Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) blasted Rep Eric Swalwell (D-CA) at a press conference Thursday, telling reporters they would never give the Democrat a committee position if they received the same briefing from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that he did.
“Let me phrase something very direct to you: if you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy told reporters.
Breitbart News published an explosive exclusive report in August 2021 regarding a classified report indicating Swalwell was in an intimate sexual relationship with a Chinese spy named Fang Fang. Moreover, Fang Fang also “took part in fundraising activity for Swalwell’s 2014 re-election campaign, according to a Bay Area political operative,” as Axios reported in 2020.
“He cannot get a security clearance in the private sector, so would you like to give him a government clearance?” McCarthy asked reporters on Thursday.
He added that Democrats in the last Congress had hundreds of other members, not surrounded by security questions, who could have served on the committee instead, but they opted to stick with Swalwell:
You’re going to tell me that there’s 200 other Democrats that couldn’t fill that slot, but you kept him on it? The only way that they even knew it came forward is when they went to nominate him to the Intel Committee and then the FBI came and told the leadership then, “He’s got a problem.” And they kept him on. That jeopardized all of us.
The Speaker also reiterated that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) would be denied an Intelligence Committee appointment because he “openly lied to the American public.”
“He put America, for four years, through an impeachment that he knew was a lie,” McCarthy said. “At the same time, we had Ukraine. At the same time, we had Afghanistan collapse. Was that the role of the Intel Committee? No.”
He added that he is bringing the Intelligence Committee “back to what the jurisdiction is supposed to do, forward-looking to keep this country safe.”
The moves mark a promise kept by McCarthy, who vowed in June the duo would not serve on the Intelligence Committee in the 118th Congress while appearing on Fox News Channel’s Jesse Watters Primetime.
“I’ll promise you this — when I’m Speaker, [Schiff] will not be on the Intel Committee anymore,” McCarthy said. “And you know what else, Swalwell won’t either. I don’t know if this is a high bar. But if you have relations with a Chinese spy, you shouldn’t be allowed to be on the Intel Committee.”
