The House on Thursday rejected a Republican attempt to get Rep. Eric Swalwell
Eric Michael Swalwell GOP Leader To Try To Force Swalwell From Panel Laurence Tribe: President Or Not, Trump Could Be Forced To Pay For January 6 Uprising A Year Later Lawmakers Crave Hugs And Chuck E. Cheese MORE (D-Calif.) From the Intelligence Commission on his past connections to a suspected Chinese spy.
Lawmakers usually voted along party lines 218-200, with three Republicans voting “present” to table a resolution calling for the House Minority Leader. Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthyThe Hill’s Morning Report – Presented By Facebook – Forget Comity In Congress The GOP Bets Against US Recovery Overnight Health Care: Some Republican Lawmakers Say No To COVID-19 Vaccines | AstraZeneca European Suspensions Threatens Global COVID-19 Response | OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma proposes B bankruptcy MORE (R-Calif.) Introduced earlier in the day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Nancy PelosiCongress honors Capitol Police with Congressional Gold Medals Have Biden and the Democrats hit their high tide yet? Watch Live: Pelosi Discusses More Violence Against Women (D-Calif.) Reappointed Swalwell to the House Intelligence Committee last week.
Republicans seized an Axios report from late last year that Swalwell had a connection with Christine Fang, an alleged Chinese spy who helped raise money for the California Democrat’s 2014 reelection campaign and helped place an intern in his office .
Swalwell, who briefly ran for president in 2019 and served as one of the House prosecutors during the Senate impeachment process against former President Trump
Donald Trump Boundary Rise Scrambles Senate Immigration Debate GOP Looks At Measures Preventing Trans Athletes From Rallying Voters House GOP Holdouts Confuse Trump Vaccine Message MORE last month was one of the many up-and-coming politicians targeted by Fang.
Swalwell was warned by federal investigators around 2015 about Fang’s efforts to get closer to US politicians, who US officials believe were intended to gather political information and influence lawmakers on issues related to China. Officials do not believe that Fang received or passed on classified information.
Swalwell has said he immediately severed ties with Fang and provided information about her to the FBI.
Earlier Thursday, Swalwell called McCarthy’s resolution “the new McCarthyism.”
“Meet the New McCarthyism. Multiple Sentences in Settlement State” Swalwell has not denied … “But fails to record multiple FBI” no misconduct “statements and did nothing but” cooperate. ” to turn away from @ GOPLeader’s support for QAnon, ”Swalwell tweeted.
McCarthy has previously said that “there is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party,” but the Democrats have tried to tie him to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
Marjorie Taylor Greene Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she will be meeting with Trump in the QAnon site in Florida “ soon ” after reports the developer identifies Republicans in GA-14 MORE.‘s (R-Ga.) past belief in conspiracy theory.
McCarthy argued that Swalwell’s previous connection to the alleged spy would make it difficult for Swalwell to obtain a security clearance in the private sector asking for close contact with a stranger over the past seven years and suggested, without providing details, that information from a secret briefing further cemented his case. “[Pelosi has] has 200 other members who can serve on that committee and I think the only criterion that anyone should meet from the very beginning is whether you have a security clearance in the private sector? If you can’t meet that bar, you shouldn’t be able to meet that bar to serve on the Intel Committee, ”McCarthy said at a press conference at the Capitol.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff
Adam Bennett Schiff Report Finds Growing White Nationalist Threat House Panel Takes 2002 War License Revocation In ‘Coming Weeks’ House Democrats Want To Silence Opposing Views, Not ‘Fake News’ MORE (D-Calif.) Swalwell defended in a statement on Thursday, calling him a “trusted and valued” member of the panel.
“It is disturbing that Kevin McCarthy is trying to arm secret counterintelligence briefings as a political bat and use them to smear a colleague from the House in the process,” said Schiff.