In my recent article in The Gateway Pundit, “DISQUALIFIED! – Congressman Eric Swalwell Names Washington DC Home as ‘Principal Residence’,” I documented that Congressman Eric Swalwell declared his Washington D.C. house as his principal residence in his official mortgage paperwork.
Separately, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte referred Swalwell to the Department of Justice for potential mortgage fraud violations. Soon after, in “Eric Swalwell is Constitutionally Disqualified from Running for Governor of California,” I explained how both the California Constitution (Article V, Section 2) and Elections Code §349 disqualify Swalwell from running for governor because he legally declared his domicile to be Washington D.C., and not California.
Facing political and legal disaster, Swalwell filed a civil lawsuit against the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Director Pulte built on two shaky allegations:
- That referencing his public mortgage paperwork violated the Privacy Act and the First Amendment, claiming the publicly available document was “private”; and
- That he had included a sworn affidavit with his mortgage stating his D.C. residence was “his wife’s” primary residence rather than his own.
Both claims immediately collapse under minimal scrutiny.
Every mortgage executed in Washington D.C., including Swalwell’s, appears on the public database mytax.dc.gov where I accessed the Deed of Trust for Swalwell’s 209 9th Street SE home. This document is public by law and has been available online for years. Director Pulte merely referenced this publicly available file in his DOJ referral. Swalwell’s claim that his privacy was violated is not only meritless, it is absurd, and exposes his lawsuit as merely a political smokescreen to confuse voters and donors.
Next, Swalwell’s online Deed of Trust contains no language whatsoever in which Eric Swalwell disclaims that the property will be his principal residence, nor does it include any affidavit, rider, or statement indicating that the home will be used exclusively by his wife or that he will not live there. Both Eric Michael Swalwell and Brittany Watts Swalwell are listed jointly as “Borrower,” they jointly sign the Deed of Trust, and the only affidavit they sign pertains solely to D.C. tax classification for a residential property. In short, the mortgage contains no disclaimer from Swalwell, and includes no language assigning the home to his wife alone.
Swalwell’s mortgage document for his loan makes it clear. On the opening pages of the Deed of Trust, Swalwell and his wife are listed as the borrowers. The document is a District of Columbia Deed of Trust, and it contains the standard federal Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac provisions for owner-occupant primary residence declarations. Clause 8 of the document includes the line “Material representations include, but are not limited to, representations concerning Borrower’s occupancy of the Property as Borrower’s principal residence.”
It gets worse for Swalwell. Even if Swalwell mailed in an “affidavit” to his mortgage company at some later date in hopes he could still run for governor of California, affidavits do not supersede, void, negate, nor modify any clear written terms of a fully executed contract. A borrower cannot unilaterally rewrite a mortgage via affidavit. This is rooted in the “Parol Evidence Rule”. The rule is based on the principle that once a contract is reduced to a final written document, the parties are bound by its terms.
Further, unless Swalwell’s affidavit was explicitly referenced and incorporated into the original mortgage documents, executed by both parties, or tied to a condition of approval, it cannot negate any clause in the mortgage agreement. Therefore, any affidavit signed and added by Swalwell would not modify the mutually agreed principal residence occupancy clause.
Curiously, Swalwell did not include his alleged affidavit as an Exhibit in his lawsuit, likely because it does not exist or because he knows it is invalid.
Could a corrupt judge save Swalwell’s candidacy for California governor? Judge James Boasberg has reportedly been assigned to Swalwell’s lawsuit. Republican critics such as Senator Ted Cruz have argued that Judge Boasberg, both in his capacity as a FISA Court judge and later as its presiding judge, rubber-stamped overly broad Justice Department and FBI requests that allowed investigators to obtain lawmakers’ phone records with insufficient scrutiny and without proper constitutional safeguards. Cruz has suggested that the House of Representatives should impeach Boasberg.
The bottom line is that by declaring a principal residence in Washington D.C. on legal and financial documents, Eric Swalwell declared that D.C. is his domicile, and not California. According to the California Constitution and Elections Code 349, this means that Swalwell is legally disqualified from becoming governor and must withdraw his announcement immediately. I already filed a formal complaint with the Secretary of State of California demanding Swalwell’s removal from the ballot.
Swalwell’s lawsuit is not a principled defense of his constitutional rights. It is a panicked, last-ditch publicity stunt to rescue his collapsing candidacy. The facts are straightforward, the documents speak for themselves, and the law is unambiguous. No federal judge, no political spin, and no fabricated affidavit can undo Swalwell’s own sworn designation of Washington, D.C. as his principal residence. California requires its governor to be a resident of California. Swalwell is not. His lawsuit is not only meritless, it is an insult to voters’ intelligence and a cynical bid to stall the inevitable.
The only lawful path forward is clear. Eric Swalwell must be remove himself or be removed from the California governor’s race immediately. No judge, not even James Boasberg, can save him.
Joel Gilbert is a Los Angeles-based film producer and president of Highway 61 Entertainment. He is theproducer of the new film Roseanne Barr Is America. He is also the producer of: Dreams from My Real Father, The Trayvon Hoax, Trump: The Art of the Insult, and many other films on American politics and music icons. Gilbert is on Twitter: @JoelSGilbert.
The post Eric Swalwell’s Desperate Lawsuit: Even Judge Boasberg Can’t Save Swalwell from His Own Mortgage Documents appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.