WASHINGTON — The FBI came upon disgraced ex-Rep. Eric Swalwell’s affair with Chinese language spy Fang Fang when the bureau tried to recruit her to be a double-agent, bombshell paperwork reveal.
Swalwell even joked that his paramour, whose English identify is Christine Fang, labored for the Ministry of State Safety (China’s CIA), in line with declassified paperwork launched Monday by the White Home Authorities Transparency Process Power.
“Congressman Eric SWALWELL … commented that [Fang] was suspected as related to the ‘Chinese language CIA’ [MSS], albeit in a joking method. [Fang] additional joked that every one [Ministry of State Security] MSS officers had been both previous males or women, subsequently, she couldn’t be MSS,” a 2013 FBI memo stated.
“[Fang] remarked that the MSS would have employed prostitutes as a substitute of utilizing an MSS officer on to entice the officers.”
Two years later, Swalwell was compelled to inform feds that he had intercourse with Fang, one thing that raised alarm bells on the time due to his place on the Home Everlasting Choose Committee on Intelligence.
Swalwell infamously confessed in 2015 to “bodily relations with Fang on a handful of events,” in line with the FBI docs.
GOP management briefly booted him from the Intel committee, however Democrats later put him again on it.
The 2013 memo revealed that an undercover FBI agent explored the potential of recruiting Fang, who was codenamed “Rusty Thumbs,” to an FBI cutout firm, figuring out that her mother and father had been Chinese language intelligence officers.
“RT [Rusty Thumbs] suggested that she would be capable of ‘use her sexuality on politicians,” the memo famous, “if she wished to as a result of she was ‘younger and fairly’. RT additional defined that she additionally had a possibility to marry wealthy in Beijing, however selected to not as a result of she needed to search out her personal path.”
Officers additionally knew on the time that she personally had “affiliations” with China’s spy company and took word of her giving inconsistent accounts of her mother and father’ retirement plans in addition to her being “ambiguous” about her previous.
Chinese language media beforehand reported that Fang alleged that each the FBI and CIA tried to recruit her.
A part of what fueled the feds’ perception that they may convert her to some kind of double agent was their perception that Fang’s “motivations seem like centered on cash and energy.”
They additional assessed that she exhibited “sure egotistical/narcissistic traits which can influence her suitability as a supply.”
However in March 2014, brokers concluded that Fang couldn’t be trusted to reliably present data on China in alternate for cash and closed the Rusty Thumbs recruitment file.
Six days later, the FBI opened a probe into Swalwell over Fang’s entry to him.
The feds gave Swalwell a categorised briefing on the matter on April 30, 2015. On the time, he was seeing her each two months, in line with the declassified paperwork.
The tranche of information was marked declassified in March of this yr, however didn’t get launched to the general public till Monday. Swalwell threatened to sue the FBI over plans to launch the information on him and Fang. On the time, he was the frontrunner within the Democratic main for California governor.
“The Congressman has by no means been accused of wrongdoing in that matter and your try to launch the file is a clear try to smear him and undermine his marketing campaign for Governor of California,” his attorneys wrote in a stop and desist letter to FBI Director Kash Patel on the time.
“Your actions threaten to reveal you, others on the FBI, and the FBI itself to vital authorized legal responsibility.”
Swalwell’s ties to Fang had been first revealed by a bombshell Axios story in 2020, which famous that she was suspected of being a Chinese language spy.
The Golden State Democrat resigned from the Home in April after dealing with sexual misconduct and rape accusations, which he has vehemently denied.
