Thursday, 14 November 2024

House Committee Investigating Tim Walz, Requests “Information, Documents, And Communications” From FBI


The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability has demanded the FBI turn over all “information, documents, and communications” in its possession “related to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) connected entities and officials Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has engaged and partnered with.”

“To date, the FBI has failed to provide the Oversight Committee with information regarding Governor Walz’s documented relations with CCP-affiliated entities and officials, as well as any warnings or information the FBI has potentially provided to Governor Walz or his office,” the Committee stated in a press release.

“On August 16, 2024, the Committee requested information about the CCP-affiliated entities and officials with which Mr. Timothy Walz has engaged, as well as any warnings or information the Federal Bureau of Investigation has provided to Mr. Walz or his office about CCP influence operations. The deadline to produce such documents and information has passed, and the Bureau has failed to provide any response to the Committee. The FBI’s silence regarding Mr. Walz’s documented relations with CCP affiliates is inexcusable. The Committee must understand the full extent of Mr. Walz’s ties to the CCP. In 1993, Mr. Walz organized a trip to the PRC for his Alliance High School students; the costs for the trip were paid in part by the Chinese government. In 2007, Mr. Walz served not only as a member of Congress but also as a fellow at Macau Polytechnic University. According to the university’s website, Macau Polytechnic University exists ‘in alignment with China’s Belt and Road Initiative,’ a political warfare program developed by President Xi Jinping to exert China’s influence worldwide,” Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) wrote.

Comer penned a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, requesting information regarding any ties between Gov. Walz and CCP-affiliated entities.

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From the Washington Examiner:

In a letter Thursday to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Comer raised concerns over Walz’s promotion, as Minnesota’s governor, of a group called the Hormel Institute, which the Washington Examiner reported in September partners with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The top Republican is re-upping his request from August for the agency to turn over any documents on Chinese entities Walz has reportedly been linked to over the years.

“Recent reports indicate Mr. Walz, while in Congress, ‘helped secure over $2 million’ and ‘pushed for a $5 million federal earmark’ for the Hormel Institute, which is a ‘Minnesota-based medical research center with a history of working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China,’” Comer wrote in the letter to Wray. “The Wuhan Institute of Virology is closely connected to the CCP and has been implicated in the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Comer’s letter also cited a report from Fox News detailing the Hormel Institute’s track record of collaborating with the Beijing Genomics Institute, which the Pentagon labeled a “Chinese military company” earlier this year. The Hormel Institute’s parent, the University of Minnesota, denied in a recent statement to the Washington Examiner that the institute has a “formal affiliation” with the WIV or the Beijing Genomics Institute.

However, journal records show that researchers from the Hormel Institute work on projects with personnel from the WIV and the Beijing Genomics Institute.

“By denying Congress and the American people information on Tim Walz’s ties to the CCP, the FBI further proves it’s corrupt and weaponized to the highest degree. Beijing is no friend of ours and it will use whatever and whoever it can to ensure our demise,” Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) said.

WATCH:

The Center Square reports:

According to Walz, he’s visited China roughly 30 times and is proud of his connection, which began in 1989. Walz first taught a year abroad in China after the June 3-4, 1989, Tiananmen Massacre. While estimates vary, “hundreds to thousands of protesters were killed … and as many as 10,000 were arrested” after the Chinese government enacted martial law to squash pro-democracy protests. Walz told VOA News, “I felt it was more important than ever to go, to make sure that story was told, and to let Chinese people know we were standing there, we were with them.”

Upon his return, he told Nebraska’s Chadron Record, “the Chinese have been mistreated and cheated by their government for years.” If they had different leaders, “there are no limits on what they could do. … [They] are such kind, generous, capable people. They just gave and gave and gave to me.”

The experience had such an impact Walz’s wife, Gwen, that she said they got married on the fifth anniversary of the massacre. “He wanted to have a date he’ll always remember,” she told the Scottsbluff Star-Herald. They also “established a summer trip to China for their students and traveled there nearly every summer through 2003,” according to her first lady bio.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who has also raised concerns about Walz’s China connection, told The Center Square, “If you look at Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz and Colin Allred,” his Democratic challenger in the U.S. Senate race, “they have all been systematically, far too cozy with communist China.”

Cruz has long warned about CCP threats, including infiltrating American universities, espionage, intellectual property theft, Chinese companies buying land near U.S. military installations, perpetrating extensive human rights abuses, murder, and torture, among other examples.

Read the letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray HERE.


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