Several days before Breitbart News ran a story alleging a sexual affair between Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and a Chinese spy, the congressman’s top aide received an unusual email from a fellow Hill staffer.

It was Buckley Carlson, a communications director for up-and-coming Republican Rep. Jim Banks and son of Tucker Carlson, arguably the most powerful person in right-wing media and one of Swalwell’s biggest antagonists.

According to Swalwell communications director Jessica Gail, Buckley was reeling from the fact that the congressman had just days earlier referenced him in a tweet bashing his Fox News host father. As a consequence, Gail said, Buckley (not to be confused with Tucker’s brother Buckley Carlson) intimated to her that he was working with a news outlet to push a story on an alleged tryst between Swalwell, who is married with children, and a Chinese infiltrator.

Several days later, a Breitbart article featuring the allegations received extensive coverage on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News primetime program, including a photoshopped graphic of Swalwell in bed with the suspected spy.