BOMBSHELL: Declassified Files Reveal The FBI Had Evidence…
Newly declassified FBI records made public this week confirm what many conservatives have argued for years: the bureau possessed substantial evidence that a suspected Chinese intelligence operative known as “Fang Fang” compromised then-Congressman Eric Swalwell through a sexual relationship, campaign donations, and placement of foreign nationals inside his office.
The files, released Monday, August 17, by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, were declassified on the order of President Trump as part of a broader push to expose foreign interference in American politics. The release ends years of stonewalling by Swalwell and his legal team, who fought for months to keep the records sealed.
According to the documents, the woman also known as Christine Fang built relationships across Bay Area and national Democratic politics beginning around 2011, with one of her closest ties being to Swalwell, then a Dublin, California city councilman on the rise. By 2014, she was serving as a fundraising bundler for his congressional re-election campaign.
The files describe a years-long counterintelligence probe, code-named “Freshman Fifteen,” that ran from May 2014 to May 2017. FBI interview summaries show Swalwell admitted to agents in 2015 that he had physical relations with Fang on multiple occasions, though he insisted he never had a romantic relationship with her.
One interview memo, drawn from the declassified file, describes Swalwell telling investigators that he and Fang “hooked up” after she arrived unannounced at his apartment, and that he barely recalled the encounter because he had taken a sleep aid beforehand. It is exactly the kind of vulnerability foreign intelligence services look to exploit.
The records also detail how Fang helped place at least one foreign intern inside Swalwell’s congressional office, raising fresh questions about who had access to a sitting member of Congress and, later, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
That detail is especially alarming given Swalwell’s later assignment. In 2015, the same year the FBI briefed him on Fang, he was named to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, eventually taking a lead role on the subcommittee overseeing the CIA. Critics have long argued Democratic leadership never adequately reckoned with that timeline.
Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, called Swalwell’s conduct “incredible recklessness” in a Fox News interview following the release. Schweizer noted the files also show Fang repeatedly urged Swalwell and his family to travel to China, at one point offering to pay for the trip.
The bureau’s parallel effort to flip Fang into a confidential informant, detailed in a second declassified packet, adds another layer to the story. Agents assigned her the code name “Rusty Thumbs” and used an undercover employee along with a fictitious company to develop a relationship with her before she fled the country as investigators closed in.
To be clear about what the files do and do not show: after repeated interviews, the FBI reclassified the investigation in February 2017, dropped Swalwell as a subject, and focused the remaining probe on Fang’s own conduct. Investigators ultimately determined they lacked sufficient evidence to prosecute Swalwell for any federal violation.
The Department of Justice also declined to prosecute Fang herself, since she had already fled the country and was barred from re-entry, effectively placing her beyond the reach of American courts. A 2017 FBI memo cited national security concerns in closing out that avenue as well.
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None of that changes the fundamental point conservatives have made since Axios first broke elements of this story back in 2020: a sitting congressman with access to sensitive intelligence briefings carried on a physical relationship with a suspected foreign agent for years, and Democratic leadership largely shrugged it off.
House Republicans pressed for accountability at the time. Then-Rep. Greg Steube sent a letter to then-FBI Director Christopher Wray in December 2020 demanding Swalwell be removed from the Intelligence Committee pending a full investigation. Nancy Pelosi expressed “full confidence” in Swalwell and no such removal ever happened.
