Eric Swalwell spent years lecturing America about threats to democracy.
Then the FBI showed up at the airport with a search warrant.
Now the man who cheered the Mar-a-Lago raid is watching federal agents walk out of his own Washington home with his devices.
Trump Declassified the Swalwell Fang Fang FBI Files and Here Is What They Show
The White House Government Transparency Task Force dropped declassified FBI files on documenting Eric Swalwell's yearslong relationship with Christine Fang – a Chinese national whose parents were officers of China's Ministry of State Security – and what the bureau found and then buried.
Swalwell admitted to the FBI that he slept with Fang on multiple occasions.
He admitted her interns were placed inside his congressional office.
His campaign finance operation, he told investigators, was not strong enough to detect the straw donations she allegedly funneled through U.S.-citizen conduits.
A 2014 fundraiser at the Wynn Casino in Las Vegas produced some of those checks.
Agents weighed charges ranging from bribery and conspiracy to acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
The FBI had even assigned Fang a code name – "Rusty Thumbs" – and tried to flip her as a confidential informant before building the criminal case they code-named "Freshman Fifteen."
Fang fled to China in May 2015.
No charges ever followed.
Jack Smith Ran the DOJ Unit That Declined to Charge Swalwell
Jack Smith spent five years – from 2010 to 2015 – running the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section.
That is the exact unit responsible for prosecuting corruption by elected officials.
And that’s the same stretch of years when federal agents were assembling a case that could have sent a sitting congressman to prison.
Multiple accounts in the newly released records describe Smith overseeing the Swalwell investigation during that period.
Former DOJ official Jeff Clark said what everyone paying attention already knew: "Oh shocker, it was Jack Smith when he was at the DOJ Public Integrity Section who was not interested in prosecuting Swalwell of Fang Fang fame. But yes, mainstream media, by all means continue to propagate the myth that Jack Smith was not partisan against Trump."
This is the same man who later spent years and up to tens of millions of dollars on confidential human sources while targeting Donald Trump.
Congressional investigators say Smith spied on over 40 members of Congress – practically the entirety of GOP leadership – covering hundreds of individuals and organizations.
Jim Jordan referred him to the Justice Department last month with what he called "strong evidence" that Smith "knowingly made false statements" while under oath.
Republicans and Democrats were never playing by the same rulebook. Smith made sure of that.
Swalwell FBI Raid Tied to Sexual Assault Allegations From Six Women
The FBI was not finished with Swalwell.
Federal agents intercepted him at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday, served him with a search warrant, and seized his electronics on the spot.
The following day they searched his Washington home.
The probe is tied to sexual misconduct allegations from at least six women, including a former staffer who says Swalwell raped her in 2024 when she was too intoxicated to consent.
Four women have confirmed to investigators that they have been contacted by the FBI.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department opened their own criminal investigations in April – the same month Swalwell resigned from Congress and abandoned his campaign for California governor.
Swalwell's attorney has admitted to "extramarital contact with women" while denying the encounters were nonconsensual.
Swalwell sat on the House Intelligence Committee with a Chinese spy's interns working in his office.
The disgraced former Congressman called himself a guardian of American democracy.
Now he is the subject of a federal sexual misconduct investigation, a state rape probe, and a declassified FBI file that shows the justice system covered for him for a decade.
Jack Smith protected him from the China scandal.
Nobody protected the women.
The declassified files confirm what conservatives have argued for years: two standards of justice, one country, and a media that spent years pretending otherwise. Trump pulled back the curtain. The FBI just showed up at Swalwell's airport gate. The only question now is whether accountability follows – or whether the people who ran this system for decades find a way to run out the clock again.
Sources:
- Steven Richards and John Solomon, "FBI Bombshell: Swalwell Took Illegal Donations While Banging Chinese Spy Fang Fang Who Planted Staffers," Just the News, August 17, 2026.
- National Legal and Policy Center Staff, "New Documents Show Jack Smith Let Swalwell Skate in Chinese Spy Case," National Legal and Policy Center, August 17, 2026.
- Mary Chastain, "FBI Seizes Swalwell's Electronics, Searches Home in Sexual Misconduct Probe," Legal Insurrection, August 20, 2026.
- Laura Strickler et al., "FBI Searches Former Rep. Eric Swalwell's Home, Seizes His Electronic Devices," NBC News, August 20, 2026.
- "FBI Seizes Eric Swalwell's Electronics and Raids His Home in Sexual Misconduct Probe," Forbes, August 20, 2026.
- Jim Jordan letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, July 23, 2026, via UPI.
