Table of Contents
By ERIC TUCKER, ALLEN G. BREED and JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) — The FBI searched the Virginia state Senate leader's hometown office and her neighboring cannabis shop Wednesday, bringing into public view what was described as a yearslong corruption investigation.
The searches at Democratic Sen. L. Louise Lucas' office and cannabis business are part of what two people familiar with the matter called a corruption inquiry. One of the people said the investigation was opened during Democratic former President Joe Biden's administration. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation.
While the probe apparently has spanned administrations of different political parties, Democrats viewed it against a backdrop of recent, politically charged inquiries during President Donald Trump’s tenure. Lucas, who has been a senator for 34 years, was a prominent voice in Virginia's recent redistricting effort, a Democrat-led initiative to counter Republican redrawing pushed by Trump.
“Today’s actions by federal agents are about far more than one state senator; they are about power and who is allowed to use it on behalf of the people,” Lucas said in an evening statement. “What we saw fits a clear pattern from this administration: when challenged, they try to intimidate and silence the voices of those who stand up to them.”
The FBI said only that it was conducting a court-authorized search in Portsmouth. Such searches require approval from a judge and for investigators to assert that they believe they have identified probable cause of a crime.
Besides the search at Lucas' office, which houses her disabilities services business and is her political base in Portsmouth, agents in FBI T-shirts also went into the nearby cannabis store, which she opened in 2021. Several entrances to the Cannabis Outlet's parking lot were blocked by unmarked vehicles with flashing blue lights, as was an entrance to the politician's office.
By evening, agents were carrying boxes and bags out of the shop's back door.
Lucas, a prominent backer of legalizing marijuana, has said the store sells legal hemp and CBD products. It has drawn scrutiny from local media amid allegations that some products were mislabeled.
Virginia has legalized pot possession, but retail sales of recreational marijuana remain illegal in the state.
A woman who identified herself as Lucas’ granddaughter, Nicole Bremby, came by after agents left to check on the Cannabis Outlet. She declined to discuss the raids.
“I’ve had better days,” she said. “It’s all good. Everyone is home.”
Virginia Democrats point to other recent prosecutions
State House Speaker Don Scott said he was deeply concerned by the FBI search.
“Right now, there is far more theatrics and speculation than actual information available to the public,” Scott, a Democrat, said in a statement, adding that more facts were needed “before anyone rushes to political conclusions.”
Gov. Abigail Spanberger declined to comment.
Other Virginia Democrats were quick to note that the search comes as the FBI and Justice Department have opened a spate of investigations into perceived adversaries of Trump.
Last week the Justice Department charged former FBI Director James Comey with making a threatening Instagram post against Trump, an accusation that Comey — who for nearly a decade has drawn the president’s ire — has denied. A court dismissed federal prosecutors' earlier case accusing Comey of lying to Congress.
A separate mortgage fraud case, also ultimately dismissed by a court, targeted Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a major civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his business. Both she and Comey, a longtime Republican who split from the party in the past decade, denied the charges and said the prosecutions were vindictive.
Such cases “have undermined public confidence” in federal prosecutors in Virginia, Democratic state Attorney General Jay Jones said in a statement.
The FBI and Justice Department have also provoked concerns among Democrats about ongoing election-related investigations, including the seizure by agents of ballots and other information from Fulton County, Georgia.
Lucas has been a vocal leader of Virginia's redistricting effort, which voters approved last month. A sign urging people to “vote yes” to “stop the MAGA power grab” still hung Wednesday on a fence separating her office's parking lot from that of the cannabis shop.
Lucas played a leading role in Virginia redistricting
Amid a national, state-by-state partisan redistricting fight kicked off by Trump’s desire to aid his fellow Republicans, Virginia voters OK'd a Democrat-backed constitutional amendment authorizing new U.S. House districts. The plan could help the party win up to four additional seats.
“We are not going to let anyone tilt the system without a response,” Lucas said after the vote. Trump, meanwhile, denounced the results.
The state Supreme Court let the referendum proceed but has yet to rule on whether the effort is legal. The court is considering an appeal of a lower court judge’s ruling that the amendment is invalid because lawmakers violated procedural requirements.
Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But Trump last year urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.
Lucas, 82, has been a figure in Virginia politics since the 1980s, when she became the first Black woman elected to a city council seat in her native Portsmouth. She now is the first woman and first African American to serve as the Senate’s president pro tempore.
Earlier in life she was the Norfolk Naval Shipyard's first female shipfitter, according to her biography in the state library. The job entails making, installing and repairing sometimes enormous metal assemblies for vessels.
In recent years she has been the CEO of a Portsmouth business that runs residences, day programs and transportation for intellectually disabled adults.
___
Associated Press journalists Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky, Jake Offenhartz in New York, Claudia Lauder in Philadelphia and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.
