California Democrat lawmaker Eric Swalwell is trying to do some serious damage control after one of those “bombshell” stories exploded earlier this week, exposing his ties to “a suspected Chinese spy.” His diversionary tactic is to claim that the hit piece was retribution “by the Trump administration for him repeatedly attacking President Donald Trump over Russia.” It didn’t work because nobody is buying it.
The Democrat made a perfect target
The alleged Mata Hari, Chinese national Christine Fang, “targeted up-and-coming local politicians.” She focused on the Bay Area but worked all across the country, looking for patsies who “had the potential to make it big on the national stage.”
The Chinese planned to throw serious incentives at their favorite candidates including “campaign fundraising, extensive networking, personal charisma, and romantic or sexual relationships.” Democrat Eric Swalwell made a perfect target.
According to liberal leaning Axios, “even though U.S. officials do not believe Fang received or passed on classified information, the case ‘was a big deal, because there were some really, really sensitive people that were caught up’ in the intelligence network.”
They quote a “current senior U.S. intelligence official.” The California Democrat was ripe for the picking.
Federal investigators noticed how cozy the Chinese honey pot was getting with the Democrat lawmaker. “Amid a widening counterintelligence probe, federal investigators became so alarmed by Fang’s behavior and activities that around 2015 they alerted Swalwell to their concerns — giving him what is known as a defensive briefing.”
Basically they told him what she was up to and who else she was up to it with. “Swalwell immediately cut off all ties to Fang, according to a current U.S. intelligence official, and he has not been accused of any wrongdoing.”
.@RepSwalwell: "The Maria Butina plea today represents that over the past two years, our country has seen just an influx of Russians into our political bloodstream and that’s something that did not exist until Donald Trump came on the scene." @HillTVLive https://t.co/R4ahoxX7mG pic.twitter.com/QDsT2y2caZ
— The Hill (@thehill) December 14, 2018
Fang had her teeth into Swalwell
According to reports, Fang “allegedly helped bring in top donors to Swalwell” before she returned to China in 2015, one step ahead of the law. Officials believe that “China’s communist government ended her mission and called her back, perhaps because they saw signs that the U.S. government was closing in on her alleged activities.”
The Democrat tries to blame it all on Trump. The way he spins what happened, “the Trump administration was responsible for leaking the story to Axios.” The progressives call him a liar. “Axios never said that the story was leaked to them, rather, they said that their story was the result of a ‘yearlong investigation.'”
Swalwell has enough of an ego to think it’s all about him “I’ve been a critic of the president. I’ve spoken out against him. I was on both committees that worked to impeach him.”
Of course that’s enough for the conservatives to frame him by sending a Chinese spy to hand him money and try to get in his pants. “The timing feels like that should be looked at,” The Democrat insists.
Partially because of the warning he got, the California Democrat insists that he did nothing wrong. However, when Politico asked Swalwell about the incident he “refused” to discuss his relationship with Fang, adding that “the controversy would not cost him his seat on the House Intelligence Committee.”
He also had to do some quick talking about the Russian Spy who “infiltrated his office.” A while back, Maria Butina “pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government after her attempts to infiltrate the NRA and GOP circles.
