FBI stumbled across Eric Swalwells affair with Chinese spy Fang Fang when agents tried to recruit her: docs

WASHINGTON — The FBI stumbled on disgraced ex-Rep.Eric Swalwell’s affair with Chinese spy Fang Fang when the bureau tried to recruit her to be a double-agent, bombshell documents reveal.

Swalwell even joked that his paramour, whose English name is Christine Fang, worked for the Ministry of State Security (China’s CIA), according to declassified documents released Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force.“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,” a 2013 FBI memo said.“[Fang] remarked that the MSS would have hired prostitutes instead of using an MSS officer directly to entice the officials.”Two years later, Swalwell was forced to tell feds that he had sex with Fang, something that raised alarm bells at the time because of his position on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.Swalwell infamously confessed in 2015 to “physical relations with Fang on a handful of occasions,” according to the FBI docs.GOP leadership briefly booted him from the Intel committee, but Democrats later put him back on it.The 2013 memo revealed that an undercover FBI agent explored the possibility of recruiting Fang, who was codenamed “Rusty Thumbs,” to an FBI cutout company, knowing that her parents were Chinese intelligence officers.“RT [Rusty Thumbs] advised that she would be able to ‘use her sexuality on politicians,” the memo noted, “if she wished to because she was ‘young and pretty’.

RT further explained that she also had an opportunity to marry rich in Beijing, but chose not to because she wanted to find her own path.”Officials also knew at the time that she personally had “affiliations” with China’s spy agency and took note of her giving inconsistent accounts of her parents’ ...