California candidate for governor Eric Swalwell insisted “the case is closed” at an abrupt news conference — as FBI Director Kash Patel threatens to release investigative files about a suspected Chinese spy who infiltrated his office.
“This case is closed — the bureau said, over 10 years ago, all we did was help,” Swalwell said in brief remarks Monday outside the Phillip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco.
The East Bay rep was surrounded by SEIU union officials as he blasted FBI Director Kash Patel as a “temporary employee” engaged in a “horrendous abuse of power” in digging up the investigative files about Swalwell and Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese Communist Party asset who cultivated ties with Swalwell starting when he was a Dublin city council member.
Fang, also known as “Fang Fang,” was a student at California State University East Bay who began schmoozing Swalwell at events, Axios reported in 2020, even bundling donations for his campaign and recommending interns for his office.
Trump officials ordered FBI agents to compile records of the decade-old investigation of Swalwell’s ties to Fang, who reportedly left the US in 2015 after worming her way into Swalwell’s orbit and carrying on romantic or sexual relationships with two midwestern mayors, per Axios.
The order “alarmed” some career investigations, the New York Times reported — partly because the files are “extensive” and include a substantial amount of classified and private information.
Swalwell is considered the Democratic frontrunner in the race for California governor and accused Trump and Patel of “weaponizing” federal law enforcement to meddle in the race.
“They think that if they can sneak two Republican loyalists past the June threshold, they can ignore the
will of the voters. But the choice belongs to Californians, and they will never let it go,” Swalwell said.
“Democrats will be in the majority in about nine months, and when we control the House of Representatives after the midterms, anyone on any level who has done wrong to you, who has pressured you to do something you know you should not do, they will be dragged by my colleagues into a hearing.”
Swalwell’s relationship with Fang — which came to light as he was serving on a key House intelligence committee — have dogged his campaign for governor.
The FBI and a House ethics committee did not identify any wrongdoing on Swalwell’s part in the espionage case, but former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ordered a House ethics probe when he became speaker in 2021.
Swalwell waved away the scandal as “lies and bullshit” in a podcast interview last week, adding: “Independent folks have said enough on this.”
Swalwell’s main campaign committee, called Swalwell for Congress, has spent more than $305,000 since 2016 on unspecified “legal services” from law firm Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass — which specializes in civil litigation and white-collar defense.
A campaign spokesperson told KCRA the payments were for legal guidance amid Trump’s “retaliatory investigations” that put the congressman’s “family and staff at risk.”
