‘He should’ve known better’: Matt Gaetz criticizes Eric Swalwell over China spy scandal

“Democrats seem to always get the benefit of the doubt when they’re the target of foreign intelligence,” the Florida Republican said. “And yet, when those same foreign intelligence assets target Republicans, it somehow launches a very biased Department of Justice and FBI into a tizzy of accusations and an attempt to really deplatform conservatives from their government service and even, in the case of the impeachment, to try to deplatform Donald Trump from the presidency.”

Axios first reported Swalwell’s connection, along with a number of other politicians, to Christine Fang or Fang Fang, a Chinese national that U.S. officials suspect was involved in a Chinese intelligence operation. Swalwell’s association with Fang, which he has refused to describe in detail, lasted from 2011 to 2015, predating his first term in Congress.

Federal agents carrying out a counterintelligence investigation into Fang “alerted Swalwell to their concerns” in 2015 and provided him a defensive briefing, according to Axios. Swalwell “immediately cut off all ties to Fang” and “has not been accused of any wrongdoing,” the report said, citing intelligence sources. Fang suddenly left the United States in the summer of 2015.

Swalwell became a member of the House Intelligence Committee in early 2015, and unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019. “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 told Axios. “To protect information that might be classified, he will not participate in your story.”

“With Eric Swalwell, we didn’t just see a Chinese intelligence incursion. They were actually able to place interns in his office, and China wins when America is distracted,” Gaetz said, before referring to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. “Whether that’s distraction in endless wars in the Middle East or distracted with this crazy Russia hoax that, along with Adam Schiff, I would say Eric Swalwell was the principle advancer of.”

“I’m really troubled that Speaker Pelosi would leave Eric Swalwell on the intelligence committee,” Gaetz said. “Swalwell shouldn’t be blamed because he was targeted by Chinese intelligence. He should be blamed because he should’ve known better. He should’ve come to the Congress and assisted us in focusing on China, and their malign influence, rather than just trying to smear the president, undermine the presidency, not for any type of virtuous policy advancement, but for power.”

Ingraham noted that she believes many Democratic politicians have simply given up on the idea that the U.S. can defeat China in a multi-faceted cold war for resources and intelligence.

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she doesn’t have “any concerns” about Swalwell’s link to the Chinese national.

However, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy criticized Pelosi, Swalwell, and Schiff, all three of whom pushed for Trump’s impeachment, and argued that Swalwell should be removed from the intelligence panel.

“This man should not be in the intel committee. He’s jeopardizing national security,” McCarthy said, adding, “When did Nancy Pelosi know of this, and why did she maintain him on the committee? Adam Schiff, who has spent four years as chair, worried about the foreign intervention into our country, knowingly keep an individual on the committee, if he knew, as Swalwell says, that he was with a Chinese individual who was a spy, who helped him run for Congress.”