The FBI delivered a briefing to leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives on the connection of Rep. Eric Swalwell to a suspected Chinese spy.
After two previously scheduled FBI briefings on the issue were canceled, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy met with federal officials Friday, leaving McCarthy sure that Swalwell should not be serving on the House Intelligence Committee.
McCarthy told reporters as he emerged from the meeting, which was reportedly delivered by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, that it “only raised more questions” about Swalwell’s past relationship with a woman alleged to be a Chinese spy.
“The one thing that was fundamentally answered: he should not be on Intel,” the California Republican stated.
.@GOPLeader: @RepSwalwell “should not be on Intel”
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) December 19, 2020
“The Intelligence Committee is a special committee,” McCarthy said.
“It’s a committee that keeps our secrets. It’s a committee that is able to know our secrets. It’s a committee that has a lot of information that other members of Congress do not, and I just think there are definitely 200 other Democrats that I know could fill that place long before this individual should be seated,” he added.
I had a briefing from the FBI today to learn more about Eric Swalwell’s ties to a reported-spy from China, and one thing is now crystal clear:
Swalwell should no longer be on the Intel Committee.
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) December 18, 2020
Ratcliffe delivered the briefing to the House leaders, according to Fox News reporter Chad Pergram.
McCarthy finishes briefing w/Pelosi on China & Swalwell. Says DNI Ratcliffe delivered the briefing.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 18, 2020
Swalwell has served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence since 2015. Pelosi, who has come under heavy fire for defending her decision to appoint the lawmaker and then not to remove him, left the FBI briefing without answering reporters’ questions.
“I don’t have any concern about Mr. Swalwell,” Pelosi said in an interview last week.
McCarthy and other Republicans have been demanding that Swalwell be removed from the committee where he is privy to highly classified materials.
Swalwell came under scrutiny after reports of his entanglement with the suspected spy, Christine Fang, who targeted local politicians including the California lawmaker and at least two Midwestern mayors. Swalwell cut ties with Fang after federal investigators alerted him about concerns in a defensive briefing in 2015, and he has since denied doing anything wrong.
“What I learned today, and anyone who was in that room with me, would never allow Swalwell to be on the Intel Committee or to continue to be on it,” McCarthy told Fox News host Martha MacCallum later Friday after attending the briefing which he said lasted “for more than an hour.”
Though he did not elaborate on the details of the meeting, the California lawmaker said on “The Story” that “many of the questions that he [Swalwell] raised and posed to people, or made accusations about people, is actually what happened to him.”
(Source: Fox News)
“If you read the press, it was the FBI that went to him … not he going to them …” McCarthy explained. “I would assume it would be pretty serious if the FBI came to you [and said] that they knew this person was a spy for another country.”
“I know he should not be serving on Intel,” he reiterated.
“What I read in the paper, this individual got to know him as a city councilman, helped him run for Congress, and remember what Eric Swalwell did last year? He ran for president, as well. He’s raised a lot of questions on other people,” McCarthy recounted.
“I just think for what I know, for what the FBI presented,” he told MacCallum, “it is without a shadow of a doubt, I have no question as a Republican leader, I would never appoint anyone with that information I have on them.”
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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