GOP Rep. Stewart: Other Members of Congress ‘Certainly’ Targeted by China

Tuesday, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) shared that Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) was not the only member of Congress who has been targeted by China. This comes after Swalwell, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, was mentioned in a bombshell Axios report as having a relationship with Chinese spy Christine Fang.

Sandra Smith, host of Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” asked Stewart, “Do you believe that others were targeted like Swalwell?”

“Well, certainly they were,” Stewart replied. “And we know that members of Congress, especially those who serve in very sensitive positions, are targeted.”

“Do you know that?” Smith followed up.

“Well yeah, for sure we do,” Stewart stated. “I mean, that’s just a matter of course that we know that from our own experience and from our own briefings. And that shouldn’t surprise anyone. We know that the Chinese Communist Party is targeting businesses, academics; they’re targeting members of Congress, members of the Senate and members of the administration. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, I don’t think.”

He expounded, “I’m just going to say that I think all of us need to make the presumption we would be targeted and this is where Mr. Swalwell failed so poorly in this. That is the context of this relationship with this person. She wasn’t just a girl down the street he grew up with or a girl down the street. She was a Chinese student. She had just barely come to the United States. She was so aggressive in developing relationships with politicians. She helped him raise money. For heaven’s sakes, how does a college student have the capacity to help a member of Congress raise money? All sorts of red flags on this that I think any one of us would have said this doesn’t make sense to me. And I think that’s the primary failure here. Look, we start with the presumption that China is going to target us. They’re going to try to exploit and develop relationships with us, and then you look at the commonsensical kind of environment we’re in and say does this person raise red flags? She certainly did. And I think that’s where Mr. Swalwell has some questions that he absolutely has to answer.”

Stewart also warned that China does not view the United States “as a friend.” He instead asserted China sees the country as “an adversary.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent