Take a look at the photograph below of Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell and reported Chinese spy and honeypot Fang Fang, also known as Christine Fang. Does anything strike you as unusual about it?
Funny, I had the same reaction. He’s a bit of a dweeb, a dork, a nebbish. She’s pretty hot. Swalwell, one might say, and I will, was punching above his weight. Fang Fang, on the other hand, could hardly have done worse.
Unless, and I’m merely speculating, either Swalwell is an absolute stud in the sack or Fang Fang, who also had affairs with two US mayors, was looking for something other than great sex and conversation when seeking out the congressman for a romantic liaison. Yup, it’s almost certainly just that Swalwell — a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — is an absolute stud in the sack.
Before further probing Swalwell’s relationship with Fang Fang, let ‘s go over a story yesterday, first reported by Fox News, that revealed that Swalwell’s campaign spent lavishly on alcohol, expensive meals, limo services and at a hotel where his wife once worked. “There is no suggestion that any of the Swalwell campaign’s spending was illegal,” the New York Post noted. “However, the fact that it shelled out more than half a million dollars across the country during three months of a non-election year on behalf of a congressman in a non-competitive House seat indicates Swalwell’s high profile in the Democratic Party.”
Returning to the main probe, the salacious story of Fang Fang’s liaison’s with US politicians was first reported by Axios last December. “A suspected Chinese intelligence operative developed extensive ties with local and national politicians in what U.S. officials believe was a political intelligence operation run by China’s main civilian spy agency,” it revealed.
Swalwell and Fang Fang were dating in 2015, the year before he married his current wife. She also reportedly slept with at least two mayors “during her period of activity between 2011 and 2015,” the Post has reported in another story. During that period, Fang reportedly met surreptitiously with a Chinese intelligence official working under diplomatic cover in Beijing’s San Francisco consulate.
The Chinese intelligence operation came to a close in mid-2015, when Fang suddenly and quite unexpectedly left the US after the FBI opened an investigation into her relationships with national and local politicians. As Axios reported:
Fang had planned to travel to Washington, D.C., to attend a June 2015 event.But shortly beforehand, she said she could no longer attend because she unexpectedly needed to return to China, according to an acquaintance from California on the same trip.
Many of Fang’s political contacts in the Bay Area were surprised and confused about her sudden departure from the country. “When she left kind of abruptly, we all kind of scratched our heads,” recalled Harrison, the former Fremont mayor. (The FBI reached out to Harrison after Fang’s departure.) “She disappeared off the face of everything,” remembered Gilbert Wong, the former mayor of Cupertino, California, who had seen Fang frequently at political events.
Swalwell has claimed that the information about his affair with Fang Fang was leaked to the press because he was a critic of former President Donald Trump.
True or not, a former US intelligence officer I spoke with said Swalwell’s relationship with Fang Fang represented a serious security breach — and all the more so given his seat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as well as on the Central Intelligence Agency Subcommittee. The former intelligence officer, who asked to speak off the record, described Swalwell as being dimwitted and naive in pursuing a relationship with Fang Fang, especially as the Chinese Ministry of State Security — as well as many other country’s intelligence agencies, including, he specifically mentioned, the Israeli Mossad — are so aggressive and adept in honey-potting foreign politicians.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, has rejected criticism of Swalwell.
“I don’t have any concern about Mr. Swalwell,” she told reporters when the story of the congressman’s amorous relationship with Fang Fang first surfaced. Pelosi admonished House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy “for calling for Swalwell to lose his seat on the House Intelligence Committee,” Politico reported. “‘I do think that it is unfortunate that Mr. McCarthy is trying to make an issue of this,’ she said.”
