FBI seizes former Rep. Swallwell’s phone, devices as part of criminal probe, sources said
Former U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell departs the U.S. Capitol Building on March 5, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The FBI seized former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s electronic devices as part of an ongoing criminal probe, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Swalwell was served with a search warrant for his cellphone and other electronic devices while he was at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday night, according to sources, and agents served a search warrant at his Washington, D.C., home on Sunday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
With her son George by her side, Democratic Wisconsin Gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong votes in the primary election on Aug. 11, 2026, in Madison, Wisconsin. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Voters in six states on Tuesday decided which candidates will face off in November in House and Senate races that could determine whether the balance of power will shift in the next Congress.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a centrist Democrat, narrowly won the Democratic primary in Wisconsin in a major upset in the race for governor, the Associated Press projects. He defeated Wisconsin assemblywoman Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, in what became a high-stakes test for progressives who pinned their hopes on winning a major party nomination in a crucial battleground state.
And in Connecticut, 14-term Rep. John Larson became the seventh House Democrat incumbent to lose a primary during this election cycle.
Here’s a look at Tuesday’s primaries:
Wisconsin
Republican and Democratic candidates in Wisconsin are vying to win the first open gubernatorial seat since 2010, replacing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who announced last year that he wouldn’t run for reelection.
There are also primaries in both parties that could have an impact on which controls the House next year.
Incumbent Democratic Rep. John Larson will lose the Democratic primary for his 1st Congressional District seat to challenger Luke Bronin, the former mayor of Hartford, ABC News projects. Larson has held his seat since 1999. Larson is the seventh incumbent House Democrat to lose in primaries this year.
And Gov. Ned Lamont, who was elected in 2018, will fend off a primary challenge from Josh Elliott, ABC News projects. He’ll face Republican Ryan Fazio in November.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar will win the Democratic governor primary, ABC News projects, in the race to replace Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who is retiring. She will face state House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who ABC projects will win the Republican governor’s primary, in November.
ABC News also projects Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan will win the Democratic primary in the race to replace Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, who is also retiring. She’ll face former NFL sideline reporter Michelle Tafoya, who ABC projects will win the Republican primary for Senate.
Minnesota also voted in primaries for several House races that could help determine the balance of power in Congress.
Darline Graham, the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham who was appointed to fill the remainder of her brother’s term, will face Rep. Ralph Norman in an Aug. 25 runoff to replace Lindsey Graham on the November ballot, ABC News projects.
Lindsey Graham’s death in July sparked a rapid-fire campaign season. Eight other candidates besides Graham and Norman were running for the seat.
Economist Amanda Janoo will win the Democratic primary for governor, ABC News projects, and will face incumbent Republican Gov. Phil Scott in the general election in November.
In Alabama, some voters decided several House races following the Supreme Court decision that limited portions of the Voting Rights Act and led several states in the South to take part in mid-decade redistricting.
Primaries were held in May, but Republican Gov. Kay Ivey pushed back those in the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th districts that were impacted by redistricting after the Supreme Court decision.
Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks to the reporters following a press conference, August 05, 2025, in Aurora, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
With six months until the high-stakes midterm elections, the Democratic Party is struggling to raise money and keep up with its GOP counterparts, leading to frustrations among some donors with Democratic National Committee leadership and its chair Ken Martin.
At the end of March, the Republican National Committee outraised the DNC $21.2 million to $11.4 million, according to new reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. The RNC reported having nearly eight times more cash on hand — $116 million to the DNC’s $13.8 million. In addition, the DNC is a little over $18 million in debt, according to FEC filings.
Democrats, though, are performing better than they did in 2018 at this point in the cycle when the party had raised $7 million and had little more than $9 million cash on hand. The party had just under $6 million in debt at that time, too.
Multiple Democratic bundlers, strategists and donors told ABC News that they are still angry over how funds were allocated during the 2024 presidential election — and frustrated at Martin’s unwillingness to publicly release a DNC audit that examined what went wrong for Democrats in 2024.
