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Minority House Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Friday he would propose a resolution next week to remove California Democrat Eric Swalwell from the House Standing Committee on Intelligence, an effort that a Democratic aide to high level called it a “waste of time” that will go nowhere.
“Pelosi has just reappointed Eric Swalwell to the Intelligence Committee. Based on the briefing she and I received together, Swalwell should not be part of the panel charged with keeping our nation’s secrets,” McCarthy said. in a tweet.
His tweet refers to a briefing from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and McCarthy, received from the FBI on December 18, 2020, on Swalwell’s contacts with a suspected Chinese intelligence agent, according to a McCarthy aide.
According to an Axios article in 2020, the agent, named Christine Fang or Fang Fang, contacted several politicians in the Bay Area between 2011 and 2015 as part of an intelligence operation led by the agency. Chinese civilian espionage. She helped raise funds for Swalwell’s re-election campaign in 2014, helped place at least one intern in her office, and interacted with the congressman at several events.
Axios also reported that a current senior US intelligence official did not believe Fang had transmitted or received classified information, and federal investigators alerted Swalwell to his activities in 2015, when he cut all ties.
At the time of the story, Swalwell’s office admitted that he had met Fang over eight years ago and provided information about him to the FBI when made aware of his identity. He hadn’t seen her for six years.
After McCarthy’s tweet on Friday, Swalwell said: “I look forward to continuing the important work of protecting Americans and supporting the hard-working heroes of our intelligence community, and I thank President Pelosi and President Schiff for their support and confidence. “
A senior Democratic official said McCarthy’s resolution would be “tabled” or rejected by the House, instantly, calling it a “waste of time.” Swalwell, the aide said, had acted appropriately and had not been accused of doing anything wrong.
“Republicans should be wary of starting something like this,” the aide warned. “Their conference is brimming with visibility.”
GOP lawmakers pointed to the story to try to discredit Swalwell when he was one of the impeachment officials in former President Trump’s Senate trial last month and to warn that he would be He was justified in stripping him of his committee duties if Republicans returned to power in the House – just as Democrats decided to strip Georgian Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee duties earlier this year. Greene’s impeachment came following comments she made ahead of her congressional campaign in which she expressed support for QAnon’s conspiracy theories and other racist and anti-Semitic remarks.
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