FBI Manufactured Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax As It Dismissed Strong Evidence Of Foreign Influence Over Swalwell, Clinton, And Biden
Newly declassified files show how partisans weaponized the Bureau to use same narrative to hurt the president and help Democrats
According to Democrats and most journalists, the FBI was justified in investigating Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, dropping its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s ties to Russia, not investigating Joe Biden’s ties to Ukraine and China, and dropping an investigation into former congressman Eric Swalwell's romantic relationship with an alleged Chinese spy. Trump, according to the AP, derides the Russia investigation “despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of the Republican’s campaign.”
But the evidence never justified the Trump investigation. A top CIA analyst told Public that a “pathological” former CIA Director, John Brennan, had put analysts “under duress” to say Russia favored and sought to help Trump in 2016, when the intelligence did not support that conclusion. Before then, the Justice Department’s Inspector General had found significant errors and omissions in the FBI’s FISA applications on Trump adviser Carter Page. And the Justice Department’s John Durham had concluded in his investigation that the FBI had relied on unverified memos from a former UK spy, financed by the Clinton campaign, to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump team.
Many of the FBI’s abuses of power have been reported before. There was coverage of how the FBI received warrants to spy on Trump aide Carter Page based on a July 2016 email that the Bureau, in five separate interviews, never once asked Page about. Reporters covered the FBI’s claim in its warrant application that Page had “met with” senior Russian officials when he had, in fact, only shaken a deputy prime minister’s hand, and spoken briefly with a staffer. And journalists wrote about how the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz documented 17 significant inaccuracies and omissions across four FISA applications targeting Page.
But now, new files released today reveal that the FBI walked away from a far stronger case against Rep. Eric Swalwell. The FBI opened its investigation in 2014 and named as its objective to “obtain sufficient evidence to indict and arrest Swalwell and Fang for violations of campaign finance laws and quid pro quo exchanges.” Christine Fang, known as Fang Fang, was a Chinese national whose parents the FBI identified as “known MSS intelligence officers,” a reference to China’s Ministry of State Security, that nation’s equivalent to the CIA.
The new files show Swalwell admitted to FBI agents that he had “physical relations with Fang” on multiple occasions. They also show that he confirmed that Fang referred interns to him, whom his staff placed in his campaign and congressional offices. And agents traced 2013 straw donations through conduits back “to Fang herself,” making her, in the Bureau’s words, an “illegal source of campaign contributions.” And yet on February 8, 2017, the FBI dropped Swalwell as a subject and narrowed the case to Fang alone.
