Newly released FBI investigation files reveal that Democratic leaders, led by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, kept Rep. Eric Swalwell on the House Intelligence Committee for years after the bureau warned them about his relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence operative.
The White House Government Transparency Task Force on Monday released a redacted packet of FBI files detailing a probe codenamed "Freshman Fifteen," which the bureau opened on March 17, 2014, to investigate Swalwell's ties to a Chinese national named Fang Fang. The files, first reported in full by Just the News, show that Swalwell admitted to FBI agents during a 2015 interview that he had "physical relations with Fang" on multiple occasions. In a follow-up interview in 2016, Swalwell described an incident in which Fang showed up at his door and they "hooked up."
One FBI memo identified Fang's parents as "known MSS intelligence officers", MSS being China's Ministry of State Security, Beijing's main spy service. The bureau reviewed the case file at headquarters and ran it through the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. Agents raided Fang's home and began interviewing her associates. She fled the country before the investigation concluded.
Democratic leadership first learned about Swalwell's entanglement with Fang in Spring 2015, shortly after the party nominated him to the Intelligence Committee, the panel whose members handle some of the nation's most sensitive classified information. Pelosi later acknowledged the briefing but insisted the matter was resolved. "When that was made known to the members of Congress, it was over," she said. "That was the end of any communication with those people."
But cutting off contact with Fang was not the same as removing Swalwell from a committee where a compromised member poses a direct national security risk. Pelosi did not pull him. She reappointed him. And when pressed, she offered a flat denial that anything was wrong.
"I did not 'have any concerns about Mr. Swalwell.'"
That was Pelosi's position even after the FBI briefed her again in December 2020, following an Axios report that first brought Fang's influence operation into public view. Then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy attended the same briefing. The two leaders walked away with opposite conclusions.
McCarthy called Swalwell "a national security liability" in a social media post. He filed a resolution in early 2021 to strip Swalwell of his committee seat. Pelosi's leadership team held the line. The House voted 200, 218, mostly along party lines, to reject McCarthy's resolution.
Then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff backed Swalwell publicly during the removal fight. In a letter at the time of the vote, Schiff wrote that Swalwell was a "trusted member of our committee" who had "acted fully in accordance with his responsibilities" after the 2015 counterintelligence briefing about Fang.
The declassified files complicate that defense. The FBI initially wanted to investigate Swalwell for a bribery scheme before eventually narrowing the case to seek criminal charges only against Fang for illegal campaign donations. Fang had fundraised for Swalwell and other California Democrats, allegedly routing illegal donations through U.S.-citizen conduits. She placed interns in Swalwell's congressional office. U.S. officials told Axios she used "campaign fundraising, networking, charisma, and romantic/sexual relationships" to ingratiate herself with politicians in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The FBI even tried to recruit Fang as a confidential informant, assigning her the codename "Rusty Thumbs." She left the country before that effort went anywhere.
Despite what the source article describes as strong evidence of illicit donations, the Justice Department ultimately declined to prosecute Fang. No charges were filed against Swalwell either. Pelosi's office did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
When Republicans regained control of the House in 2023, Speaker McCarthy made good on his earlier warnings. He blocked Swalwell from serving on the Intelligence Committee entirely.
McCarthy was blunt about what the FBI briefing had shown him:
"If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn't have Swalwell on any committee."
He went further, pointing to Democratic leadership's decision to keep Swalwell in place despite the warnings:
"The only way that they even knew it came forward is when they went to nominate him to the Intel Committee. And then the FBI came and told the leadership then, he's got a problem. And they kept him on. That jeopardized all of us."
That timeline matters. Democrats learned about the Fang problem in Spring 2015. They had nearly six years, through two full congressional terms, before McCarthy forced the issue with a floor vote in 2021. During that entire stretch, a congressman who had admitted to a sexual relationship with a woman whose parents were identified as Chinese intelligence officers sat on the committee responsible for overseeing America's spy agencies.
Pelosi claimed there was no gap between what Republicans and Democrats knew. "We knew when they knew," she said. But knowing and acting are different things. Pelosi's silence on the matter now, her office offered no comment after the files dropped, speaks louder than her earlier assurances.
Swalwell's legal counsel, Sara Azari, pushed back on the significance of the released files in a statement Monday:
"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."
Azari went on to frame the release itself as the real problem:
"What is new and deeply concerning is the apparent use of federal law enforcement information to punish or embarrass an outspoken critic of the current administration. An investigation that produced no charges and no finding of wrongdoing should not be resurrected years later as a vehicle for political retaliation."
The "no charges" defense is technically accurate, the DOJ declined to prosecute, and Swalwell was never formally accused of a crime. But the absence of charges is not the same as the absence of a problem. The FBI opened a probe, briefed congressional leadership, identified Fang's parents as MSS officers, documented Swalwell's admissions of a sexual relationship with a suspected foreign agent, and flagged concerns serious enough that the bureau's own headquarters and the DOJ's Public Integrity Section reviewed the case.
Controversial prosecutor Jack Smith oversaw early steps of the Fang investigation in part, though his specific role is not detailed in the released files. The probe carried the case number 56D-SF-4662117, with a separate chronological file under case numbers 0342-SF-2754538 and 200D-SF-146143. Both redacted packets were finalized for release on August 14, 2026.
Several questions remain unanswered. The full scope of the redactions is unclear. The precise timeline of Fang's departure from the United States relative to the FBI's investigative steps has not been publicly established. And the current status of any proceedings or investigations related to either Swalwell or Fang is not addressed in the released materials. The Pelosi family has faced its own share of legal and political scrutiny in recent years, but the former Speaker's handling of the Swalwell matter may prove the most consequential question about her leadership legacy.
When the FBI tells you a sitting congressman has been sleeping with a suspected Chinese spy whose parents work for Beijing's intelligence service, keeping him on the committee that guards America's secrets is not caution, it is a choice. Pelosi made that choice, Schiff defended it, and the Democratic caucus voted to protect it. The files are public now. The judgment belongs to the voters.
