This story reads like a time capsule from the Cold War.
The General Intelligence and Security Service said the agents worked at the Russian embassy and had diplomatic accreditation.
“Both intelligence officers have been declared persona non grata by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the Dutch agency said. “Consequently they are no longer allowed to work as diplomats in the Netherlands, and they will have to leave the country forthwith.”
The Dutch agency known as the AIVD said that the officers both worked for Russia’s civil intelligence agency known as SVR. One of them built a network of sources who work or used to work in the high-tech sector in the Netherlands, the AIVD said, the second agent “played a supporting role.”
Did they use hollowed-out rocks and holes in tree stumps to drop off their microfilm? This sounds like old-school espionage, and it is. It’s probably not the most sophisticated spycraft the Russians have at their disposal, but the fact that they even still engage in such actions suggests Putin, for all his KGB wiles, may have lost some edge on his fastball.
Meanwhile, the Chinese have gotten much smarter in their industrial and political espionage.
Earlier this week, Rep. Eric Swalwell was exposed for his relationship with an accused Chinese spy whose activities were so widespread and disturbing that the FBI got involved and she fled the country. As Stacey Lennox pointed out, we have no idea what compromising and even incriminating photos and documents she may have spirited away when she headed back to Beijing.
Has a single Democrat risen up to denounce Swalwell, or even question his role on the House Intelligence Committee? The man got thoroughly infiltrated. The spy, Christine Fang, reportedly helped him fundraise and even inserted an intern on his staff. No word yet on whether Swalwell inserted his staff into the spy, which did happen with at least a pair of mayors she was cultivating for higher office. Swalwell is mum on that point, which is highly suggestive.
Spoiler: No, no Democrat has said boo about Swalwell and the spy.
The media likewise don’t seem to care. The online conservative media, NewsmaxTV, and Fox News have covered it. Fox called out everyone else for their decisions thus far to keep silent about the spy who infiltrated Eric Swalwell.
This is not a game. Swalwell ran for president of the United States. He is not only implicated, he actually implicated the entire Democrat House leadership, under the apparent impression that “because Nancy knew” this somehow gives him cover. What that does is require answers from Swalwell and from the speaker of the House, who is only a few heartbeats away from the presidency, and her whole leadership team. What did they know about Swalwell’s relationship with the spy, and when did they know it? Did they know (or care) about the spy when they allowed Swalwell onto the House Intelligence Committee, which has access to some of our nation’s most sensitive programs and information?
What does Joe Biden think about all this? The media will get around to asking him about it precisely never.
It’s also important in assessing the last four years of Swalwell’s activities against the president of the United States. Swalwell spent four years saying idiotic things like this:
Swalwell declared on MSNBC in January 2019: “Stated plainly, the President’s son met with a Russian spy. We now have the best evidence of that in our minority report the Democrats put out that Ms. Veselnitskaya was going all over the world and bumping into Dana Rohrabacher, which is a sign of a spy, someone who tries to create a coincidence encounter, and now we know that she was working at the behest of the Russian government.”
But even supposing any of that is true (the Mueller report found no collusion whatsoever), Swalwell had already had a relationship with a Chinese spy when he smeared the Trumps. The FBI had already intervened with regard to Swalwell’s favorite spy.
It wasn’t a cursory relationship. Any politician who allows someone to fundraise for them, and also accepts a staff intern suggested by that same person, has taken the relationship to a fairly exclusive level. That’s not quite to the inner circle but it’s not too many layers removed from it. There would presumably be some texts, emails, phone calls, lunches, and after-hours interactions between the two — even if things never progressed to dancing in the dark.
But the Democrats and the media don’t care.
What’s all this got to do with the Russian spies booted from the Netherlands? It points out how China operates on a far more sophisticated level than the Russians now and are a much greater threat. From the offices and bedrooms of politicians to university research campuses, even to NASA, China’s “grains of sand” approach to espionage is a full-spectrum run at the sovereignty of the United States. While Russia bumbles around like the old Spy vs. Spy cartoon, China has thousands of spies on its payroll all over the United States and is penetrating congressional staff. China has also been paying many American media outlets millions of dollars to print its propaganda. Is that buying the media’s silence?
Meanwhile, the Democrats and the media collude to make Russia — but never China — out to be a grave threat. Russia would certainly like to be. But we have states with larger and more advanced economies than Russia’s whole national economy. Elon Musk could probably buy Russia and have enough left to buy up several of its neighbors like Monopoly squares. Moving to Texas and getting to Mars are simply better investments. China has ambitions to overtake and replace the United States and it has the economic might and military power to at least make a go of it. Rather than mess around with a couple of embassy spies, it appears the Chinese Communist Party just went ahead and bought the U.S. media and one of its two political parties.
But sure, Russia is the greater threat.
The media’s and the Democrats’ aggressive silence on Swalwell suggests not.
Communist China Was Always One Lab Accident Away From Becoming a Supervillain
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