Swalwell Suggests Foul Play Behind Axios Report on Chinese Spy: ‘The Timing Feels Like that Should be Looked at’
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Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is questioning whether President Donald Trump was behind a report about Swalwell’s entanglement with a Chinese spy.
“I’ve been a critic of the president,” Swalwell said in an interview with Politico. “I’ve spoken out against him. I was on both committees that worked to impeach him. The timing feels like that should be looked at.”
Swalwell was referencing an Axios report about his connection to Christine Fang, also known as Fang Fang, an alleged Chinese intelligence operative who became involved with Swalwell after enrolling at California State University East Bay in 2011. Fang subsequently helped Swalwell with fundraising events and convinced his congressional office to hire at least one intern Fang recommended.
Fang reportedly engaged in “romantic or sexual relationships” with at least two Midwestern mayors before leaving the country in 2015 amid an FBI investigation.
Asked by several publications on Tuesday whether he had also engaged in a relationship with Fang, Swalwell declined to address the issue, saying that he wanted to protect information that “that might be classified.” But he did acknowledge the FBI contacted him with a warning about Fang shortly before she left the country in 2015, and said he had “provided information” about her to the bureau.
Swalwell, who served on the Dublin City Council around the time he met Fang, was first elected to Congress in 2012. He married his second wife, Brittany Watts, in 2016.
“It appears … that this person — as the story reports — was unsuccessful in whatever they were trying to do,” Swalwell added in his Tuesday interview. “But if intelligence officials are trying to weaponize someone’s cooperation, they are essentially seeking to do what this person was not able to do, which is to try and discredit someone.”
“As the story referenced, this goes back to the beginning of the last decade, and it’s something that congressional leadership knew about it,” he added.
