ERIC SWALWELL & FANG-FANG

Washington has always had difficulty distinguishing foreign affairs from dating.

Benjamin Franklin managed the problem rather elegantly in Paris.

John F. Kennedy internationalized it.

Bill Clinton preferred domestic sourcing.

And then came Eric Swalwell, the disgraced U.S. Congressman from California’s 14th District who resigned last April amid allegations of sexual assault.

For years, the story was simple enough.

A young Chinese woman named Christine Fang—universally known as Fang Fang—arrived in California, cultivated ambitious politicians, helped them raise money, placed an intern in Congressman Eric Swalwell’s office—and became sufficiently interesting to the FBI that agents tried to recruit her before warning Swalwell off.

Swalwell severed contact, so he said.

Nothing improper occurred, he insisted.

Now the file is finally open.

Enter Fang Fang

Christine Fang arrived in the United States in 2011 as a student at California State University, East Bay. But she possessed a talent not generally taught in school.

She knew how to meet politicians. Particularly, politicians on the way up.

Ambitious city councilmen. Mayors. Young congressmen.

This is good intelligence practice.

Espionage, like venture capital, is about getting in early.

Swalwell was an especially promising startup.

He was young. Photogenic. A former prosecutor rising through California politics.

Fang Fang noticed.

And FBI Counterintelligence noticed Fang Fang.

The FBI wanted to recruit her.

Standard procedure.

Agents believed she might have useful information about Chinese influence operations in the United States.

Particularly, herself.

Typical intelligence situation:

China cultivates Fang Fang (whose parents were both CCP intelligence officers) to cultivate politicians.

The FBI cultivates Fang Fang.

And Fang Fang cultivates Swalwell.

According to the newly released material, an FBI employee, operating undercover, met Fang Fang in Las Vegas in May 2013 as part of an effort to assess whether she could be turned into an asset.

Fang Fang discussed her political connections. She appeared to understand something else rather well.

Herself.

According to FBI memos, she acknowledged that her appearance alone could help her influence politicians.

Enter Eric

Swalwell and Fang met in 2012.

For years, one particular question hovered over their relationship.

Were they lovers?

Swalwell declined to answer publicly.

The FBI files now provide an answer attributed to Swalwell himself.

During an FBI interview in Oakland in 2015, Swalwell told agents that he’d had “physical relations” with Fang on a “handful of occasions.”

Physical relations.

Diplomacy has bilateral relations. Congress has foreign relations.

Eric had physical ones.

He emphasized that they never dated and did not have a romantic relationship.

Apparently one can repeatedly have sex with a suspected intelligence operative without the unpleasant complications of dinner.

The Fang Fang Bang

Then we arrive at the kind of detail Gore Vidal would have refused to invent on the grounds that it was insufficiently believable.

According to the FBI interview summary from the newly released records, Fang Fang once arrived at Swalwell’s apartment late at night banging on the door.

Swalwell says he’d taken Ambien.

They “hooked up.”

He remembered very little else, he said, because of the Ambien.

This was a future member of the House Intelligence Committee.

And a woman suspected of connections to Chinese intelligence.

A late-night visit.

Ambien. And partial amnesia.

Somewhere, John le Carré is demanding a rewrite.

Money

The newly released records show that investigators believed Fang Fang arranged campaign contributions through intermediaries, disguising money that originated from prohibited foreign sources.

The FBI’s investigation—codename: FRESHMAN FIFTEEN—looked into allegations involving illegal campaign contributions and congressional internships.

Fang Fang’s activities came under suspicion.

Swalwell was interviewed but not charged.

The Intern

Fang Fang also helped place at least one intern in Swalwell’s congressional office.

Again, this has been publicly known for years.

But viewed alongside the newly released investigative material, it becomes more interesting.

Because intelligence work is fundamentally about access.

Access to people. Access to offices. Access to information. Access to calendars. Access to conversations.

An intern doesn’t need to steal nuclear codes.

An intern learns who comes through the door, who telephones, who matters, who drinks. Who talks too much.

And perhaps most useful of all: Who is going somewhere.

Fang Fang had apparently developed an eye for that.

Then She Left

By 2015 the FBI had become sufficiently concerned about Fang Fang that it alerted Swalwell.

He says he immediately broke off contact.

Fang Fang departed the United States, returned to China.

Investigators considered charging her with criminal violations, but the case went no further due to her departure.

Question: Did the FBI screw up (again)—or was there political interference (again)?

For years, the public was left with a strangely sanitized version of events. Nancy Pelosi even refused to remove Swalwell from the very sensitive Intelligence Committee when urged to do so by Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Chinese woman. Young politician. Fundraising. Intern.

FBI warning.

Then: “Nothing to see here.”

But the newly released files supply something the original story lacked.

Texture.

Breaking it Down

Wannabe congressman meets attractive Chinese political networker. They have “physical relations.” He accepts fundraising assistance from her and—by extension—funds arrive (illegally) from foreign entities. And said Chinese networker manages to install an intern inside his congressional office.

Politicians are ambitious.

Intelligence services are patient.

Rather like Chinese bamboo.