Eric Swalwell finally answers Chinese spy allegations: 'I would hope that would be enough'



Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) was confronted on a New York radio show about his past connections to a Chinese spy.

In 2020, an Axios report exposed espionage operations by Christine Fang, aka Fang Fang, who took part in fundraising activity for Swalwell during his 2014 re-election campaign. Swalwell was not charged with any wrongdoing and cut ties with her. However, the rumor mill has since swirled about his possible relationship with the spy.

'I recognize that it's everyone on the right's favorite meme.'

Podcaster and radio host Charlamagne tha God, real name Lenard McKelvey, casually brought up the spy scandal during an interview on "The Breakfast Club," with Swalwell casually brushing off the claims.

"Did the Chinese spy scandal hurt your credibility, or did Republicans just weaponize a nothing-burger, so to speak?" Charlamagne asked nonchalantly.

Swalwell quickly appealed to authority over the question and blamed disinformation.

"You know, the fact that the FBI and the House Ethics Committee said it was bulls**t. Like, I would hope that would be enough, but, like, in a disinformation society, like, I recognize that it's everyone on the right's favorite meme."

Swalwell said it is an "honor" to have Republicans take shots at his character since, according to his wife, "the second they're not going after you, you're not effective."

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"I wear it as a badge of honor that these guys would want to lie about me all the time because I think it means that I'm landing punches politically on them that sting," the congressman stated.

His claims did not stop there, however.

Swalwell went on to make incredibly bizarre assertions about the GOP, perhaps even more bizarre than his claims that Republicans support people getting cancer.

"I think a lot of Republicans look at me as like, oh, that's a straight, white, Christian male, son of a cop. Like, everyone else like him looks like me. So when he comes at me, it's more of a betrayal to them," Swalwell mumbled out.

"Oh, wow," Charlamagne reacted.

Swalwell added, "I've heard that from them on their side; that's why they take it so personally."

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Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). Photo by AL DRAGO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Blaze News Capitol Hill reporter Rebeka Zeljko said the reason Swalwell is unpopular is not because "other white men view him as a race traitor" but because "his values are terrible."

Zeljko continued, "Swalwell incorrectly assumes that white men operate as a monolith, prioritizing identity over ideology. He also fails to recognize the irony in saying, ‘The second they’re not going after you, you're not effective,’ as if the Democratic Party has not dedicated the better part of a decade to going after President Trump."

While rumors have persisted about Swalwell for years, a mix-up of facts may be responsible for misconceptions rather than simple "misinformation."

As the Axios report revealed, Fang Fang had sexual or romantic relationships with at least two mayors of Midwestern cities in the span of three years, one of which involved a sexual encounter with a mayor from Ohio.

In relation to the Democratic congressman, the spy allegedly helped place at least one intern in his office. The report did not connect the two romantically, though.

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'Buckle up': CIA offers entire workforce buyout to expedite housecleaning



The Trump administration, keen to clear out the institutional rot in Washington, D.C., is apparently set to clean house at the federal agency that previously recruited thousands of Nazis as spies, stole into Senate investigators' computers, manipulated American news coverage, experimented with brainwashing techniques on unwitting citizens, armed various terrorist groups, dragged its feet on acknowledging the likely source of the COVID-19 virus, allegedly engaged in domestic election interference, and helped orchestrate numerous coups around the world.

The Central Intelligence Agency, now led by former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, has reportedly offered buyouts to its entire workforce, reported the Wall Street Journal.

Last week, the White House issued a memo offering buyouts to roughly 2 million federal workers in an effort to remedy government bloat and save taxpayers money.

Workers were told they could either remain in their current positions, meeting enhanced standards of conduct and working in their physical offices five days a week without any "certainty of their position or agency," or they could hit the bricks, retaining all pay and benefits until Sept. 30, 2025.

