The mystery surrounding former California Congressman Eric Swalwell and suspected Chinese intelligence operative Christine “Fang Fang” Fang just got considerably less mysterious, and more troubling for the defanged former congressman. ABC7 says newly declassified FBI records reveal that Swalwell told investigators in 2015 that he had sexual relations with Fang on a “handful of occasions,” providing the clearest official account yet of a relationship that became a political controversy years later.
Fang had cultivated Swalwell as his political career was taking off, helping with fundraising and recommending an intern who ultimately worked in his congressional office. The NY Post reports the newly released records also detail FBI suspicions that Fang solicited campaign contributions involving foreign nationals and was connected to Chinese intelligence. Federal investigators scrutinized her activities as part of a counterintelligence investigation, although neither Swalwell nor Fang was ultimately charged in the case
The most explosive revelation concerns what Swalwell himself told the FBI. According to an interview summary, Swalwell said Fang once arrived unexpectedly at his apartment and the two “hooked up.” He told investigators he barely remembered that encounter because he had taken Ambien before she arrived. The records indicate their physical relationship ended by March 2015, according to ABC7.
There is an important distinction in the files: they do not establish that Swalwell knowingly worked for China, passed classified information to Fang or committed a crime. After the FBI warned him about Fang in 2015, Swalwell cut off contact and cooperated with investigators. The House Ethics Committee later investigated the matter and closed its inquiry in 2023 without taking action against him, as the SF Chronicle reports.
But the documents answer a question that hovered over the controversy since Fang’s relationship with Swalwell became public in 2020. The relationship was not merely political networking and fundraising: Swalwell acknowledged to the FBI that it became sexual. That disclosure also provides new context for Swalwell’s effort earlier this year to prevent the FBI files from being released–calling them an effort by the FBI to politicize the investigation–records his attorneys argued were being weaponized by the Trump administration for political purposes
AI contributed to this report.
