FBI Raids Office and Business of Top Virginia Democratic Legislator

FBI agents have raided the office and cannabis business of a top Virginia Democratic state legislator and on-and-off ally of Governor Abigail Spanberger, according to multiple news reports, witnesses, and on-the-ground footage.   

Virginia Senate President pro tempore Louise Lucas was seen arriving on scene as heavily armed FBI SWAT teams executed judicially authorized search warrants on her Portsmouth, Va. office, along with a cannabis dispensary she co-owns that is located across the street from the office.

Lucas, who as president pro tempore serves as the top Democrat in the Virginia General Assembly’s upper chamber, is known for her volatile online presence and for being one of the principal architects of Democrats’ attempted gerrymander of Virginia’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

“The FBI is executing a court-authorized federal search warrant in Portsmouth, VA. There is no threat to public safety. This is an ongoing investigation and no further information is publicly available at this time,” a Bureau spokesman told National Review.

The Associated Press earlier reported that the FBI raids were in connection with a corruption probe.

While details surrounding the ongoing federal investigation remain unclear, this is not the first time that Lucas’s business dealings and ties to the cannabis industry have faced scrutiny. Local outlets have previously reported that Lucas’s cannabis shop has sold mislabeled products containing illegal levels of controlled substances, such as the intoxicant delta-9 THC. A 2022 report in the Virginia Mercury noted that Lucas’s business practices were “typical of the black and gray market for retail marijuana that has exploded in Virginia since lawmakers legalized possession of the drug but not sales.”

That same year, Lucas accused then-state Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican whom she described as a “mini-Trump with somehow even less brains,” of sneaking into her cannabis store “in disguise to try to find something we were doing wrong.” A spokesman for Miyares denied Lucas’s claim at the time.

Fox News reported earlier that staffers in Lucas’s office were seen being ordered to exit the building and were barred from re-entering as FBI agents removed boxes from the office. Fox further reported that staff at the cannabis dispensary were observed being ordered to exit the building and that at least three people inside the dispensary were taken into police custody.

Lucas has built a reputation as an erratic and hyperpartisan figure in Virginia politics. Initially a close ally of Spanberger, she was instrumental in shepherding the newly elected governor’s hard-left agenda — including legislation hiking a slew of state taxes, restricting gun rights, awarding voting rights to convicted felons, and enshrining a right to abortion in the state constitution — through the General Assembly earlier this year.

But in the months since Spanberger took office in January, Lucas has become a left-wing critic of both the governor and other high-profile Virginia Democratic politicians. In some notable instances of public intraparty sparring, Lucas tweeted last month that Spanberger lacked “credibility” and suggested in January that Senators Mark Warner (D, Va.) and Tim Kaine (D, Va.) were sitting in the “cuck chair in the corner” after they expressed initial skepticism toward the most aggressive version of her gerrymandering proposal.

While Virginia voters last month narrowly approved a referendum to install that maximally aggressive gerrymander — which was drawn to give Democrats control of 10 of the Commonwealth’s 11 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, up from their current six-to-five partisan edge — a case challenging the constitutionality of the redistricting procedure is currently pending before the Supreme Court of Virginia.

A spokesman for Lucas did not respond to a request for comment. Asked by a Fox News correspondent on the scene if she had a comment, Lucas replied: “I don’t know…I’m just going to wait until they tell me.”