House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced an investigation into Minnesota Governor Timothy Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, following reports of the Governor’s long-standing connections to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entities and officials.
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Chairman Comer requested information, documents, and communications related to Governor Walz’s engagements with CCP-linked entities and officials, as well as any warnings or advice the FBI may have given to him regarding CCP influence operations targeting U.S. political figures.
“The CCP has sought to destroy the United States through coordinated influence and infiltration campaigns that target every aspect of American life, including our own elected officials. Americans should be deeply concerned that Governor Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, has a long-standing and cozy relationship with China,” Comer said. “Mr. Walz has visited China dozens of times, served as a fellow at a Chinese institution that maintains a devotion to the CCP, and spoke alongside the President of a Chinese organization the State Department exposed as a CCP effort to influence and co-opt local leaders. The American people deserve to fully understand how deep Governor Walz’s relationship with China goes.”
Reports indicate that Governor Walz has concerning ties to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In 1993, as a teacher, Walz organized a trip to the PRC with Alliance High School students, with costs covered by the Chinese government, according to the *Star-Herald*. The following year, Walz established a private company called Educational Travel Adventures, Inc., which coordinated annual student trips to the PRC until 2003. The corporation was reportedly dissolved four days after Walz assumed congressional office in 2007. Since his first trip to China, Walz has visited the PRC an estimated 30 times.
While serving in Congress, Walz also served as a fellow at Macau Polytechnic University, a Chinese institution with a self-declared “long-held devotion to and love for the motherland.” Additionally, Walz spoke alongside the President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which the U.S. State Department later exposed as “a Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments” to promote the PRC’s global agenda.
Read the letter to Wray here.
