House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy Friday compared Rep. Eric Swalwell to "The Manchurian Candidate" because of his connections with accused Chinese spy Christine Fang and his continued successes, including his appointment to the powerful House Intelligence Committee.
"Think for one moment," the California Republican told Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "Hollywood would make this movie that China comes to America, focuses on a city councilman, helps him to run for Congress, helps him to get on the Intel Committee, then run for president. I think we've seen this movie before. It's called 'The Manchurian Candidate.'"
Politically, the term has come to describe a politician who is used by an enemy power as a puppet and describes either intentional or unintentional corruption or disloyalty.
McCarthy and other Republicans have been calling for Swalwell, D-Calif., to be removed from his seat on the powerful House Intelligence Committee after an Axios report about his relationship with Fang and how she'd connected with him while he was still a local city council member and helped raise money for his congressional campaign. Swalwell has not been accused of wrongdoing by the FBI, and he says he cooperated when he was alerted about Fang.
McCarthy demanded to know why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, once she learned about Swalwell, would leave him on the committee.
"You have 200 other people to choose from," he said. "You are putting the national security of America in doubt but you're also causing the Intel Committee to not be productive in anything. Why would any other member in that committee say anything if they are afraid it was going and Eric Swalwell could hear it?"
McCarthy said he'll get a briefing from the FBI Friday to discuss Swalwell and added that the agency canceled two other meetings with him in the past week.
He said he wants to know what Communist China "has on the Democrats" that is "so powerful, so powerful that they focused on a person when he was a city council member, bundled money for him to become a member of Congress."
McCarthy also said that as a member of the congressional "Gang of Eight," he can read and have information, and what he's read in reports would "raise a lot of questions" that he plans to pose to the FBI.
"Why can't the Democrats admit that China is our adversary?" he said. "Why can't they stand up to them?"
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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