“I think it’s unfortunate that Mr. McCarthy is trying to talk about this,” he said. “But you know what he’s trying to do, he’s trying to divert attention because he has QAnon on his delegation,” Pelosi added, referring to a conservative conspiracy doctrine that is rooted among some conservatives and defending Republicans. Pelosi told the Swallow FBI in 2015 that he and other congressional leaders had been arrested. At the center of the controversy were law enforcement officials who were monitoring the woman and believed she was an operative of China’s state defense ministry. The woman, alternatively known as Fang Fong or Christina Fong, learned of Svalbell when she was a city council member and stayed in his orbit while he was in Congress, helping to fund and accommodate Svalbell’s 2014 re-election campaign, according to Axios, a coach in his office. Swallowell immediately cut off contact with Fong, who was not in the country – and when the FBI warned him, he was not charged with any wrongdoing in his dealings with her. “We knew at the same time,” he said. “We knew when they knew, at that moment, that was the end.” McCarthy told Fox News Thursday morning that he was unaware of the matter until it came to light publicly earlier this week. “I’m going to ask the FBI Director to summarize me,” McCarthy said. “As a leader and a member of the gang of eight, I don’t know this.” Republicans have turned a blind eye following a report by Swallowwell linking him to a Chinese spy, and the news has been circulating in the conservative media for days. “Oh Ghosh, talk about karma,” Chris Stewart (R-Utah), a House Democrat sitting with the House Democrats, told Fox News on Thursday. “If this does not show that God has no sense of humor, what else is there to do?” The notion that any member of Congress had contact with a spy who was one of the country’s biggest global rivals would be fodder under any circumstances, but Swallowell had a particularly big target on his back. Swallowwell was a frequent opponent of Trump during the investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 election, and the standard was that Republicans doubled Swallowwell’s presidency because of an improper attempt to field a Democratic presidential candidate, which ended in July 2019. “This is Russia, Russia, Russia is all,” Representative Brad Weinstein (R-Ohio) told Fox News on Thursday. “He has no interest in China. He should care deeply about China if he encounters any event. We have not asked him about that.” McCarthy and a group of high-ranking Republicans questioned the continued membership of Swallowell’s group and sought to drag Pelosi and committee chairman Adam Schiff into the dust. “He’s affecting national security,” McCarthy said Thursday. “When did Nancy Pelosi know this, and why did she keep him on the team?” Swallowell has put an end to his own defenses, calling the conservative attacks on him a vicious attempt to attack him for his criticism of Trump. “To do that against someone who is critical of the president, they may think they are going to silence me,” Swallowell told CNN on Wednesday. “They ‘re not going to silence me, but they’ re going to make others think twice when they sit down and ask me to provide defensive information about people like this.” Other congressional Republicans have quickly moved toward California Democrats. “Nancy Pelosi can’t let him stay in the intelligence, he has to come clean of this,” Sex Rick Scott (R-Fla.) Told Fox Business. Trump has not yet landed directly on the field, but on Thursday morning retweeted an earlier post by Texas Representative Lance Gudan, saying that Swallowell was “actually affiliated” with an agent of the Chinese government.
Source