After Martin won his campaign to be DNC chair in 2025 following the presidential election, he committed to conducting a review of the 2024 election and making it public. However, Martin has yet to release the full audit, saying instead he’s focused on looking forward and has released “lessons” from the audit.
Democratic officials and leaders — including Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz, who is poised to become the No. 2 Senate Democrat after the midterms — have urged for the report to be released as they look toward the midterms.
“What’s in the report that you wouldn’t want publicized?” “Pod Save America” host and former Obama administration speechwriter Jon Favreau asked Martin during an episode released April 28.
Martin replied that there was no “smoking gun” and that he wants to “keep the focus on the lessons.”
A longtime DNC finance member, who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity, noted many donors are still questioning how funds were allocated during the 2024 race and the unreleased results of the DNC’s promised audit.
The member said donors were upset that, despite the DNC’s massive fundraising during the 2024 election, Kamala Harris didn’t win a single battleground state. It raised concerns about allocations toward paid media, voter outreach and, most troubling for many donors, the amount of money that went to consultants.
But following the 2024 election and Martin taking over the reins at the DNC, there has been a shift toward investing in state parties long before elections, as well as podcasts, influencers and more modern forms of public relations and communications
Cooper Teboe, a Democratic strategist in California, told ABC News that donors are “feeling incredibly jaded, incredibly unhappy” with the DNC over the 2024 election — with some questioning whether their financial contributions make a difference.
“We’re coming off of record fundraising for Democrats that seem to really not move the needle,” Teboe said. “So, folks have been in a position of, well, does my money actually do anything? Does my money do anything to change the needle?”
DNC spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said the party is investing in ways that will help Democrats win.
“Democrats are putting our resources into the field, building infrastructure to power wins today and for years to come, and delivering overperformances all across the country, meanwhile Republicans are losing elections at a humiliating rate in spite of their billionaire donors,” Ehrenberg said in a statement to ABC News.
As frustrations with Martin over how he’s handling his job grow, a few members have started exploring options and rules for removing a chair, a source familiar with the situation told ABC News — although the source framed the efforts as very informal and focused on asking about the process.
“I don’t see Ken as a leader. The DNC reached out to me probably six months ago, and I told them to take me off their list, that it’s a waste of their time to send me anything, and the more they send, the less chances they ever have of getting me back,” said one longtime Democratic donor, who is now focused on individual candidates as opposed to the national committee.
Asked about his job to raise money for the party on “Pod Save America,” Martin said “the job of the DNC chair is singular: It’s to win,” adding that he has been helping the party succeed in that effort.
Michael Knapp, a DNC member, said he supports Martin’s work as chair, telling ABC News that Martin “came in with a clear mandate to shift the DNC towards long-term party building.”
“[Ken’s] investing in state parties, organizing, partisan voter registration, infrastructure … the things that actually win elections over time,” Knapp said to ABC News in a text message.
“On the fundamentals of the job, I think he’s very strong. The DNC’s raising significant grassroots money even while paying down inherited debt,” Knapp also said.
Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s elections and government program, told ABC News that historically, the party out of power has had an “uphill battle with fundraising that’s not unique to this moment.”
“Frankly, over the years, the president has become much more habituated to raising the sort of big money that you would expect an incumbent to raise, and that Democratic incumbents have also raised, to some degree,” Weiner said. “And so we see the more traditional pattern emerging of the party in power just raises a lot more money than the party out of power.”
A longtime DNC finance member said frustrations with the DNC have led donors to focus on “individual elections as opposed to the DNC as an organization.”
While the national party is struggling to raise money, individual Democratic candidates are seeing a massive cash infusion ahead of November’s midterm elections, as donors show greater interest in investing in individual candidates.
Many of the Democratic Party’s top Senate candidates posted gainful fundraising hauls for the first quarter of 2026, massively outraising their Republican opponents, according to FEC filings.