Federal workers serving in positions related to national security were among those initially ineligible for the buyout package, for which the acceptance deadline was Feb. 6; however, an aide to Ratcliffe told the Journal that the CIA director successfully petitioned the White House to similarly extend the offer to workers at his agency.

'Time to find a new line of work.'

An unnamed source said to be familiar with the offer told CNN that while all workers at the CIA received the offer, some may yet be ineligible depending on role and area of expertise.

A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency indicated that the move is both part of the CIA director's efforts to "ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the administration's national security priorities" and "part of a holistic strategy to infuse the agency with renewed energy."

Ratcliffe signaled a desire for a competent and hard-nosed workforce during his confirmation hearing last month, stating:

If confirmed, my leadership at CIA will focus on setting and communicating priorities and demanding relentless execution. Above all, we will be in strict adherence to the CIA's mission. We will collect intelligence, especially human intelligence, in every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult. We will produce insightful, objective, all-source analysis, never allowing political or personal biases to cloud our judgment or infect our products. We will conduct covert action at the direction of the president, going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do.

Ratcliffe added, "To the brave CIA officers listening around the world, if all of that sounds like what you signed up for, then buckle up and get ready to make a difference. If it does not, then it is time to find a new line of work."

An aide to the director told the Journal that the CIA is also freezing the hiring of applicants given conditional offers of employment and will likely rescind such offers in cases where job-seekers aren't well suited to the agency's new objectives, which apparently include engaging in espionage against countries not traditionally regarded as adversaries to gain an upper hand in trade negotiations, undermining communist China, and taking on Mexican drug cartels.

Fresh off concern-mongering about the potential demise of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — who represents thousands of federal workers — blasted the buyout offer, suggesting that bureaucrats should not take the out.

"There's no statutory authority that I can see for the president making this offer," Kaine told the Journal. "The administration immediately knows, you don't want to work for me. They'll find some other way to get rid of you. You should not raise your hand."

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Biden Quietly Commuted Sentences Of Chinese Spies

President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that he was granting 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations in what his administation called the “largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history.” But it’s not Thursday’s set of commutations that have caught the attention of concerned Americans — it’s those that were quietly given weeks ago to Chinese […]

Tulsi Gabbard has national security 'experts' worried: 'DNI has access to every single secret'



There is a pattern developing with regard to President-elect Donald Trump's recent nominations: He announces someone apparently well suited to executing the agenda he successfully campaigned on; those with vested interests in the status quo panic; and establishmentarians viciously attack the nominees, pleading with nominal Republicans in the U.S. Senate to prevent their confirmation.

This pattern has been repeated for multiple picks, including former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Although virtually all of Trump's nominations have ruffled feathers, his choice of Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard to serve as the director of national intelligence appears to have inspired a special kind of unease among Democratic lawmakers, the liberal media, and elements of the intelligence community.

The media

The Atlantic's Tom Nichols rushed to characterize Gabbard's nomination as a "national security risk," complaining that she previously suggested NATO might have had something to do with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and that Syria did not pose a direct threat to the United States.

"Gabbard is a classic case of 'horseshoe' politics," Nichols warned. "Her views can seem both extremely left and extremely right, which is probably why people such as Tucker Carlson — a conservative who has turned into … whatever pro-Russia right-wingers are called now — have taken a liking to the former Democrat (who was previously a Republican and is now again a member of the GOP)."

The Washington Examiner's Tom Rogan suggested that by nominating Gabbard, Trump — who was kneecapped in his first term by a malignant counterintelligence investigation and whose 2020 political adversary was given narrative cover prior to the election by CIA contractors and intelligence community alumni — "is putting his distrust of the intelligence community before the critical interests of national security."

After trotting out the Syria and Russia-themed attacks against Gabbard, then insinuating that she is a sympathizer with the communist Chinese regime, Rogan warned that if confirmed, she would supervise "all U.S. intelligence agencies' collection, analysis, and mission efforts and the production and dissemination of the U.S. government's most sensitive intelligence reporting and analysis. This includes knowledge of spies buried deep inside foreign governments and terrorist organizations."

