Newly declassified FBI records show investigators examined allegations involving foreign campaign contributions, congressional interns and Chinese intelligence ties before ultimately clearing Eric Swalwell of federal violations and narrowing the case to Christine Fang.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Newly declassified FBI records are shedding fresh light on a years-old counterintelligence and campaign finance investigation involving former California Rep. Eric Swalwell and Chinese national Christine Fang, revealing that investigators gathered evidence of alleged illegal foreign donations, examined whether congressional internships were tied to campaign contributions and had previously tried to recruit Fang as an informant on Chinese influence operations.
The records, declassified by President Donald Trump and released Monday through the White House Government Transparency Task Force, provide substantially more detail about the FBI’s scrutiny of Fang, also known as Christine Fang, and her relationship with Swalwell.
According to a Just the News review of the newly released files, the FBI initially investigated whether Swalwell and Fang had participated in a quid pro quo involving campaign donations and congressional internships.
The bureau ultimately concluded that its investigation had uncovered no federal statutory violations by Swalwell and formally removed him as a subject in 2017. Investigators continued focusing on Fang and concluded there was evidence that she had violated several campaign finance and other federal laws before she left the United States for China.
The case was significant enough to become a predicated FBI investigation — a formal inquiry supported by a factual basis indicating that criminal activity or a national security threat may exist. Unlike a preliminary assessment, a predicated investigation permits agents to use more intrusive investigative techniques, including confidential informants and electronic surveillance.
The declassified records also reveal an unusual sequence preceding the campaign finance investigation: The FBI had already been attempting to recruit Fang as a confidential human source because agents believed she had connections to China’s intelligence apparatus and could potentially provide information about Chinese influence activities targeting American public officials.
FBI Investigated Alleged Campaign Contribution Scheme
The FBI formally opened its investigation involving Swalwell and Fang on March 17, 2014, under the codename “Freshman Fifteen,” according to a declassified Interim Authority memorandum.
The investigation initially centered on allegations that campaign contributions were being exchanged for internship placements in Swalwell’s congressional offices.
One FBI memorandum described Fang as an alleged intermediary in the arrangement.
“Investigation has revealed Fang ‘Christine’ Fang, a Chinese foreign national residing in the United States, is the facilitator of a scheme to trade access to Swalwell and internships in his congressional office in return for campaign contributions […]” the memo reads.
Investigators alleged that Fang concealed foreign-source donations by routing them through American citizens.
The FBI said Fang “used conduits to conceal herself as a prohibited Foreign National source,” for campaign contributions made “at least twice in 2013 and at least two more times in 2014.”
According to the memo, agents determined that the 2013 conduits “trace to Fang herself,” identifying her as an “illegal source of campaign contributions.”
Investigators initially described their objective in sweeping terms.
The probe was intended to “obtain sufficient evidence to indict and arrest Swalwell and Fang for violations of campaign finance laws and quid pro quo exchanges,” the memorandum stated.
The FBI eventually reached a different conclusion concerning Swalwell, determining after several interviews that agents had not established federal criminal violations by the congressman.
The investigation nevertheless produced evidence investigators believed implicated Fang in illegal campaign contributions.
One episode involved an individual who was secretly serving as an FBI confidential human source.
In March 2015, Fang contacted the source and encouraged the individual to attend a Swalwell fundraiser and make a contribution.
Agents sought permission on March 9, 2015, for the source to “make a bona fide campaign contribution” as part of the ongoing investigation.
A subsequent confidential source report dated March 24 stated that “CHS provided Christine Fang with his credit card number for the $1,000 donation.”
Another alleged attempt occurred in 2014.
According to an FBI interview memorialized the following year, Fang invited an individual with whom she had a financial relationship to a Swalwell fundraiser.
The individual told agents he was informed that he “just needed to bring his checkbook and that FANG would reimburse him for his donation.”
The person said he refused.
The investigation was periodically reviewed by FBI headquarters and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which handles federal public corruption and election-related criminal matters.
At the time, the section was led by prosecutor Jack Smith, who years later became special counsel in federal criminal investigations involving Trump.
Swalwell Told FBI About Relationship With Fang and Intern Referrals
The records provide previously undisclosed detail about Swalwell’s personal relationship with Fang.
During a 2015 FBI interview, Swalwell said he first encountered Fang in 2012 while campaigning for Congress.
According to the FBI interview summary, Swalwell acknowledged having “physical relations with Fang” on multiple occasions.
In another FBI interview conducted in 2016, Swalwell described an encounter in which Fang arrived at his residence and said the two “hooked up,” according to the bureau’s summary.
Swalwell also confirmed that Fang recommended interns for positions with both his campaign and congressional offices.
He told agents that he and members of his staff regarded Fang’s recommendations as connected with the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs organization, or APAPA, a significant constituent organization in his district.
“FANG was unique when it came to interns, because SWALWELL saw FANG as connected to the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Associations (APAPA) and [redacted],” the FBI’s 2016 interview summary reads.
“SWALWELL viewed anyone that FANG put forward for an internship as coming from APAPA,” it adds. “A significant portion of SWALWELL’s constituents are Chinese American and diversity is important.”
Swalwell also described concerns about campaign finance compliance within his political operation.
During his 2016 FBI interview, he discussed a 2014 fundraiser held at the Wynn Casino in Las Vegas and recalled that a person who apparently handled campaign finances had been told “he needed to get it together when it comes to filing paperwork and reporting requirements. Paperwork was not [redacted] strength,” according to the FBI 302 documenting the interview.
The released records confirm that Swalwell cooperated with FBI investigators.
When Axios first publicly detailed Fang’s political activities in 2020, the outlet reported that American officials believed she had cultivated politicians in the San Francisco Bay Area through fundraising, political networking, personal charisma and romantic or sexual relationships.
Swalwell was identified as one of Fang’s most significant political contacts.
His office said at the time that the congressman had previously assisted federal investigators.
“Rep. Swalwell, long ago, provided information about this person — whom he met more than eight years ago, and whom he hasn’t seen in nearly six years — to the FBI. To protect information that might be classified, he will not participate in your story,” Swalwell’s office said in a statement.
The FBI records now publicly available corroborate that Swalwell participated in interviews with bureau agents.
FBI Eventually Removed Swalwell From the Case
As the investigation continued, the FBI’s focus changed substantially.
After interviewing Swalwell several times and reviewing the evidence, investigators concluded they had not found a violation of federal criminal law by the congressman.
On Feb. 8, 2017, the bureau reclassified the investigation, formally removing Swalwell as a subject and focusing exclusively on Fang’s alleged campaign finance violations.
The full set of newly released materials includes a redacted FBI investigative packet and a separate chronological FBI file covering related investigations.
The Fang portion of the investigation continued even after agents cleared Swalwell of federal violations.
According to the records, the FBI searched Fang’s residence and interviewed people within her political and personal circle.
One former Swalwell campaign intern, a Chinese national studying political science, told investigators that Fang said agents had questioned her and searched her home.
Other associates told investigators that Fang left the United States and returned to China around May 2015.
One winery owner who had financially assisted Fang while she lived in the United States — including co-signing leases for an apartment and vehicle — told investigators that Fang said she was returning to China after being questioned about the alleged political donation arrangement.
The same person was the individual Fang had allegedly offered to reimburse for a Swalwell campaign contribution.
According to the FBI summary, Fang told the winery owner that “her parents used to work for the Chinese government in a department akin to the US Secret Service.”
The bureau formally closed the case in 2017 after Fang had left the country.
In its closing memorandum, the FBI said investigators had identified evidence suggesting Fang violated multiple federal criminal statutes.
The alleged offenses included making prohibited campaign contributions in another person’s name, exceeding contribution limits, foreign-national contributions, falsification and destruction of records, false statements and false writings, international bulk cash smuggling and acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
The State Department also barred Fang from reentering the United States, according to the records.
