Five years ago, the FBI told Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that one of her employees was working as a spy for the Chinese.
Not only did the spy work as Feinstein’s driver for 20 years, but he also served as her Asian-American community liaison and as a stand-in for her at Chinese Consulate events.
Feinstein immediately fired the staffer, but did not inform the rest of her office.
According to a source cited by The San Francisco Chronicle, the intrigue began when the spy took a trip to Asia to visit ‘family’ and made friends with an individual who continued to stay in touch. That individual had connections to the Ministry of State Security – the intelligence branch of the People’s Republic of China.
“He didn’t even know what was happening – that he was being recruited,” said the source. “He just thought it was some friend.”
The FBI connected Feinstein’s driver with Chinese spying in the Bay Area – a phenomenon that has ramped up in recent years as China seeks to steal trade secrets and technology.
Unfortunately the FBI has been unable to charge the individual with espionage because none of the information he shared was classified or top secret (as far as we know).
“Think about Dianne Feinstein and what she had access to,” says former FBI agent Jeff 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, DC.”
Author’s Note: The “non-classified” conversations of a major political figure like Dianne Feinstein are still very sensitive. The bits and pieces that someone in this position could obtain are significant – and who knows if he was using electronic devices to record conversations and obtain even more information?
This is worse than it seems, and Feinstein was clueless. That is the real crime – same as Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz – they were all clueless and giving away the whole store because they were not paying attention.