On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about H.Res. 500, introduced in 2025, would require criminal background checks for House employees by the Capitol Police and public disclosure of recent foreign government payments, contracts, or citizenship. Not surprisingly, it remains stalled in committee despite repeated calls for a floor vote.
The article reports:
Since its founding, the U.S. Congress, the institution that writes the laws governing the world’s leading superpower, has operated with shockingly lax standards.
Republican Florida Rep. Kat Cammack and House Speaker Mike Johnson are debating whether members’ staff should undergo routine criminal background checks and whether lawmakers should be barred from romantic or sexual relationships with the very people who draft, research, and shepherd the vast majority of legislation that shapes American life. While the two aren’t running their issues as a combined package, they should be because together they make up a glaring national security and institutional integrity failure.
The article notes:
Former Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein employed a staffer for nearly 20 years as her San Francisco driver and Asian-American community liaison. He even attended Chinese consulate functions on her behalf. The FBI eventually informed her that he was reporting to China’s Ministry of State Security. She chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time. Investigators concluded he passed no classified material. Even journalist James O’Keefe, with zero access to classified information, has found out more just from fake dates in D.C. Americans are just supposed to accept that there was a breach in security that lasted two decades, but nothing important was ever relayed to China. He was apparently a very terrible spy.
Former California Rep. Eric Swalwell infamously fell victim to the classic “honeypot” situation with Fang Fang, a suspected Chinese intelligence operative, who assisted him with fundraising, helped place an intern in his office, and maintained close personal contact. Swalwell denied any wrongdoing after the FBI issued a defensive briefing in 2015, and she allegedly fled back to China.
More recently, a staffer on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party was reportedly offered cash for insights on sensitive topics like rare-earth minerals and Venezuela. Separately, reports of declassified files have highlighted a former member allegedly placing interns acting as foreign agents into other offices.
This needs to be corrected as soon as possible.