“I think folks are very desperate for new leaders and new voices in the party, and I think that’s why you’re seeing the party infrastructure raising less, because the donors, both the donor class and the grassroots, want to see what is out there to define the future of the Democratic message and that’s just not going to come from the DNC,” Teboe said.
One senior Democratic official in touch with donors and party leaders told ABC News that while many big donors are frustrated by the results of the last election, an increasing number are expected to get off the sidelines and contribute more to various Democratic candidates and organizations through the summer and fall.
Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz makes a speech during the ’10th Austrian World Summit’ climate conference at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria, June 16, 2026. (Salih Okuroglu/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Monday tossed out multiple Justice Department subpoenas to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other officials tied to a federal investigation regarding the state’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, according to a newly published legal opinion.
Patrick Schiltz, chief judge of the Minnesota federal district court, found that the subpoenas were “part of a broader campaign to coerce state and local officials” to aid the Trump administration in supporting federal immigration activities that “played out against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s well-established history of using criminal investigations to retaliate against and pressure the President’s political and personal adversaries.”
“The fact that connections between the information sought in the subpoenas and any possible criminal violation range from extremely weak to nonexistent only adds to the overwhelming evidence that these subpoenas were not issued to investigate, but to harass, coerce, and retaliate,” Schiltz wrote in his order released Monday.
The subpoenas, which were issued on Jan. 20 against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration surge in Minnesota that drew widespread protests, sought an expansive amount of information from Walz and others including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and Board of Commissioners.
In his opinion quashing the subpoenas, Schiltz lambasted the government for their “extraordinarily broad” request examining materials “that largely if not entirely relate to constitutionally protected conduct.” It’s almost unheard of for federal judges to quash criminal subpoenas from Justice Department prosecutors.
“The Department has launched a significant incursion into matters that the Constitution reserves to sovereign states, and one would expect that the Department would not have done so unless it was aware of compelling evidence of criminal or at least suspicious behavior,” Schiltz said.
Pointing to a series of statements from President Donald Trump, including social media posts previewing a “DAY OF RECKONING AND RETRIBUTION” was coming for Minnesota — followed by a leak just three days later of a purported federal investigation in Walz and Frey — Schiltz said there was a clear pattern established of the government using its powers purely to punish Trump’s adversaries for their refusal to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
justify the subpoenas, which he said had such a remote connection to potential criminal conduct “as to be spurious.”
“The Department suggests that requiring city officials to report known ICE activity to the City Council could result in the dissemination of that information-and that dissemination of that information could, in turn, result in other individuals evading or interfering with future ICE activity,” Schiltz wrote. “This reasoning piles speculation upon speculation, while also taking aim at perfectly legal-indeed, constitutionally protected-behavior. As a general matter, any citizen who happens across law-enforcement activity has a constitutional right to observe it, to record it, and to mention it to anyone they’d like-including members of the Minneapolis City Council.”
The order follows a similar move by the chief district judge in Washington, D.C., in March that quashed subpoenas tied to the DOJ’s investigation of then-Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, after Judge James Boasberg determined the probe was based on no clear evidence and appeared purely rooted in Trump’s animus towards Powell.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for the rule of law and our democracy. A federal district judge found that the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into me and other Minnesota elected officials was politically motivated, unconstitutional, and meritless,” Walz said in a statement.
“The U.S. Justice Department is pursuing criminal investigations into the President’s political opponents,” Walz said. “This case was just one example of that, but we are seeing daily reminders of this administration’s lawlessness — in Minnesota and around the country. We all must continue to seek justice and uphold the rule of law.”
Frey, in his own statement, said that “criticism of our government is not a crime.”
“One of the defining strengths of our democracy is the ability to challenge those in power without fear of retribution,” Frey wrote. “Elected officials have both the right and the responsibility to speak honestly about how government decisions affect the people they serve.”
In a statement responding to the ruling, a DOJ spokesperson did not say whether the Justice Department plans to appeal Schiltz’s order.
“The department takes the unlawful obstruction of federal law enforcement operations extremely seriously and will continue to act in full compliance with the law to investigate these matters,” the spokesperson said.
