Swalwell calls leaked spy story a smear
WASHINGTON — Republicans have jumped on a report that a suspected Chinese spy developed connections to Bay Area politicians to attack Dublin Rep. Eric Swalwell. The Democrat, meanwhile, says the story was leaked to damage him.
Swalwell has been an outspoken critic of President Trump in Congress and in national media. A member of the House Intelligence and House Judiciary committees, he was a key figure in the president’s impeachment.
That has also made him a target of conservatives, who are now using an investigation into a Cal State East Bay student and Chinese national who cultivated ties with local figures including Swalwell to suggest he should lose his seat on the Intelligence Committee.
The investigation, reported by the news outlet Axios, does not accuse Swalwell of wrongdoing and says he cooperated
with the FBI when it alerted him to the concerns about the woman, Christine Fang, or Fang Fang, in 2015. Swalwell has pointed to that cooperation in accusing the sources who leaked the information to Axios of seeking to smear his reputation.
Swalwell declined to be interviewed by The Chronicle, but in a statement his spokesman, Josh Richman, said Swalwell provided information about Fang to the FBI, hasn’t seen her in nearly six years, and declined to speak with Axios for its story to protect classified information.
“The FBI has now reaffirmed that Rep. Swalwell was never suspected of wrongdoing in this matter,” Richman said. “In addition, the Republican and Democratic congressional leadership were informed that Rep. Swalwell was not suspected of wrongdoing. No concerns were raised on either side of the aisle at that time or over the past five years.”
Swalwell told Politico and CNN that the timing of the leak to Axios for its yearlong investigation was suspicious.
“The wrongdoing here is the same time this story was being leaked out is the time that I was working on impeachment,” Swalwell said on CNN’s “Newsroom” on Wednesday. “If this is a country where people who criticize the president are going to have law enforcement information weaponized against them, that’s not a country that any of us want to live in. And I hope it is investigated as to who leaked this information.”
But that hasn’t stopped Republicans and rightwing media figures from seizing on the story to attack Swalwell.
House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield accused Swalwell of being a “national security liability” in a tweet, noted Swalwell’s past statements accusing Trump of working to benefit Russia in saying he has “long been disqualified from serving on the Intel Committee,” and took to Fox News to bring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi into the mix as well.
Alleging that the Chinese courted and helped Swalwell go from Dublin city councilman to Congress, McCarthy noted that the members of the Intelligence Committee are selected by their party’s leaders.
“Did Nancy Pelosi know this had transpired when she put him on the committee?” McCarthy asked.
The investigation alleges that Fang helped raise money for Swalwell, though she did not make a donation herself, which would have been illegal as a foreign national. She also helped get someone hired as an intern in his office, Axios reported.
But Swalwell told Politico that House leadership was aware of the investigation and told CNN that he never shared any sensitive information with Fang. Swalwell was named to the Intelligence Committee in 2015, the same year the FBI reportedly briefed him on its investigation and Fang disappeared from the country.
“Swalwell was completely cooperative and under no suspicion of wrongdoing,” an FBI official familiar with the investigation told The Chronicle, speaking anonymously as the agent was not authorized to speak to the media. “It was a defensive briefing. Information was obtained where we do a duty to warn ... that he may be targeted by a foreign government.”
Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill, said the San Francisco Democrat has “full confidence” in Swalwell as both a member of Congress and of the Intelligence Committee. Hammill pointed to
Republican lawmakers who support the rightwing QAnon conspiracy theory that Democrats are a cabal of pedophiles.
“Minority Leader McCarthy is trying to distract from his continued kowtowing to QAnon and his refusal to heed the call of the AntiDefamation League to refuse to seat his QAnon members on congressional committees, including critical national security committees,” Hammill said, referring to a letter from the group that combats antiSemitism and bigotry based hate.
Both Swalwell and Pelosi were supported by another Bay Area Democrat who interacted briefly with Fang, Fremont Rep. Ro Khanna, who said Republicans’ promotion of the story was a way of fearmongering about Chinese immigrants. Swalwell noted on CNN that onethird of his constituents are of Asian descent and warned against stereotyping.
As McCarthy suggested a Democratic conspiracy with China on Fox News on Wednesday, rightwing media personality Benny Johnson dug up a tweet of Swalwell’s from 2012 from the Cal State East Bay Chinese Student Association annual gala and labeled the event “a huge fundraiser.”
“The hysteria is the consequence of a politics of fearmongering about China and Chinese Americans,” Khanna said. “It’s sad to see echoes of McCarthyism apply to Chinese Americans. I know how seriously Speaker Pelosi and Swalwell take their responsibilities with intelligence and believe Swalwell took every appropriate precaution in this kind of a situation. The partisan attacks on him are sad and wrong.”