The FBI Tuesday morning raided a mansion in Beverly Hills in connection with an investigation into former Congressman Eric Swalwell, sources told The Times.
Swalwell, a Democrat from Dublin, dropped out of the California governor’s race and resigned from Congress in April after allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and acted inappropriately with other young women, which he denied at the time. Before he dropped out of the race, polls indicated that Swalwell was among the front-runners.
On Tuesday, FBI agents were in Beverly Hills executing a search warrant on North Roxbury Drive in connection with the probe.
“We are executing a search warrant. Court documents are sealed. No arrests are planned,” said FBI spokesperson Lourdes Arocho.
The raid is taking place at the home of billionaire Stephen Cloobeck, sources confirmed to The Times.
Swalwell stayed at the home several times while campaigning and used it for political events before he was kicked out in April after the allegations against him became public. In one of his last acts there, Swalwell filmed a video denying the rape and sexual assault.
Cloobeck, 64, is a one-time California gubernatorial candidate and a well-known figure in Democratic politics. He got rich in the timeshare industry, eventually selling his Las Vegas-based Diamond Resorts company to a private equity firm for $2.2 billion. He immersed himself in Nevada Democratic politics, growing close with the late U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, and later launched his long-shot bid for California governor.
He quickly faded in the crowded field, failing to garner above 1% in any poll, and then threw his support behind Swalwell. More recently, he has found himself in the news for being embroiled in a criminal case with Adva Lavie, an OnlyFans model accused of seducing rich men for money.
In August, agents seized Swalwell’s electronic devices and raided his Washington home, even briefly holding the former lawmaker at San Francisco International Airport, a person familiar with the inquiry told The Times.
The source said Swalwell was held in August at SFO for search purposes and released the same day. Federal prosecutors are using civil rights law to pursue an inquiry into his conduct as a member of Congress. Authorities in New York and Los Angeles County are conducting separate investigations.
His home was also searched during the summer, the source added, based on a warrant in connection with a civil rights investigation concerning the sexual assault allegations.
Investigators sought to seize Swalwell’s white iPhone and MacBook Pro, according to court records.
They sought the devices as part of their inquiry into whether Swalwell violated a federal law that makes it a crime for anyone acting under official government authority to willfully deprive a person of their constitutional rights, according to the court filings.
Swalwell has denied any wrongdoing, but the accusations upended the California governor’s race and shook Capitol Hill, where both parties reckoned with a culture of secrecy and silence around sexual impropriety.
WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has purchased three immigrant detention facilities in Adelanto for $950 million, according to the private prison corporation that sold them.
The sale by the GEO Group, a Florida-based government contractor, follows an initial $1.5-billion sale over the summer of two other California detention facilities by GEO’s competitor, CoreCivic of Tennessee.
The facilities owned by GEO Group include the 1,280-bed Adelanto West ICE Processing Center, the 660-bed Adelanto East ICE Processing Center and 704-bed Desert View Annex.
In total, the federal government has now spent nearly $3.2 billion on detention facility purchases, the majority of them in California. CoreCivic sold off two other facilities, in Minnesota and Kansas, in August.
The sales were made possible by an infusion last year of $45 billion for immigration detention from President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
In its announcement, GEO Group sad it will continue managing daily operations at the facilities under the company’s existing contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is effective through Dec. 19, 2034.
The company said it is engaged in an “active process” with Homeland Security for the potential sale of multiple other facilities. Those sales hinge on GEO Group’s ability to continue managing those facilities under long-term contracts, the company wrote.
“We are pleased with the completion of these important asset sales to the U.S. federal government, and we look forward to continuing to provide high-quality secure support services under our existing long-term contracts with ICE,” George C. Zoley, the company’s CEO, wrote in a news release.
“We are proud of our 40-year public-private partnership with ICE, and we stand ready to continue to assist the federal government in meeting its immigration enforcement priorities,” Zoley added.
During a shareholder call in August, Zoley said ICE was contemplating buying more than 10 facilities, and that number “could continue to grow.”
“We believe we have two types of assets: the buildings and the businesses of providing support services,” he said on the call. “We are pursuing a potential sale of the buildings, but we want to retain the business. We consider ourselves primarily a support services operator, and will place particular importance on our ability to continue our support services at any facility sold to ICE.”
GEO Group said it anticipates receiving $705 million in proceeds from the sales, after taxes and transaction fees. The company wrote that net proceeds will reduce the company’s debt and facilitate the repurchase of company shares.
This story will be updated.
Tallinn accuses Moscow of responsibility for fire at Estonian company Milrem Robotics, a supplier of unmanned ground vehicles to Ukraine.
Published On 29 Sep 202629 Sep 2026
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna has accused Russia of “sabotage” following an August arson attack on a defence company, Milrem Robotics, a claim the Kremlin rejected.
“We can conclude with certainty that the arson attack … in Tallinn was an act of sabotage ordered by the special services of the Russian Federation,” Tsahkna wrote on X on Tuesday.
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He added that the perpetrators of the attack had been apprehended and “no longer pose a threat”, and that Estonia had summoned the Russian ambassador.
“This act of sabotage is part of Russia’s broader campaign across Europe, aimed at intimidating us and weakening our support for Ukraine,” he wrote.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegation.
“Such statements are baseless, ill-considered, have absolutely no relation to reality, and lack any form of reasoning. Consequently, we cannot and will not take such statements seriously,” he told reporters.
Estonia, a European Union and NATO member state along the alliance’s eastern flank, has accused Moscow of several hybrid provocations since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Along with its neighbours Latvia and Lithuania, it has ramped up its investment in defence in the years since and remains a staunch ally of Kyiv.
NATO chief Mark Rutte, speaking to journalists after Estonia’s accusation, said that “Russia continues its reckless campaign of hostile actions against NATO allies. It is trying to weaken our resolve and stop our support for Ukraine”.
“But Russia is failing. It is failing on the battlefield in Ukraine, and it is failing to undermine our unity and support for Ukraine,” he added.
The attack was condemned by several of Estonia’s allies, who also reaffirmed their support for Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on X that Paris was in full solidarity with Estonia, adding: “The proliferation of these hostile acts reflects a dangerous headlong rush by Russia – one that will only lead it into a dead end.”
“Russia’s fingerprints are all over” the attack, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys wrote on X, adding that Moscow’s “hostile activities do not stop at Ukraine’s borders”.
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics added that “more support for Ukraine … will be needed and must be provided”.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called Estonia’s attribution of the attack “extremely serious”, and said the pattern of the attacks was “directed against Europe as a whole”.