Democrats last week tabled a GOP resolution to remove Representative Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from the House Intelligence Committee. Republicans have been pushing for Swalwell’s removal since Axios exposed the Democrat’s capers with Fang Fang, also known as Christine Fang, a spy from Communist China.
As Debra Saunders noted, Fang raised money for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign and also helped place at least one intern in Swalwell’s House office. That was actual collusion, from someone who falsely accused Trump of collusion with the Kremlin. Swalwell suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome, but there’s more to the California Democrat who fell for the honey trap, the oldest espionage trick in the book.
Swalwell faithfully repeated Chinese Communist propaganda practically word for word, and it’s hard to find a case where Swalwell disagrees with China or criticizes their human rights record. The PRC is in fact a genocidal Stalinist dictatorship, a reality Democrats and Republicans alike these days tend to ignore.
Swalwell blamed the Axios report on President Trump, and that was not his first shot in the blame game. The former prosecutor, who ran for president of the United States, specializes in guilt by accusation.
In a March 26, 2019 appearance on Fox News, Martha MacCallum asked Swalwell if he had any second thoughts about things he had said in the two years before the release of the Mueller report that found no evidence of collusion. Swalwell drew a blank. MacCallum pressed the case of the infamous Steele dossier. Swalwell turned the tables and asked what in the dossier had been found false.
For Swalwell, Trump’s firing of FBI boss James Comey was prima facie evidence of the president’s guilt. Mueller found no evidence of collusion or conspiracy, and no guilt. Swalwell made repeated claims of substantive evidence he failed to produce and, like the establishment media, he has no second thoughts.
The California Democrat was the biggest haul in Fang Fang’s operations between 2011 and 2015. That year the FBI warned Swalwell, who supposedly was unaware, that Fang worked for Beijing. The case is strong that Swalwell should not hold office, let alone occupy a place on the intelligence committee, where he is privy to the most sensitive information.
Democrats want him to stay on the committee, and nobody in Congress seems interested in finding out what, exactly, Fang Fang may have learned from Swalwell during the tender moments they shared, or what information the Fang-sponsored intern may have passed on to China.
A New Breed of Democrat
During the Cold War, Democrats such as Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia would not have tolerated an intel committee member who collaborated with a KGB spy. After the pivot to Asia—meaning China—things are all different.
The United States gives China preferred status and allows China to manufacture products for the American market while ripping off American intellectual property. Chinese students abound in American colleges, and prominent American politicians are easy targets for Chinese spies.
For some 20 years, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) maintained on her staff a Chinese spy, listed as “office director” on her payroll, and who even attended consular functions for the senator. Feinstein forced the spy to retire, the FBI brought no charges, and the San Francisco Democrat escaped any serious investigation of the damage this long-term spy may have caused. Feinstein also has escaped investigation of her considerable business interests in China, whose side she takes in disputes with the United States.
In April 2020, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican, filed a lawsuit charging that Chinese Communist officials are “responsible for the enormous death, suffering, and economic losses they inflicted on the world, including Missourians.” For Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Missouri lawsuit was the problem.
“We launch a series of unknown events that could be very, very dangerous,” said Feinstein during a July 30 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. “I think this is a huge mistake.”
For Feinstein, an honored visitor in China since the 1970s, China is “a country growing into a respectable nation among other nations. And I deeply believe that.” By contrast, according to Feinstein the United States is burdened with “systemic racism in areas ranging from housing to employment to education.”
Joe Biden, in a 2019 campaign speech in Iowa City, said the Chinese were “not bad folks” and “not competition for us.” In a CNN town hall on February 17, Biden said, “I am not going to speak out against what he’s [China’s president Xi Jinping] doing in Hong Kong, what he’s doing with the Uighurs in western mountains of China and Taiwan.” The Chinese Communists operate under “different norms,” and Biden has no problem with it.
Unlike the Soviet Union, China has no need for the Communist Party USA. The Democratic Party functions as China’s wholly owned subsidiary. Xi Jinping enjoys assets in the White House, Senate, and House, where PoonFang pushover Eric Swalwell remains on the intelligence committee.