FBI Director Kash Patel is pressing to release a decade-old investigative file involving Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) and a suspected Chinese intelligence operative, recently dispatching agents in the bureau’s San Francisco office to quickly redact the files before they are released publicly despite no evidence of wrongdoing by Swalwell, according to three people familiar with the effort.
The potential release is part of the Trump administration’s aggressive push to investigate Swalwell, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, according to the people familiar with the effort. It is highly unusual for the FBI to release case files tied to a probe that did not result in criminal charges.
As FBI director, Patel has focused on trying to bring a criminal case against the outspoken Democrat, reassigning multiple agents in San Francisco to work on the matter, the current and former officials said. FBI leaders have even discussed sending agents to China to talk to the suspected intelligence operative, believing she could have damaging information about Swalwell, according to two of the people familiar with the investigation. The people familiar with the matter spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an investigation that has not been made public.
The Chinese woman at issue is Christine Fang, also known as Fang Fang, who reportedly courted Swalwell and other California politicians in the United States from 2011 to 2015. She helped with fundraising for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign and even helped place an intern in his congressional office. When federal agents conveyed their concerns about Fang to Swalwell around 2015, he reportedly cut off ties with her and said he helped investigators.
Swalwell was not accused of any wrongdoing when the FBI investigated his relationship with Fang a decade ago. In 2023, the Republican-led House Ethics Committee closed a two-year investigation into the congressman, deciding to “take no further action.”
Despite that, FBI leaders have recently suggested in internal discussions that the government could try to arrange for Fang to get a U.S. visa in exchange for speaking with FBI agents about the Democrat, according to the three people with knowledge of Patel’s efforts. It would be highly unorthodox to grant a visa to a person suspected of being an intelligence agent for a foreign superpower.
An FBI spokesperson disputed any notion of improper motives. “The contentions in this story are incorrect,” the spokesperson said. “This FBI, being the most transparent in history, prepares documents for numerous different reasons, including for release to different agencies and departments to further review investigations that may have been opened under previous administrations.”
The push to publicly release the investigative files, the people interviewed said, suggests that the FBI has struggled to so far to build a criminal case against Swalwell. Even if there is no incriminating evidence in the files, an extensive case file could contain revealing and personal details about Swalwell and his campaign operations.
The lengths that Patel’s circle is going to in the bid to pursue a political foe of the president has raised alarms within the bureau, where some officials fear that releasing the files — even with redactions — could compromise law enforcement sources and investigatory methods, making it harder for the FBI to gain trust with potential witnesses.
They also said they feared the repercussions of sending agents to the territory of an adversarial nation to dig up information on a sitting congressman. Such an interview, legal experts said, would be impossible without Chinese interference, and Fang would be considered an unreliable witness.
“Most troubling about this is that we are now literally at war. We also face threats against the homeland,” Swalwell said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Kash Patel should be spending every moment trying to keep us safe, not scoring political points. A lot of people have bent the knee to this administration. But I will not, and neither will the people of California.”
Swalwell, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has been an unusually aggressive and colorful critic of the president, frequently criticizing the president in media interviews and on the dais as a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Swalwell also was a House “manager” — essentially, a prosecutor — in Trump’s 2021 impeachment for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Swalwell’s district in Northern California includes a large Chinese American population. Republicans and media personalities frequently criticize Swalwell for his ties to Fang and the Chinese community, suggesting that he is improperly working with them.
But FBI agents typically need a specific investigative reason to reopen a closed investigation. The people familiar with the probe said it is unclear how or why the FBI reopened its examination of Swalwell.
Internal Justice Department policy has long said that law enforcement should refrain from taking any public investigatory steps against a political candidate in the 60 days before an election, to prevent even the appearance of the department using its power to sway the vote.
The Justice Department is not legally bound to follow this rule, however, and it is unclear whether it would do so in Swalwell’s case. The California gubernatorial primary is June 2.
In California’s primaries, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, move on to the November general election. Two Republicans currently lead the governor’s race in recent polls, despite the state’s liberal leanings, as a large number of Democrats — led by Swalwell — split the vote. Democratic leaders hope their voters ultimately coalesce around one or two candidates, but the outcome remains uncertain.
The investigatory files are likely to include numerous interviews with Swalwell, his aides, friends and others about the congressman’s interactions with Fang, details about his campaign and more.
Under a long-standing legal principle, agencies do not release potentially damaging material about people against whom they were unable to build a case strong enough to take to court.
The department recently released the investigatory files in the case of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who had been indicted on federal sex trafficking charges but had not yet faced trial before killing himself. But in that case, the department’s hand was forced by political pressure and ultimately an act of Congress.
Republicans and Democrats criticized the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein release, saying the rollout was disorganized with few effective systems in place to ensure that appropriate redactions were made.
Since Trump took office, his administration has mounted an aggressive campaign to use federal law enforcement agencies to pursue his political adversaries.
The Justice Department filed criminal cases against former FBI director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, for example. A judge threw out both indictments in November, ruling that Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor overseeing both cases, had been unlawfully appointed.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte — a staunch Trump ally — referred Swalwell to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution over mortgage fraud allegations, but the department never indicted Swalwell. Swalwell sued Pulte, saying he unlawfully used his position to look through private mortgage fraud documents, but he ultimately dropped the lawsuit.
The department is also investigating Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell over the cost of the Fed’s recent building renovations. A federal prosecutor acknowledged in a closed-door hearing this month that the department did not have evidence of wrongdoing, The Post has reported.
Even against this backdrop, a proposal to release extensive files, send agents to China to interview a suspected intelligence operative and offer her a U.S. visa in exchange for revelations about a U.S. congressman would be extraordinary.
Patel, who before becoming FBI director was a conservative firebrand who attacked the “deep state” and vowed to “come after” Trump’s adversaries, has long been a critic of Swalwell. In his 2023 book “Government Gangsters,” Patel published a list of 60 names in an appendix that has been widely viewed by Patel’s critics as a sort of enemies list. It includes Trump foes, Democrats and FBI agents who were involved in investigations into the president.
Swalwell was among those named by Patel, who has said that his critics are mischaracterizing the appendix by calling it an enemies list.
At a congressional hearing last year, Swalwell asked Patel if he would recuse himself from any investigation of people on the list, and Patel said no.
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