Declassified FBI documents reveal that agents stumbled onto former Rep. Eric Swalwell's admitted sexual relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence operative only because they were trying to recruit her as a double agent.
The files, released Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, show that the bureau had been working to turn Christine Fang, a Chinese national with family ties to Beijing's Ministry of State Security, into a confidential informant when agents discovered the scope of her entanglement with the California Democrat. Within days of closing the recruitment effort as a dead end, the FBI opened a full investigation into Swalwell himself, the New York Post reported.
Swalwell sat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence at the time, one of the most sensitive national-security posts in Congress. The declassified memos show the FBI knew as early as 2013 that Fang, whom agents assigned the code name "Rusty Thumbs," had "affiliations" with Beijing's spy agency and that both of her parents were identified as Chinese intelligence officers. Yet it took until April 30, 2015, for the bureau to give Swalwell a classified briefing on the matter. By then, the documents say, he was still seeing Fang every two months.
A 2013 FBI memo captured an undercover agent's attempt to recruit Fang into a cutout company apparently run by the bureau. Agents assessed her motivations and concluded they "appear to be centered on money and power." The memo also flagged "certain egotistical/narcissistic traits which may impact her suitability as a source."
Fang gave inconsistent accounts of her parents' retirement plans and made what the FBI called "ambiguous" statements about her past. By March 2014, agents decided she could not be trusted to reliably provide information on China in exchange for money. They closed the recruitment file.
Six days later, the FBI opened a predicated investigation into Swalwell. The probe, codenamed "Freshman Fifteen," targeted both Swalwell and Fang for possible bribery, conspiracy, and illegal foreign campaign contributions, Breitbart reported, citing the declassified files. An FBI memorandum stated that Fang was "the facilitator of a scheme to trade access to Swalwell and internships in his congressional office in return for campaign contributions."
FBI financial records indicated Fang used conduits to make prohibited foreign-national campaign contributions to Swalwell at least twice in 2013 and at least twice in 2014, Fox News reported.
In a May 2015 interview with agents, Swalwell confessed to "physical relations with Fang on a handful of occasions." An FBI interview summary noted that his last physical encounter with Fang was in March 2015. It also recorded a detail that captures the casual tone Swalwell apparently took toward the relationship: Fang visited him one evening, and "Swalwell barely remembers the event because he had taken Ambien prior to FANG arriving."
The 2013 FBI memo documented an earlier conversation in which Swalwell himself acknowledged Fang's suspected intelligence ties, but treated it as a joke. The memo recorded:
"Congressman Eric SWALWELL... commented that [Fang] was suspected as associated with the 'Chinese CIA' [MSS], albeit in a joking manner. [Fang] further joked that all [Ministry of State Security] MSS officers were either old men or ladies, therefore, she could not be MSS."
Fang went further, telling the undercover FBI agent that "the MSS would have hired prostitutes instead of using an MSS officer directly to entice the officials." She also boasted about her own leverage, telling agents she could "use her sexuality on politicians" if she wished because she was "young and pretty." She said she had turned down an opportunity to "marry rich in Beijing" because she "wanted to find her own path."
A sitting congressman on the intelligence committee was carrying on a sexual relationship with a woman whose parents were known Chinese intelligence officers, who bragged about her ability to seduce politicians, and who was funneling illegal foreign donations into his campaign. Swalwell joked about it. The FBI took more than a year to brief him.
Fang left the United States in 2015 and was ultimately barred from re-entering the country. The FBI found evidence she had violated several federal laws, but prosecution was deemed "non-viable due to national security reasons," according to the declassified files. The Justice Department declined to prosecute Swalwell as well.
A House Ethics Committee investigation opened in 2021 closed two years later without any action against Swalwell, AP News reported. GOP leadership briefly removed him from the Intelligence Committee, but Democrats later restored him to the panel. The story first broke publicly in 2020, when Axios published a report revealing Swalwell's ties to Fang and her suspected role as a Chinese spy.
Swalwell resigned from the House in April. He has also faced separate sexual misconduct and rape accusations, which he has denied.
Before the documents went public, Swalwell's attorneys sent a cease and desist letter to FBI Director Kash Patel demanding the bureau halt any release within three days or face legal action. His lawyers, Sean Hecker and Norm Eisen, wrote:
"The Congressman has never been accused of wrongdoing in that matter and your attempt to release the file is a transparent attempt to smear him and undermine his campaign for Governor of California."
The letter also warned Patel directly: "Your actions threaten to expose you, others at the FBI, and the FBI itself to significant legal liability."
Swalwell is currently a frontrunner in the Democratic primary for California governor. His legal counsel, Sara Azari, offered a different framing after the release, telling reporters: "There is nothing new here. The government's own memorandum confirms what Congressman Swalwell has said for more than a decade: he did nothing wrong, and there was no basis to charge him with any offense." That statement, from Just The News, arrived after the public could read the memos for themselves.
But the declassified files tell a different story than "nothing new." They show a congressman who joked about a suspected spy's intelligence ties, carried on a sexual relationship with her while serving on the committee that oversees U.S. intelligence, and benefited from a donation scheme the FBI called illegal. The bureau's own memos describe Fang as the daughter of two MSS officers who boasted about using her looks to manipulate politicians. Swalwell admitted the sexual relationship only after agents confronted him.
One additional detail from the declassified files adds a layer of complexity. Chinese media alleged that both the FBI and the CIA attempted to recruit Fang, a claim that, if accurate, would mean two U.S. intelligence agencies were courting a woman whose family was embedded in Chinese intelligence while she was simultaneously entangled with a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
The White House Government Transparency Task Force synopsis described the scope plainly: "The FBI developed evidence that a Chinese woman with direct ties to that country's intelligence service had potentially compromised a Democratic congressman from California with sex, foreign interns and illicit donations."
No charges. No consequences. And until the documents landed on the public record, Swalwell was running for governor without voters knowing the full extent of what the FBI had found.
Swalwell's attorneys call the release a political hit. The FBI's own memos call it something closer to a national security failure that went unanswered for years. Voters in California can now read the files and decide which version holds up.
