Trump White House declassified closed FBI file on Rep. Swalwell during his gubernatorial campaign

On March 23, 2026, the Trump White House declassified a decade-old, closed FBI investigative file examining then-Rep. Eric Swalwell's past association with Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese intelligence operative, months before California's June 2026 gubernatorial primary in which Swalwell was a leading Democratic candidate. FBI Director Kash Patel had pushed for the release, dispatching agents in the bureau's San Francisco field office to redact the file for publication, even though the FBI had closed its investigation of Swalwell in 2017 after concluding it found no violations of federal corruption law by him.

Swalwell's attorneys, Norm Eisen and Sean Hecker, sent Patel a cease-and-desist letter days later arguing the release would violate the Privacy Act of 1974 and the First Amendment, and breach the Justice Department's norm against public investigatory action targeting a candidate close to an election. House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin publicly accused Patel of wasting FBI resources on "a political smear file" done at the White House's direction, and said rank-and-file FBI agents had objected to the effort.

Swalwell, an outspoken critic of President Trump, said the timing was intended to damage his campaign; he suspended it on April 12, 2026, for reasons unrelated to the Fang investigation, which this archive does not treat as caused by the declassification.

Updates

2026-08-17 — White House Government Transparency Task Force publicly released the declassified file [5]

The White House Government Transparency Task Force released the declassified FBI records to the public, months after Swalwell's campaign had ended. The files, still partly redacted, detailed FBI interview summaries in which Swalwell told investigators he had a physical relationship with Fang, and repeated the bureau's 2017 conclusion that it had found no evidence of a quid pro quo between Fang and Swalwell or his office. Swalwell's attorney, Sara Azari, said in a statement that "the government's own memorandum confirms what Congressman Swalwell has said for more than a decade: he did nothing wrong."