And isn’t that a delicious headline? A dash of schadenfreude, eh wot? Just as the Demorats have been screaming RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA to Trump, perhaps everyone should start screaming CHINA CHINA CHINA to Demorats. Who needs Russian hacking when you have Chinese inserts and stupid Demorats?

From FoxNews.com:

Feinstein was ‘mortified’ by FBI allegation that staffer was spy for China: report

by Lukas Mikelionis

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein fired a staffer a few years back who was allegedly part of an effort to spy and pass on political intelligence to the Chinese government.

The staffer, based in the Democrat’s San Francisco office, was suspected of delivering political intelligence, though nothing top secret, to officials based at the local Chinese Consulate, Politico reported.

The FBI informed Feinstein, the then-chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, about five years ago about the staffer and allegations that the staffer was a spy. The source who confirmed the incident to the San Francisco Chronicle said “Dianne was mortified” upon learning about it.

Of course nothing classified was overheard from the front seat during those years. I’m absolutely certain that Demorat Senator Diane Feinstein held top intelligence information in equally high regard as her good friend and cohort Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But let’s ask ourselves a fundamental question. Could it be remotely possible that the Chinese determined to insert an agent directly into Feinstein’s vehicle because she was the Chair of the Senate Committee on Intelligence — a committee upon which she still sits?

The suspected spy served as the lawmaker’s driver in California, but took on other roles as well, including helping out in her San Francisco office and being Feinstein’s liaison to the Asian-American community in the state. He attended Chinese Consulate events on behalf of the senator.

This is worth a chortle:

A former official said that the spy’s handler “probably got an award back in China” for his efforts to penetrate Feinstein’s office and pass on intelligence.

Politico.com wrote:

Political espionage happens here, too. China, for example, is certainly out to steal U.S. technology secrets, noted former intelligence officials, but it also is heavily invested in traditional political intelligence gathering, influence and perception-management operations in California. Former intelligence officials told me that Chinese intelligence once recruited a staff member at a California office of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, and the source reported back to China about local politics. (A spokesperson for Feinstein said the office doesn’t comment on personnel matters or investigations, but noted that no Feinstein staffer in California has ever had a security clearance.)

Why would they ever need one? They can get all they can hear, copy or steal from the one-time Chair of the entire Senate Committee on Intelligence herself.

But wait, there’s more. KPIX in San Francisco is indicating the Chinese spy was insinuated into Feinstein’s life for 10 years; oh no. It was 20 years.

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) – New details emerged Wednesday about how a mole for the government of communist China managed to stay by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s side for nearly 20 years.

On Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle uncovered additional details in a column written by reporters Phil Matier and Andy Ross.

The column revealed that the Chinese spy was Feinstein’s driver who also served as a gofer in her Bay Area office and was a liaison to the Asian-American community.

He even attended Chinese consulate functions for the senator.

This observation, then.

Former FBI agent and KPIX 5 security analyst Jeff Harp said he was not surprised.

“Think about Diane Feinstein and what she had access to,” said Harp. “One, she had access to the Chinese community here in San Francisco; great amount of political influence. Two, correct me if I’m wrong, Dianne Feinstein still has very close ties to the intelligence committees there in Washington, D.C.”

However, after all we know about the FBI and its former and current directors, can we assume we’re getting the full story? Of course not. I’m surprised even this information escaped.

This from the GatewayPundit.com:

Dianne Feinstein Was Warned About Chinese Bribes and Infiltration in 1990s — When She Hired Her Chinese Driver Spy

by Cristina Laila

The San Francisco Chronicle claims none of her staff ever knew what was going on and just kept the story quiet.

Feinstein reportedly ‘found out’ that her staffer was a Chinese spy in 2013–while she was the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

That’s right–the CHAIRMAN of the Senate Intel Committee had a Chinese spy working for her for 20 years and she supposedly didn’t know.

Another strange coincidence? Feinstein’s 3rd husband whom she married in 1980, Richard Blum is DEEPLY and PERSONALLY connected to China as a prominent investor.

Now isn’t that an odd bit of connective tissue?

Since 1995, Feinstein has made three visits to confer with senior government officials in Beijing. Blum has accompanied her each time at his own expense and has attended many of her meetings with President Jiang Zemin and other top Chinese leaders–an unusual degree of access for a private businessman.

On their trip to China in January of last year, Blum accompanied Feinstein to dinner with Jiang in the exclusive leaders’ enclave, Zhongnanhai.

Then this:

The Chinese spy mysteriously appeared on the scene in 1993 just ONE YEAR after Feinstein was elected to the Senate in 1992. Coincidence? We think not.

And this:

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has emerged as one of the staunchest proponents of closer U.S. relations with China, fighting for permanent most-favored-nation trading status for Beijing.

At the same time, far from the spotlight, Feinstein’s husband, Richard C. Blum, has expanded his private business interests in China–to the point that his firm is now a prominent investor inside the communist nation.

