ANALYSIS:
Rep. Eric Swalwell, a new member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence in April 2015, sat down for a classified briefing from the FBI on Capitol Hill. The briefing was about him.
Mr. Swalwell was in a relationship with a Chinese national named Fang Fang, who went by Christine Fang in the U.S. The FBI wanted to warn him that she was a spy for Beijing.
“Swalwell was briefed regarding the intelligence cycle and methods by which foreign governments and their agents target politicians,” says a declassified FBI memo. “Specifically, the briefing discussed Fang Fang and her connections to (redacted) and the Chinese intelligence services.”
Two years later, in March 2017, Mr. Swalwell came to the House Select Committee on Intelligence hearing amid the Democrats’ Trump-Russia inquisition.
At the time, Democrats were gorging on their party’s purchased Russian-sourced dossier which talked of President Trump’s supposed romp with sex workers at the Moscow Ritz. (A later independent investigation revealed the story was fake.)
Sex trap playbook
Mr. Swalwell, who was a committee member, depicted himself as a hero watchdog for politicians being compromised by foreign governments in a sex trap, i.e., President Trump.
At the witness table was FBI Director James B. Comey, another member of the dossier fan club.
Mr. Swalwell: I want to talk about the Kremlin playbook and there are a number of ways that a foreign adversary can seek to influence a person. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Comey: Yes.
Mr. Swalwell: Financial?
Mr. Comey: Yes, that can be one.
Mr. Swalwell: Romance, you said, is another.
Mr. Comey: Yes.
Mr. Swalwell: Compromise?
Mr. Comey: Correct.
Mr. Comey didn’t mind playing straight man to Mr. Swalwell’s hypocrisy.
Mr. Swalwell: How about inadvertently capturing a compromise, meaning they have vast surveillance and you stumble into that surveillance and are caught in compromise?
Mr. Comey: And then they take that information, try and use it to coerce you? Yes, that’s part of the playbook.
Mr. Swalwell: And in many cases, it could be if that person is ever in a position of power that they could be in a position to influence policy in the United States.
Perhaps Mr. Swalwell enjoyed a clear conscience that day as he smeared Mr. Trump as a Russian-compromised president based on a hoax. And his Fang Fang romp must have been a distant memory.
Fang Fang files
Mr. Trump knows how to get even. This week the White House released nearly 150 pages of declassified FBI files on the spy they code-named Rusty Thumbs and the investigation they opened into Mr. Swalwell in 2014.
He met Fang in 2012 at a political event as he sought and won a Northern California House seat. She soon latched onto him as a ticket to the state’s powerful elite. As a volunteer, she raised campaign cash by handing out internships.
She operated inside his campaign headquarters. She hobnobbed with the wealthy donors, including a vineyard owner. She had no formal job, but drove a Mercedes.
When the FBI got too close in 2015, she quickly disappeared, back to Beijing, where her parents worked for the Ministry of State Security, communist China’s CIA.
After the FBI issued Mr. Swalwell the Fang warning that April, he sat down for an interview the next month at the bureau’s Oakland office. He acknowledged he engaged in nonromantic sexual relations which he termed “physical relations.”
The FBI summarized the Q&A.
“Fang is a ‘striking individual’ and comfortable in situations,” the memo quoted the 34-year-old Mr. Swalwell saying about his 20-something Chinese friend. “He assumed that she or her family were independently wealthy. … Swalwell had a drink with Fang a couple weeks after they first met in 2012. He had physical relations with Fang on a handful of occasions, but never dated her or had a romantic relationship. March 2015 [a month before the FBI visited him in D.C.] was the last time Swalwell had physical relations with Fang. Swalwell considered their physical relations to be casual, but believed that Fang was interested in a closer, romantic relationship.”
Meanwhile, China tried to lure Mr. Swalwell into its orbit.
“Representatives from the People’s Republic of China’s San Francisco Consulate recently reached out to Swalwell’s office to invite him to a dinner with the new consul general,” the FBI memo said. “Fang also contacted Swalwell to determine whether he would be attending the dinner. Fang also asked Swalwell to attend an event in January or February 2015.”
“Fang asked Swalwell to go on a trip to China,” the FBI said. “Swalwell has not traveled to China and does not intend to unless such a trip is considered official business or sanctioned by the House Intelligence Committee.”
“Swalwell’s father met Fang at an election night party in November 2014. Fang invited Swalwell’s father and his family on a trip to China,” said the FBI. Mr. Swalwell thought the request “odd” and the Swalwells did not travel there.
There is another FBI memo that accuses Fang of crimes. “Investigation has revealed that Fang Fang, a Chinese foreign national residing in the United States, is the facilitator of a scheme to trade internships in Congressman Eric Swalwell’s congressional office in return for campaign contributions, potentially in violation of [federal bribery laws].”
She also violated the law against foreign nationals making campaign contributions. “Fang used conduits to conceal herself,” the FBI said.
Intel Committee smear
Two years later, in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing room, Mr. Swalwell and Mr. Comey continued to toss anti-Trump innuendoes about the Moscow Ritz.
Mr. Swalwell: And Russia is attempting to recruit and persuade individuals that we’ve discussed before, just as other foreign adversaries are because they want to get something out of them, is that right?
Mr. Comey: Correct.
Mr. Swalwell: And in many cases, it could be if that person is ever in a position of power that they could be in a position to influence policy in the United States.
Mr. Comey: To influence policy or to supply them with information that’s useful to them.
And later …
Mr. Swalwell: Would it be safe to assume that if a prominent person was doing something they shouldn’t have been doing while they’re in Russia, the Russians probably saw it?
Mr. Comey did not answer directly.
Special counsel John Durham’s 2023 report on the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe said the dossier’s Moscow Ritz story likely came from a Clinton appointee who did consulting work for the Kremlin. The hotel staff knew of no such Trump/sex worker story. Mr. Durham and the FBI’s Russia probe intelligence analyst said no dossier allegation was ever proven.
By the way, speaking of foreign compromise, when the FBI briefed Mr. Swalwell in April 2015, he asked if Fang had conducted any type of electronic surveillance.
Epilogue
Axios broke the initial Fang story in 2020. Republicans stripped Mr. Swalwell of his House intelligence membership in 2023.
The Obama Justice Department did not file any charges. And Mr. Swalwell was free to run for California governor.
But then his political career seemingly ended, not because of Fang, but because a former staffer told The San Francisco Chronicle that Mr. Swalwell sexually assaulted her in 2019 and 2024. That led to more women coming forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct, including rape.
He abruptly pulled out of the governor’s race and resigned from Congress in April.
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