Despite the evidence investigators said they had developed against Fang, the Justice Department did not prosecute her after she returned to China.
FBI First Tried to Recruit Fang as an Informant
Perhaps the most unusual revelation in the records concerns what the FBI was doing before opening the campaign finance investigation.
Agents had spent months trying to recruit Fang as a confidential source.
The effort was intended to provide the FBI with insight into Chinese influence operations aimed at U.S. political figures with whom Fang had established relationships.
Agents assigned Fang the source-recruitment codename “Rusty Thumbs.”
The bureau used an undercover employee and a fictitious business as part of the operation. The undercover employee met repeatedly with Fang, learned about her background and eventually proposed hiring her as a consultant whose Chinese contacts could ostensibly benefit the fake company.
The arrangement was actually designed to evaluate whether she could become an FBI source.
Fang reportedly remained guarded about some aspects of her background in China, declining to explain her parents’ government positions or identify where she attended undergraduate school.
At the same time, she spoke freely about her political involvement in California, including efforts to connect donors with Swalwell’s congressional campaign.
Fang eventually accepted the undercover employment proposal.
On June 14, 2013, she signed a contractor agreement with the FBI’s fictitious company, according to documents contained in the bureau’s files.
The recruitment operation appears to have helped expose the conduct that later prompted the separate criminal investigation.
The FBI ended its effort to recruit Fang just six days before opening its initial investigation into the alleged campaign contribution scheme.
Agents Suspected Chinese Intelligence Connections Early
The declassified records show that the FBI’s original interest in Fang was driven in substantial part by concerns about Chinese intelligence.
One memorandum identified her parents as “known MSS intelligence officers,” referring to China’s Ministry of State Security.
Agents also suspected Fang herself had connections to the MSS.
Those suspected ties were a central reason investigators hoped to develop her as an informant capable of explaining how Chinese influence operations targeted American political officials.
“In addition, [Rusty Thumb] professed to knowing people of influence within the PRC,” one FBI memo states. “Given RT’s apparent connections with MSS personnel and the PRC government, coupled with her continuing contact with U.S. and local government officials, RT may be able to report on MSS influence campaigns directed at the U.S. government.”
One of Fang’s own associates independently expressed similar suspicions.
The winery owner interviewed by the FBI told agents that he or she “sometimes got the impression that FANG is a Chinese spy,” according to the interview summary.
“She was very private and would frequently be gone without any explanation,” the individual reportedly told investigators. “However, she also did things that [redacted] considered to be very obvious and not very smart.”
Swalwell Tried to Stop Release of Investigation Records
Years after the FBI cleared him of federal violations, Swalwell sought to prevent the investigative records from becoming public.
Earlier this year, he threatened legal action against the FBI and asked the bureau not to release records related to the Fang investigation.
His attorneys, Norm Eisen and Sean Hecker, sent a cease-and-desist letter to FBI Director Kash Patel in March.
“The Congressman has never been accused of wrongdoing in that matter and your attempt to release the file is a transparent attempt to smear him and undermine his campaign for Governor of California,” the attorneys wrote. “Your actions threaten to expose you, others at the FBI, and the FBI itself to significant legal liability.”
The newly released files present a more complicated picture than earlier public accounts of the case.
They show that the FBI did initially investigate whether Swalwell had participated in a bribery or campaign finance arrangement involving donations and internships, and they document his acknowledgment of a sexual relationship with Fang and her role in referring interns.
But the same records also establish that the FBI ultimately concluded it had found no federal criminal violations by Swalwell and removed him from the investigation.
The bureau instead concentrated on Fang, whom agents believed had used U.S. citizens as conduits for prohibited foreign campaign donations while maintaining suspected ties to China’s Ministry of State Security.
The documents also reveal that, before investigators viewed Fang as a criminal target, they considered her potentially valuable enough to recruit as an FBI informant on precisely the type of Chinese influence operations they later suspected her of conducting.
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