By Newly declassified FBI files reveal that federal agents believed suspected Chinese intelligence operative Christine Fang used straw donors to funnel illegal campaign contributions to former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell while cultivating a personal relationship with the California politician and helping place interns in his offices.
The files, declassified by President Donald Trump and released Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force under the heading “Rusty Thumbs,” provide the most detailed government account yet of the years-long Fang investigation. The White House says the documents show the FBI developed evidence that Fang may have compromised Swalwell through “sex, foreign interns and illicit donations.”
The documents paint a much more serious picture than what was publicly known when the Fang scandal first exploded in 2020.
According to an FBI “Interim Authority” memorandum, the bureau opened an investigation codenamed “Freshman Fifteen” on March 17, 2014, centered on allegations that Fang, a Chinese foreign national, used American citizens as conduits to disguise prohibited foreign campaign contributions while seeking access to Swalwell and his congressional operation.
“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 FBI memo states.
Investigators said Fang “used conduits to conceal herself as a prohibited Foreign National source” for illegal donations “at least twice in 2013 and at least two more times in 2014.”
The 2013 contributions, agents wrote, “trace to Fang herself,” making them an “illegal source of campaign contributions.”
That is particularly significant because when Axios first broke the Fang story in 2020, the outlet reported that Fang had helped fundraise for Swalwell but said a Bay Area political operative who witnessed her activities had found no evidence of illegal contributions. The newly released FBI files show investigators themselves had developed evidence of what they believed were unlawful straw-donor transactions.
The FBI initially considered Swalwell himself a subject.
One investigative objective listed in the documents was to develop sufficient evidence “to indict and arrest Swalwell and Fang for violations of campaign finance laws and quid pro quo exchanges.”
Agents ultimately did not reach that conclusion.
After investigating and interviewing Swalwell, the FBI determined it had not established a federal statutory violation by the congressman. On Feb. 8, 2017, Swalwell was removed as a subject of the investigation, which then focused exclusively on Fang.
No charges were brought against Swalwell, and a separate House Ethics Committee investigation into his dealings with Fang ended in 2023 with the panel taking no further action.
But the newly released records show just how far the underlying FBI investigation went before reaching that point.
Fang Offered To Reimburse Donors
The FBI documented multiple instances in which Fang allegedly solicited campaign contributions and offered to repay donors herself — a classic straw-donor arrangement that can conceal the true source of campaign money.
According to a March 2015 confidential source report, Fang encouraged an FBI source to attend a Swalwell fundraiser and make a contribution. With FBI approval, the source later provided a credit card number for a $1,000 donation.
During another episode detailed in a June 2015 FBI interview, Fang invited an associate to a fundraiser and told the person he “just needed to bring his checkbook and that FANG would reimburse him for his donation.”
The associate declined.
The documents also show Fang’s usefulness to Swalwell extended beyond fundraising.
Swalwell told FBI agents that Fang referred people for internships in both his campaign and congressional offices.
“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],” agents wrote in a summary of his interview.
Swalwell “viewed anyone that FANG put forward for an internship as coming from APAPA,” the document states.
That access mattered. Intelligence officials have long warned that Beijing’s influence operations often begin far below the level of classified documents or outright espionage. Building relationships with young politicians, campaign staffers, community organizations and future government employees can provide intelligence services with networks that last for years.
Axios reported in 2020 that Fang deliberately targeted rising Bay Area politicians and cultivated them through fundraising, networking and political connections. Federal officials believed her activities were part of a Chinese political intelligence effort.
The FBI files now show agents were worried about more than networking.
Swalwell Admitted A Sexual Relationship
The documents also answer a question that surrounded the scandal for years: whether Swalwell and Fang had a sexual relationship.
According to the FBI interview summaries, they did.
Swalwell told agents he had “physical relations with Fang” on multiple occasions.
During a 2016 interview, he described one encounter in which Fang came to his door and the two “hooked up.”
The admission goes beyond the public reporting available when the scandal first emerged. Axios reported in 2020 that Fang had sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors, but its investigation did not establish such a relationship with Swalwell.
The newly released FBI documents appear to settle that question based on Swalwell’s own statements to investigators.
Swalwell also discussed concerns with his campaign’s financial operation. He described a 2014 fundraiser at the Wynn Casino in Las Vegas where a person handling finances was told “he needed to get it together when it comes to filing paperwork and reporting requirements. Paperwork was not [redacted] strength.”