For years, Feinstein and Blum have insisted that they maintained a solid “firewall” between her role as an influential foreign policy player and his career as a private investor overseas.

With this:

Richard Blum’s investments in China ballooned after his wife Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, was elected to the Senate in 1992.

Feinstein hired a Chinese spy in 1993 only to see her husband’s businesses flourish.

Total co-inky-dink.

Let’s break this down for even the most addled Leftists amongst us. With a few questions.

Taxpayer money paid this Chinese mole or spy. Yours and mine. First question: did he get a pension? How would we know? Wouldn’t it behoove the Demorats to keep such a cock-up quiet? Of course it would. What a great job. Steal secrets, spy on the gweilo, then take a cushy retirement.

Then let’s break this down as well:

The suspected spy served as the lawmaker’s driver in California, but took on other roles as well, including helping out in her San Francisco office and being Feinstein’s liaison to the Asian-American community in the state. He attended Chinese Consulate events on behalf of the senator.

He was a driver and, apparently, much more. Let’s be serious. After her husband’s close associations with China and her comfort factor in dealing with same, would it not be logical that the amount of time spent with her day after day, week after week, year after year, a bit of a confidant, would result in her guard letting down? Of course.

Russell Lowe registering Democrat voters in San Francisco. Democrats.

It turns out that Russell Lowe wasn’t just her driver — he was her office manager as well. Read this post.

It was his job to acquire her trust which he did by dint of sheer service in terms of time itself. Tell me and assure me that he was never let alone with even one scintilla of classified information as her briefcase lay on a desk. As a computer screen lay open. As papers were left exposed. As he walked by. As she was in the bathroom. As she was in another room. When she left the vehicle for an hour to make a speech, with a tablet or a phone or a briefcase or a folder left behind. With perhaps even her cell phone left behind.

Go ahead. Assure me. Convince me it never happened or the opportunities never existed.

What I just said, confirmed:

Harp pointed out politicians with access to classified information are generally trained on what not to say and when not to say it. But he also noted when you have a driver behind the wheel day in and day out for 20 years, there are more opportunities to slip up.

From TheFederalist.com:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Ties To China Go Way Deeper Than An Alleged Office Spy

by Ben Weingarten

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s warm relationship with and advocacy for Communist China go back decades and involve millions, if not billions, of dollars.

As media, intelligence agency, and political scrutiny of foreign meddling is seemingly at its apex, a story with big national security implications involving a high-ranking senator with access to America’s most sensitive intelligence information has been hiding in plain sight.

The story involves China and the senior U.S. senator from California, and former chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Democrat Dianne Feinstein. It was buried eight paragraphs into a recent Politico exposé on foreign efforts to infiltrate Silicon Valley, as a passing example of political espionage.

Did the senator expose herself to potential blackmail, or the public to danger through leakage of sensitive, highly classified information? Is firing really the proper punishment for providing political intelligence to a foreign power?

Excellent questions that need to be asked and answered. Were they?

In May 1993, Feinstein expressed her strong support on the Senate floor for continued trading with China. Contemporaneously, her husband was seeking to raise up to $150 million from investors, including himself, for a variety of Chinese enterprises.

In August 1993, Feinstein and her husband visited Beijing for extensive meetings with Chinese leaders at President Jiang’s invitation. As the Los Angeles Times reported in a 1994 exposé on Feinstein’s husband’s business ties and the potential conflict of interests they presented: “Such encounters are fondly remembered when deals are clinched back in China, according to American experts in Chinese business practices. They said that Feinstein’s consistent support for China’s interests cannot help but benefit her husband’s efforts to earn profits there.”

The historical record suggests these American experts were right. Blum successfully raised $160 million for the aforementioned Asia fund under his Newbridge Capital investment company, including investing $1-2 million himself. The fund invested in several state-owned and Chinese government-linked businesses.

A lot more exists, and you should read the complete story. But you get my point.

I transition next to this, BZ’s Reversal Axiom:

If we found out in 2023 that a guy on Devin Nunes’ staff in CA was a Russian spy but they kept this quiet for 5 years after Nunes forced the guy to retire, who would buy it was OK because all the guy ever had access to was local CA political info?

So take your pick. Russia or China. Both are threats to the US. I would submit, however, that the most credible and immediately existential threat to the US is China. There is no proven “collusion” between Trump and Russia. But there is certainly credible linkage between Feinstein and China.

Then there is my final thought. The FBI decided to do Senator Feinstein a solid by notifying her and her staff of the potential threat from within due to this individual. They told her something similar to “we think you have a Chinese spy problem.”

That is precisely what the FBI did not do for the Donald Trump campaign. They could have taken the staff and then-candidate/nominee Donald Trump aside and said something similar to “eh, just thought you should know, we think you have something of a Russia problem,” as with Feinstein.

But no.

Gosh. I wonder what the difference was?

BZ