Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, refuses to discuss his relationship with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy and whom intelligence officials say had romantic relationships with two unnamed Midwestern city mayors.
Fang Fang, also known as Christine Fang, a Chinese national believed to be working with China’s Ministry of State Security, conducted an extensive political influence operation between 2011 and 2015 on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party in the Bay Area and elsewhere, according to a report by Axios, which cited U.S. intelligence officials.
In a Tuesday interview with Politico, the outlet reported that “Swalwell refused to discuss his relationship with Fang, although he did say the controversy was not going to cost him the Intelligence Committee seat.”
“As the story referenced, this goes back to the beginning of the last decade, and it’s something that congressional leadership knew about it,” Swalwell said.
Fang, thought to be in her 20s or 30s back then, attended California State University East Bay and used her leadership positions in the Asian American community to expand her influence, using her political ties to place potentially unwitting “subagents” in the offices of elected officials, the Axios report said. Fang’s relationship with the two mayors seemed to fit the description of a “honey trap” where sex is used for ulterior purposes, like political connections or potential espionage.
Among the Chinese national’s “most significant targets” was Swalwell, according to the Axios report, which said Fang “took part in fundraising activity for Swalwell’s 2014 re-election campaign” as a “bundler,” although the political operative who was a source for the story said they “found no evidence of illegal contributions” and the Federal Election Commission does not show Fang making donations in her name. Fang “helped place at least one intern in Swalwell’s office” and “interacted with Swalwell at multiple events over the course of several years,” the report said. Fang began targeting Swalwell when he was still a Dublin City, California, councilman before he was elected to the House in 2012.
Swalwell, who married in 2016, became a member of the House Intelligence Committee in early 2015 and unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019. 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, and 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.
Tucker Carlson of Fox News said Tuesday night that “U.S. intelligence officials believe that Fang had a sexual relationship with Eric Swalwell.”
“We asked Swalwell’s office about that directly today,” Carlson said. “His staff replied by saying they couldn’t comment on whether or not Swalwell had a sexual relationship with Fang, because that information might be, quote, classified. They did not elaborate or explain what they meant by that.”
The Washington Examiner asked Swalwell’s office a number of questions on Tuesday, including, “What was Congressman Swalwell’s relationship to Christine Fang and how often did they interact?” and, “This was before the congressman was married — was the relationship ever physical or romantic in any way?”
Swalwell’s deputy communications director, Natalie Edelstein, replied only that “the Congressman’s statement contained in the Axios story still stands.” The statement provided to the other outlet did not address the Washington Examiner’s questions.
“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.”
Axios reported that Fang carried out romantic relationships with the two Midwestern mayors “over a period of about three years,” according to one U.S. intelligence official and one former elected official. And “at least two separate sexual interactions with elected officials, including one of these Midwestern mayors, were caught on FBI electronic surveillance of Fang,” according to intelligence officials.
The outlet wrote that former Cupertino Mayor Gilbert Wong said that at one 2014 mayoral conference, “an older Midwestern mayor ‘from an obscure city’ referred to Fang as his ‘girlfriend’ and insisted the relationship was genuine despite the clear age difference.” Fang “also had a sexual encounter with an Ohio mayor in a car that was under electronic FBI surveillance,” according to one U.S. official, who said the mayor told him Fang said she was interested in the mayor because she wanted to get better at English.
Politico reported that Swalwell “said he first became aware that Axios was looking into Fang activities in July 2019.”
“I’ve been a critic of the president. I’ve spoken out against him. I was on both committees that worked to impeach him,” Swalwell told Politico. “The timing feels like that should be looked at.” He did not provide evidence of this.
Swalwell said, “What it appears though that this person — as the story reports — was unsuccessful in whatever they were trying to do. 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.”
The San Francisco Chronicle spoke with an anonymous FBI official who said that “Swalwell was completely cooperative and under no suspicion of wrongdoing” and that “information was obtained where we do a duty to warn … that he may be targeted by a foreign government.”
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week in which he warned that “this year China engaged in a massive influence campaign that included targeting several dozen members of Congress” and said he “briefed the House and Senate Intelligence committees that China is targeting members of Congress with six times the frequency of Russia and 12 times the frequency of Iran.”
