Democratic Congressional leaders are hoping that the alleged spy scandal swirling around California Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell will just go away. They have successfully convinced the mainstream media that there is no story. Swalwell himself was confident enough to emerge on Twitter to suggest that any Republican who questions the validity of the 2020 election is a “traitor.” That level of tone-deafness from Swalwell is stunning but hardly surprising, given his history.
Swalwell’s longstanding relationship with alleged communist Chinese spy Christine Fang – also known by the Bond-villianesque moniker Fang Fang – is a case study in foreign intelligence penetration. Swalwell met Fang while he was a city councilman in Dublin, California, in 2011. Fang helped him get reelected to Congress in 2014 and helped place an intern in his office.
The two remained close – just how close he says is “classified” – until 2015 when the FBI gave Rep. Swalwell a defensive briefing about Fang. This was especially important since Nancy Pelosi had by then picked Swalwell to be a member of the House Intelligence Committee. Fang soon vanished back to China, and Swalwell became a leading proponent of the debunked anti-Trump Russian collusion conspiracy theory.
The hypocrisy is remarkable. Swalwell loudly condemned Jared Kushner and Donald Trump, Jr. for a single business meeting with suspected Russian operative Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016, after he had carried on a four-year relationship with an alleged Chinese spy. If Swalwell believed that the set-up meeting at Trump Tower was evidence of nefarious activity implicating Donald Trump, his countless private moments with Fang Fang should mean immediate disqualification from public life.
Republicans have called for Swalwell to be removed from the House Intelligence Committee, and for good reason. Someone so irresponsible has no business overseeing America’s most sensitive operations. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy noted that members of the committee “have access to many of America’s top national security secrets” and that there are “200 other Democrats who would be better to be on the Intel Committee than Eric Swalwell.”
Intelligence Committee chair and fellow Russian conspiracy theorist Rep. Adam Schiff said Swalwell “did everything right, there was no suggestion of any impropriety on his part.” But, of course there are suggestions of impropriety, and the lack of transparency on the case makes the matter even more suspicious.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has defended Swalwell, explaining that the House leadership told in the spring of 2015 that “overtures from a Chinese person were being made to members of Congress,” and that once this was exposed “it was over.” But with Swalwell there were certainly more than overtures, there was a whole four-year symphony. Fang Fang skipped the country around that time, which raises pertinent questions such as who tipped her off, how she escaped and why she was allowed to leave.
The FBI, in typical fashion, has resisted releasing any information on the scandal. The Bureau reluctantly agreed to…
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