Again, the FBI ultimately concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge Swalwell.
But that finding is different from saying there was nothing behind the investigation.
The FBI Was Trying To Recruit Fang
Perhaps the strangest revelation is that before the FBI began investigating Fang, it was trying to recruit her.
Fang was given the bureau code name “Rusty Thumbs” as agents explored using her as a confidential human source against Chinese influence operations in the United States.
An undercover FBI employee repeatedly met with her and offered her work through a fictitious consulting company designed to take advantage of her connections in China. Fang signed a contractor agreement on June 14, 2013.
During those conversations, Fang discussed her connections to American politicians and her role connecting donors to Swalwell.
Instead of turning Fang into an FBI asset, the recruitment effort apparently helped agents discover the alleged campaign finance scheme.
The FBI ended its effort to recruit Fang shortly before opening the criminal investigation.
The documents also suggest the bureau had significant concerns about her connections to Chinese intelligence.
One memo identified Fang’s parents as “known MSS intelligence officers,” referring to China’s Ministry of State Security.
“In addition, [Rusty Thumb] professed to knowing people of influence within the PRC,” the 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 American associate interviewed by investigators said he or she “sometimes got the impression that FANG is a Chinese spy.”
Fang left the United States around May 2015 after investigators began interviewing people around her and searched her residence.
One associate told investigators Fang said she was returning to China because authorities had questioned her about the donation scheme. According to the interview summary, Fang also said “her parents used to work for the Chinese government in a department akin to the US Secret Service.”
The State Department later barred her from returning to the United States.
The Pattern Goes Beyond Fang Fang
The Fang operation also fits a broader pattern of Chinese influence efforts to control Democrats.
In May, New Conservative Post reported on California Treasurer Fiona Ma’s campaign receiving more than $100,000 from donors with connections to Chinese Communist Party-linked organizations and figures associated with China’s United Front influence system. That story specifically noted the Swalwell-Fang controversy as an earlier example of Beijing cultivating American political figures through local political networks and community organizations.
NCP previously reported on similar concerns surrounding Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, whose campaign received extensive fundraising support from an organizer alleged to have connections to Chinese United Front organizations. That report also examined the cases of former New York government aide Linda Sun and other Democratic officials who faced scrutiny over Chinese influence networks.
Those cases are not evidence that the politicians involved participated in the same scheme as Fang. They do, however, illustrate the national-security concern surrounding Beijing’s strategy: cultivate relationships at the local and state level before politicians rise into positions of greater influence.
Fang appears to have spotted Swalwell early.
She first encountered him around his successful 2012 congressional campaign. By January 2015, Swalwell had landed a seat on the powerful House Intelligence Committee, where members receive access to some of the government’s most sensitive national-security information.
The controversy eventually became one of the reasons then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy cited for preventing Swalwell from returning to the Intelligence Committee in 2023. NCP has previously covered the controversy as part of its reporting on Chinese influence operations targeting American politicians.
Swalwell Tried To Stop The Files From Coming Out
Swalwell has consistently maintained that he cooperated with federal investigators after learning of their concerns about Fang.
Earlier this year, when reports emerged that FBI Director Kash Patel was considering releasing the old files, Swalwell’s attorneys threatened legal action.
“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,” his lawyers wrote.
The attorneys argued that releasing records from an investigation that never produced charges could violate federal privacy laws and longstanding Justice Department practices. The Associated Press noted at the time that publicly releasing investigative files from an inquiry that did not result in criminal charges would be highly unusual.
Swalwell is now a former congressman. He resigned from the House in April amid separate sexual misconduct allegations and abandoned his campaign for California governor.
For years, Swalwell’s defenders pointed to the absence of criminal charges as evidence that the Fang controversy had been exaggerated.
The new documents do not establish that Swalwell committed a crime. The FBI investigated that possibility and ultimately removed him as a subject.
But they do establish something else.
The Fang Fang scandal was not simply a collection of photographs, political gossip and partisan accusations. The FBI believed a suspected Chinese intelligence operative with connections to the Ministry of State Security was routing illegal money into an American congressional campaign, placing interns around a future Intelligence Committee member and sleeping with that politician while federal agents scrambled to determine exactly what Beijing was doing.
That is considerably more than Americans were told in 2020 and something that Democrats continue to be caught red-handed in doing.
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