Rep. Devin Nunes said Republicans would open an investigation if fellow congressman Eric Swalwell is allowed to remain on the House Intelligence Committee.
The California Republican, who is the ranking member of the intelligence panel, reacted to news that Swalwell has ties to Christine Fang, a Chinese national believed to be working with China’s Ministry of State Security, during a Fox Business interview last week.
He said Democrats have a “China problem” and singled out the San Francisco Bay Area, the home of high-profile lawmakers such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as being the nexus for a “spy ring” in the United States that deserves a closer look.
“Seems like the Chinese are very well fanged into the San Francisco area,” Nunes quipped.
As the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes was asked if he believes Swalwell should be allowed to continue on the panel, a perch from which the Democrat often attacked President Trump over investigations into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia and, later, impeachment.
“That’s going to be ultimately up to Pelosi and the Democrats to decide whether or not he will be on next year,” Nunes said. “If that’s the case, we Republicans will have to conduct an investigation.”
Nunes declined to go as far as fellow House Intelligence Committee Republican Elise Stefanik of New York, who said Swalwell should step down from his spot on the committee because of members’ access to “highly classified briefings, especially when it comes to adversaries like China, like Russia.”
Another Republican, Jim Sensenbrenner, filed a complaint to the House Ethics Committee, asking that panel to investigate Swalwell.
Swalwell’s association with Fang, which he has refused to describe in detail, lasted from 2011 to 2015. Swalwell was elected to the House in 2012.
Federal agents carrying out a counterintelligence investigation into Fang “alerted Swalwell to their concerns” in 2015 and provided him a defensive briefing, according to an Axios report that broke the story. Swalwell “immediately cut off all ties to Fang” and “has not been accused of any wrongdoing,” the report said, citing intelligence sources.
Fang is suspected of targeting other local and national politicians, including romantic relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors who have not been identified. Fang suddenly left the U.S. in the summer of 2015.
Swalwell, who became a member of the House Intelligence Committee in early 2015 and unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, has said little on the matter other than to insist that he cooperated with federal law enforcement.
“Rep. Swalwell, long ago, provided information about this person — whom he met more than eight years ago, and whom he hasn’t seen in nearly six years — to the FBI,” Swalwell’s office said. “To protect information that might be classified, he will not participate in your story.”
Calling Swalwell a “national security liability,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the Democrat should be removed from the intelligence panel and claimed he would ask the FBI to brief him on the report. Pelosi told reporters on Thursday she does not have “any concern” about Swalwell.
Drew Hammill, a spokesman to Pelosi, said: “The Speaker has full confidence in Congressman Swalwell’s service in the Congress and on the Intelligence Committee.”
