On Wednesday, May 6, 2026, the FBI searched the Portsmouth, Virginia, district office of Sen. L. Louise Lucas, the 82-year-old Democratic president pro tempore of the Virginia Senate. Agents also went into the Cannabis Outlet, a nearby business she opened in 2021. The FBI said only that it was conducting a court-authorized search; a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press it was part of a corruption investigation. A 2022 Virginia Mercury investigation, using lab tests the paper commissioned, found that some products sold at the store contained THC levels inconsistent with their labeling; The New Republic described the store as having sold delta-9 THC, which is illegal to sell in Virginia.
Lucas was one of the Democratic architects of Virginia's redistricting referendum, a constitutional amendment authorizing new U.S. House districts that voters approved in April and that, according to the AP, “could help the party win up to four additional seats.” Trump denounced the result. Lucas, a frequent critic of Trump according to The New Republic, said after the vote, “We are not going to let anyone tilt the system without a response.” U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott noted that the raid came roughly two weeks after the referendum, and Lucas said it could be political retribution from the Trump administration for her role in the redistricting effort.
Other Virginia Democrats noted the search came as the FBI and Justice Department opened a series of politically charged investigations into perceived Trump adversaries. Scott said, “While we await the full facts of the investigation, it must be acknowledged that this FBI raid occurs in the broader context of President Trump's repeated abuse of the Department of Justice to target his perceived political opponents.” The AP cited the Justice Department's charge against former FBI Director James Comey over an Instagram post, a mortgage fraud case against New York Attorney General Letitia James that a court dismissed, and the seizure by agents of ballots and other information from Fulton County, Georgia.
Update (October 2, 2026): The Virginian-Pilot reported on July 13, 2026 that, according to sealed federal court records described in a notification letter, a federal judge authorized the FBI to monitor Lucas's phone communications between March 6 and April 5, 2026, and that intercepted communications included correspondence with journalists. The surveillance began two months before the raid and ended before the April referendum vote, so the investigation predates the referendum result. Its scope remains unclear.
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry previously gave “corruption allegations” as the FBI's stated cause; the FBI said only that it executed a court-authorized search, and the corruption description comes from an anonymous source quoted by the AP. It said state regulators had cited Lucas's business for illegal delta-9 THC products; the finding came from a 2022 Virginia Mercury investigation, not a regulator. It presented the raid as retaliation for the referendum, but court records show the FBI was wiretapping Lucas before the vote, so the timing is now described as a question, not a conclusion. Unsourced claims were removed: the vote margin and seat projections, Trump's “RIGGED” and “Mail In Ballot Drop” quotes, a quote from House Speaker Don Scott, the claim that this was the second FBI action that week against a Democrat involved in 2020 certification, a list of other investigations not in the cited sources, and the claim that it was the first reported FBI raid on a Democratic state legislator's office in the second term.