House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) called for Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) to be removed from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday because he poses a national security threat due to his past interactions with an accused Chinese spy.
Axios reported Swalwell had a friendship with Fang Fang, letting her bundle fundraising money, and placing an intern inside his office. Once it was brought to Swalwell's attention about her real intentions, he claims to have severed all ties with her.
Fang was being under investigation of working for China’s Ministry of State Security, but the probe stopped once she suddenly left the country to go back to China.
"The Intel committee is different than any other committee. It is the most difficult committee to get on. It’s only selected by the leaders of both parties. He got on as a sophomore. How could he do that? They were in the minority at the time, not very many seats. He got on as a sophomore and now, he says, that Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff knew of it. This is a national security threat," McCarthy said.
McCarthy pointed to how the Intel Committee does not meet in regular hearing rooms because of the sensitive nature of the intelligence reports they discuss. Swalwell has continued to not say what type of relationship he had with Fang.
"And now we have Eric Swalwell whose been swindled by the Chinese but what’s even more interesting here is why did he attack the American Director of Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s report, talking about the expansion of China spying throughout?...This man should not be in the Intel committee," McCarthy continued. "He’s jeopardizing national security. What is being said in those meetings inside the SCIF that we don’t want other people to hear or listen? You can’t not, you can not take in your watch. You cannot take in your phone, but here, we have an individual, who Nancy Pelosi, this is the real question. When did Nancy Pelosi know of this and why did she maintain him on the committee? Adam Schiff, who has spent four years as chair, worried about the foreign intervention into our country, knowingly keep an individual on the committee, if he knew as Swalwell says that he was with a Chinese individual who was a spy, who helped him run for Congress."