's past interactions with a suspected Chinese intelligence operative have drawn sustained scrutiny, including FBI interest in revisiting those ties. That earlier episode raised questions about judgment and vetting. The nanny complaints raise a different but related concern: whether Swalwell treated immigration law as something that applied to everyone except his own household.

The pattern is worth noting. A congressman who has lectured the public on the rule of law now faces allegations that he skirted employment rules, manipulated campaign-finance filings, and kept an illegal immigrant on his payroll by routing payments through his own name. If the complaints' allegations hold up, the violation isn't just technical. It's the kind of two-tiered arrangement, one set of rules for the powerful, another for everyone else, that voters across the political spectrum claim to despise.

Efforts to release FBI files related to Swalwell's earlier foreign-entanglement controversy have also gained momentum in recent months, adding to the cloud over his political future.

What the complaints actually demand

The Department of Labor complaint, filed Tuesday, alleges that Swalwell and his wife lied to federal authorities to keep Barbosa working for them after her temporary work authorization was about to expire. The DHS complaint, filed in February, focuses on the alleged continued employment of Barbosa without lawful work authorization during 2023 and 2024. The FEC complaint targets the broader pattern of campaign-fund spending on personal childcare.

Together, the three filings sketch a timeline in which a sitting congressman hired a foreign national on a temporary visa, began sponsoring her for a green card as that visa expired, allegedly kept paying her off the books for two years while the paperwork was pending, and then put her back on the campaign payroll once the labor certification came through. Each stage involves a different federal agency. Each raises its own legal questions.

Swalwell is hardly the first politician to face questions about household help and immigration status. But few have been accused of funding the arrangement with donor money, and then allegedly restructuring the payments to hide the relationship during the period of greatest legal exposure. The growing appetite for accountability among California Democrats makes this a story that won't stay confined to opposition research.

The specific statutes cited in the complaints, the exact FEC case number, and the full text of the Department of Labor filing remain unclear. What is clear is the financial record: nearly $90,000 in direct campaign payments to Barbosa across 2021, 2022, and 2025, plus $52,262 in childcare reimbursements to Swalwell himself during the gap years. Those numbers come from federal filings Swalwell's own campaign submitted.

Foreign influence and national security lapses involving U.S. institutions have drawn increasing federal attention in recent years. Swalwell's case is different in kind, this is about household employment, not espionage, but the underlying question is the same: Do the people who write the rules bother to follow them?

When a congressman uses campaign cash to pay a nanny who can't legally work, then hides the payments when the paperwork gets inconvenient, the answer writes itself.