PrintTime to throw Eric Swalwell off the House Intelligence Committee
Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell is being questioned about his fitness for the House Intelligence Committee by Republican House leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, for his cozy relationship with alleged Chinese spy Fang Fang, AKA Christine Fang. I wrote about that yesterday here. Here is McCarthy's tweet:
Rep. Swalwell has long been disqualified from serving on the Intel Committee. For years he peddled Russian disinformation for political gain.
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) December 8, 2020
Now we find out he was involved in an effort by a reported spy to gather info for China.
Swalwell is a national security liability.
Instead of bowing out gracefully, Swalwell is yelling that he was a victim, not of the ChiComs, but of President Trump, who he claims was behind the damning Axios report.
According to Politico:
"I've been a critic of the president. I've spoken out against him. I was on both committees that worked to impeach him," Swalwell said in an interview on Tuesday. "The timing feels like that should be looked at."
Swalwell added: "What it appears though that this person — as the story reports — was unsuccessful in whatever they were trying to do. But if intelligence officials are trying to weaponize someone's cooperation, they are essentially seeking to do what this person was not able to do, which is to try and discredit someone."
Swalwell refused to discuss his relationship with Fang, although he did say the controversy was not going to cost him the Intelligence Committee seat.
"As the story referenced, this goes back to the beginning of the last decade, and it's something that congressional leadership knew about it," Swalwell said.
So Trump did it? Trump was behind the Axios report?
That would be Axios, an internet news site run by Washington swamp thing Mike Allen, reported from U.S. intelligence sources, and done over the course of a year.
This doesn't sound like a hit job coming from Camp Trump.
Axios, remember, is on the center-left. The Intelligence Community is on the left, too, and what's more, out to Get Trump. And a news story done over the course of a year and released after the election (possibly to protect Joe Biden) isn't a fit-of-pique leak or hit job from anyone; it's more like a slow-moving freight train. Political hit jobs come just before Election Day, not after. Swalwell, as a matter of fact, knew all about the investigation more than a year ago, shortly after dropping out of the Democrat primaries for president, and the story came out only once he was safely re-elected.
His hit job claim is crap, and he still needs to answer questions about his activities, because China is a major adversary that targets gullible naïve young Democrats, as Axios, Tucker Carlson, and John Ratcliffe warned, yet Swalwell has no intention of doing so.
That's why he's got to be thrown off the House Intelligence Committee, as McCarthy seeks.
If he's not a full blown security risk, as McCarthy alleges, he's definitely someone who abuses his position and can't be trusted.
Let's start with the security risk questions:
Is he trying to tell us he never suspected that the comely foreigner so into him and everyone else in politics, targeting men on the rise, from an adversarial country, might just be a spy?
There's also the nookie question. Was he sleeping with her, as one intelligence source alleged? Sleeping with her targets was her specialty, and the Axios report noted that she bagged two Midwestern mayors. During the years he was carrying on with her, 2011–2015, he was unmarried and, being a leftist, wouldn't have compunctions. That might be important because it raises questions of whether he was compromised, as well as questions about his judgment. Red swallows sleep with sources to create material for blackmail.
Meanwhile, what about the intern? Fang placed an intern in Swalwell's office. What information was this person permitted to see? What or where is the person now? Is this person a citizen?
And explain again why, after a career as a big-city urban-affairs prosecutor, he sought his position on the House Intelligence Committee, as well as three other positions of intense interest to the communist Chinese regime:
See a committee or subcommittee there the ChiComs wouldn't want to know all about?
All this would be fine and dandy if Swalwell were actually interested in those topics, but his use of his Intelligence Committee position, was mainly devoted to spreading lies to topple President Trump. He wasn't interested in spy stuff; he was interested in spreading fake claims that President Trump was in hock to the Russians and stood on his Intelligence Committee position as his credibility podium until the whole thing fell apart. Why again did he want to get on those committees? And more specifically, did the ChiComs, whom he was in hock to for the fundraising that brought him there, direct him?
There's also funny stuff, like why he's always been a defender of Joe Biden, stretching for years and years, most lately criticizing investigations of Biden's drug-addled son Hunter's truly corrupt and dangerous dealings with the chief of China's intelligence as was found on his computer, along with the giant payoffs. Why wouldn't a congressman supposedly so interested in national security be just a little concerned about that? Is selling out to China fine so long as a Democrat does it? Is there a ring of compromised Democratic pols he's been asked by China to politically protect? Sorry — the questions need to be asked.
Swalwell tries to weasel out of these questions by pointing out that he cut off contact with Fang in 2015, three years after he was elected to the House, after a defensive briefing by the FBI, where it's possible they read him the riot act, and then cooperated with the bureau after that. Was it because he was caught or because he really cared, despite those years of carrying on with Fang, claiming he never suspected?
And did he leak any spy stuff to her? We already know from various characters in the intelligence committee, that taking intelligence home or putting it on one's personal computer is pretty much the way things are doing. Gen. Petraeus got fired from his CIA position for just this kind of sloppiness in late 2012, shortly after President Obama was relected. Did he hand Fang anything? It's right to want to know.
And lastly, any idea why Fang was apparently tipped off that the FBI was onto her and able to flee the country? A cold cutoff from Swalwell to Fang might have been a tipoff, but the bureau would know that and be unlikely to insist that Swalwell do so suddenly. The bureau, after all, is in the business of busting spies and the more arrests and collars they can score, the better it is for the agents and bureau itself. And as a former prosecutor, Swalwell would know that. Why'd she get a tip to flee, Eric?
Now, it's possible Swalwell, despite the lingering questions, is not a security risk. Maybe he's really been thoroughly vetted, and taken his national security responsibilities in the House seriously. Maybe Fang Fang never got her hands on any intelligence. But even if that were true, he's still clearly a liar and untrustworthy.
As noted before, he's spent his tenure on the House intelligence committee not focusing on national security, but on trying to topple President Trump through the use of a surfeit of lies. Anyone serious about such matters might just think this isn't a person who belongs on the committee, since he was saying things everyone on the inside would have known weren't true, tainting their credibility.
He's also crybabying, claiming President Trump, who has zero power over what goes on in Congress, somehow targeted him for a post-election hit-job. The sheer childishness of the claim suggests a dolt with maturity problems who can't be trusted with state secrets.
The only logical thing to do is get him off, throw him decisively off the House intelligence committee since it's glaringly clear he doesn't belong there.
Image credit: Twitter screen shot.