'This appointment is sending shock waves here in the United States.'

Bill Kristol quoted Jonathan Last, editor of the neocon blog the Bulwark, as writing, "Making Gabbard DNI simply makes no sense. ... Or rather, it makes no sense for America. For Russia, DNI Gabbard makes all the sense in the world."

Last appeared particularly upset over Gabbard's opposition to fruitless foreign entanglements and ineffectual U.S. sanctions.

Dems and spooks spooked

"This appointment is sending shock waves here in the United States but also around the globe," John Brennan, former director of the CIA and chief counterterrorism adviser to former President Barack Obama, said in conversation with MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace.

Brennan, one of the signatories of the infamous Hunter Biden "intel" letter, likened the 18 intelligence agencies that Gabbard would oversee to an orchestra, suggesting that she likely doesn't even know what instruments are being played.

Former Bush adviser John Bolton, a key proponent of America's disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq, suggested to NewsNation's "The Hill" that with Trump's "announcement of Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, he's sending a signal that we have lost our mind when it comes to collecting intelligence."

One former senior intelligence official who spoke under the condition of anonymity told Politico that the choice was a "left turn and off the bridge."

Another intelligence official warned that America's allies, including Israel, might withhold information from Washington if Gabbard were the DNI, adding, "What some allies share may now be shaped by political goals rather than professional intelligence sharing."

An unnamed "Western security source" similarly suggested to Reuters that Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand may be less forthcoming about the intelligence they collect, stressing that foreign nations believe Trump's appointments all lean in the "wrong direction."

Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger (Va.), a former CIA officer who now warms a chair on the House Intelligence Committee, suggested on X that Gabbard, who served in Iraq and Kuwait, would be an oath-breaker.

"The men and women of the U.S. Intelligence community honor their oaths by collecting the vital intelligence that keeps our fellow Americans safe. The global threats we face require a Director of National Intelligence who would do the same. Tulsi Gabbard is not that person," wrote Spanberger.

The former spook, echoing Nichols, appears to have unwittingly highlighted what has the establishment panicking, telling The Hill, "The DNI has access to every single secret that the United States has, every single bit of information that we know. … It's the keys to the intelligence community kingdom."

Larry Pfeiffer, former chief of staff at the CIA under the Bush administration, told The Hill, "Some of the statements she has made through the years that sound like they came right out of the Kremlin's talking points paper are a little bit alarming. Her cozying up to Bashar al-Assad and being an apologist for him as well just raise questions in my mind. Is that really the best person to put in charge of this very complicated, very sensitive operation that is the U.S. intel community?"

Jamil Jaffer, a former House Intelligence Committee staffer and national security prosecutor, told The Hill, "What is unusual here is you've got somebody who's had such a long and vociferous track record of saying things that are factually incorrect, that seem to give aid and comfort to U.S. adversaries and that undermine the very people they should be representing at the principals committee."

As with Hegseth and Gaetz's critics, those denouncing Gabbard appear to be exponents of the very worldview and policy conventions that Trump was effectively elected to obliterate.

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Indictment Of Hochul Aide Shows Red China Is Far Greater Threat Than Kremlin Propaganda

Kathy Hochul joins a growing list of prominent Democrats plausibly compromised by the Chinese Communist Party, up to and including Joe Biden and Tim Walz.

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Spies, lies, and TikTok ties exposed



Did you know that ByteDance, which is TikTok’s parent company, also makes movies? Its studio in Beijing is located close to the headquarters of China’s Ministry of State Security. This is convenient because ByteDance, while streaming billions of individuals onto our screens via TikTok, is also building an artificial intelligence infrastructure that is run by the Chinese intelligence service.

ByteDance is not an entertainment company. It is part of the military intelligence apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok’s algorithm was written to keep people glued to their phones. The party has ruled that TikTok’s algorithm is a national security asset.

