The FBI and members of Congress have known all along that former Congressman Eric Swalwell had several sexual encounters with a Chinese "honeypot" operative named Fang Fang, and he claimed once it happened while he was on Ambien.

We learned earlier this year, following the spectacular implosion of Congressman Eric Swalwell's political career — as he was running for governor of California — that it was an open secret among his fellow members of Congress that Swalwell shouldn't be trusted around any young female aides. And the allegations made by multiple young women in Swalwell's orbit would seem to back up that distrust.

And while, before all those allegations surfaced, Democrats had been quick to brush off the Trump administration and other Republicans trying to dredge up a decade-old scandal in which Swalwell interacted with a Chinese woman later identified as a spy who worked as a fundraiser on one of his early campaigns.

We first learned of the Chinese honeytrap scheme back in 2020, and the woman at the center of it, Fang Fang aka Christine Fang, had also volunteered on Ro Khanna's campaign, and had apparently taken several Midwestern mayors to bed. According to the information uncovered at that time, Swalwell and Fang had not had any sexual encounter. But in retrospect, perhaps we should have known better.

As the New York Post reports, newly released FBI files reveal that Swalwell had confessed in 2015 to having "physical relations with Fang on a handful of occasions." After it came to light that Swalwell had both employed and had sex with a Chinese spy, he was kicked off the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence while it was under Republican control, only to be reinstated on the committee when Democrats took power again.

Fang became the subject of a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI field office in Oakland, and Swalwell was interviewed there in 2015. He reportedly admitted to one instance in which Fang had come over to his apartment and the two had "hooked up" while he was allegedly on Ambien, and he claimed not to remember much about the encounter. He said he'd taken the Ambien to sleep before Fang came banging on his door and he let her in.

Fang apparently visited Swalwell's apartment at least twice, both times before he was elected to Congress in 2012.

Fang helped organize fundraisers for Swalwell in California and Las Vegas, per the California Post, and Swalwell admitted to communicating with her via text and to having casual sexual encounters on multiple occasions.

An undercover FBI agent reportedly explored trying to turn Fang into a double agent back in 2013. Fang's parents are both Chinese intelligence officers, and she reportedly told the agent that she had had the opportunity to marry rich in Beijing, but had decided instead to forge her own path and some to the US, via her connections with the Chinese spy agency.

Fang was codenamed Rusty Thumbs, and the agent suggested that she could be flipped as a double agent because she seemed primarily motivated by money and power. This was apparently before the extent of her own activities and political influence operation was exposed, and the effort to recruit her ended in 2014.

Swalwell's interactions with Fang continued into early 2015, at which point he was called in to an interview with the FBI.

The declassified FBI file on Rusty Thumbs, which was declassified back in late March as Swalwell's gubernatorial campaign was still active, was posted to the White House's "Election Integrity" web page, which pulls together various documents that purport to be evidence of President Trump's longstanding claims that US elections have been tampered with.

On March 31, Swalwell sent a cease-and-desist letter to FBI Director Kash Patel after the agency had threatened to release these decade-old files on the Fang Fang scandal.

"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 attorneys said at the time.

Within ten days, a former staffer of Swalwell's came forward with bombshell allegations of being sexually assaulted by him while she was very drunk.

Those allegations were followed by others from other women, including an accuser in Los Angeles who appeared to be pursuing civil if not criminal charges, and Swalwell bowed out of the governor's race two days later and resigned from Congress on April 13.

Related: State Senator Aisha Wahab In Early Lead For Eric Swalwell’s Former Seat In 2027

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