House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) were briefed on Friday about a Chinese Communist spy’s alleged relationship with a Democratic member of Congress.
“He should not be on Intel,” McCarthy told reporters after meeting with the FBI. “I just think there are definitely 200 other Democrats that I know could fill that place,” McCarthy added.
Pelosi, after the briefing, did not speak with reporters, according to Fox and other news outlets.
Last week, the speaker said, “I don’t have any concern about Mr. Swalwell” and attempted to frame the allegations against the California representative as politically motivated attacks from Republicans.
Swalwell himself has offered few public comments since the Axios report broke. The Epoch Times reached out to his office for comment.
“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,” Swalwell’s office told Axios earlier this month.
But the statement didn’t stop Republicans in the House, including several GOP leaders, from asking Pelosi to remove Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee. Democrats on the panel, led by Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), were heavily involved in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump last year—and the panel was a key player in the allegations that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in 2016 before a special prosecutor found there was no evidence of the sort.
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has been issuing more and more warnings about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), namely about its schemes to influence members of Congress.
Going further, Ratcliffe wrote that U.S. “intelligence shows that Beijing regularly directs this type of influence operation in the U.S. I briefed the House and Senate Intelligence committees that China is targeting members of Congress with six times the frequency of Russia and 12 times the frequency of Iran.”