China is trying to destroy us without firing a shot, and we’re playing footsie.

Military strategists in China say they need mind superiority through “perception manipulation” via propaganda. They do this by changing how people look at the present, cutting off a people's historic memory, warping their view of their own country’s past so people will be open to changing their views.

They aim to change the paradigm of the way people think by targeting people to change the way they view their problems, and thereby, changing their belief. They want to deconstruct symbols. By getting people to reject certain traditional symbols, they modify a nation’s identity.

We’ve got our own people in our own country trying to do all those things. When you’re taking down the statutes or reimagining history, what do you think you’re doing? You’re dismantling historical narrative, so we are more likely to collapse.

Here's the kicker, according to the Chinese Communist Party: The ultimate goal is to manipulate a country’s value and to achieve strategic goals without an actual overt military battle. China is trying to destroy us without firing a shot, and we’re playing footsie .

Meanwhile, we're also having China build everything. The Chinese crane manufacturing company at the center of a congressional espionage investigation denied posing a threat to U.S. national security.

Here's what happened. At our seaports, China builds ship-to-shore cargo cranes. Those are the giant cranes you saw Tom Cruise operating in “War of the Worlds.” Spying devices were found in all the cranes China was making. China was in complete denial of any espionage activity, but we know the truth: The Chinese are just spying on our ports.

Trojan horse sound familiar?

Then there’s the threat that China poses on a global scale. This week, the chiefs of all the major U.S. spy agencies spoke before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The threats reported during that meeting noted that trade between China and Russia has been increasing since the start of the Ukraine war and that the Chinese exports of goods, with potential military use, rose more than threefold since 2022.

China is helping Russia.

China is partnering with Russia. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), an ally of former President Donald Trump, has so far refused to call on a vote that would provide $60 billion more for Ukraine. The measure has passed in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Why would we want to get into a bigger war with Russia when we now know that China is in bed with Russia? Our real enemy is China.

CIA director William Burns testified that continued support for Ukraine would send a message to China. Would it? Really? “It's our assessment that Chinese leader Xi Jinping was sobered by what happened in Ukraine,” he said.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the committee, “The crisis in Gaza is a stark example of how regional developments have the potential of broader, even global implications.”

Haines also noted attacks by the Houthi militias on shipping and said the militant groups “al-Qaeda and ISIS, inspired by Hamas, have directed supporters to conduct attacks against Israeli and U.S. interests.” Well, that sounds good, right? We should send more money to Iran!

After a protester interrupted the hearing with shouts about the need to protect civilians in Gaza, the spy chiefs turned to protecting the Palestinian enclave. The reality is, children are starving. They’re malnourished because humanitarian assistance can't get to them. Whose fault is that? They said it’s difficult to distribute humanitarian existence effectively unless you have a ceasefire.

Sure.

Emotions rose in the hearing as some senators discussed illegal immigration along the U.S. border with Mexico. Immigration is not a forefront concern of these people. It wouldn’t have been brought up unless a senator pressed the intelligence agency officials to discuss it.

Yet, here tensions rose. FBI director Christopher Wray expressed concern about “terrorism implications” from potential targeting of vulnerabilities at the border. He discussed rising threats from Americans inspired by Islamic groups and other foreign militants since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.

So, who are we talking about when officials reference a “rising threat from Americans?” What Americans are we talking about?

Are we talking about those monstrous MAGA Trump supporters who are somehow or another “inspired” by foreign militants? Because I know you would never want to say the word “Muslim.” But anybody who believes in the Constitution seems to be on a terrorist watch list right now.

Meanwhile, the Italian police just arrested three Palestinians allegedly planning terrorist attacks in Italy. And what are we doing? The Department of Justice has just issued a gag order that has required immigration judges to seek department approval before speaking out publicly on anything regarding the border.

So, we’re now silencing the speech — the First Amendment rights — of our judges. Toward freedom or away from freedom? You can decide for yourself.

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