House GOP sets its sights on Walz

House Republicans are setting their sights on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democrats’ vice presidential candidate — the latest indication that they are using their slim majority to go after former President Donald Trump’s political opponents.

Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) on Friday announced that he is opening an investigation into Walz’s work related to China, including coordinating student trips, and sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray requesting a swath of documents and any correspondence with Walz related to China.

“Americans should be deeply concerned that Governor Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, has a longstanding and cozy relationship with China. …The American people deserve to fully understand how deep Governor Walz’s relationship with China goes,” Comer said in a statement.

Walz in 1989 went to China as part of a teach-abroad program. He also helped coordinate trips for students and has visited China more than 30 times — two details highlighted by Comer as part of the groundwork for his investigation.

Walz’s work related to China has become an early point of GOP criticism as the party recalibrates its November strategy toward Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris. But Walz has also been critical of China, particularly on human rights. During his time in Congress he served on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which focuses on the issue.

“Throughout his career, Governor Walz has stood up to the CCP, fought for human rights … and democracy, and always put American jobs and manufacturing first. Republicans are twisting basic facts and desperately lying to distract from the Trump-Vance agenda: praising dictators, and sending American jobs to China,” Teddy Tschann, a spokesperson for Walz, said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Oversight Committee Democrats in a statement called Comer’s investigation “nothing more than a political stunt to aid the former president, while he ignores Trump's cozy relationships with dictators, including China's Xi.”

Comer has launched sweeping investigations into Chinese entities as part of his work as chair of the House Oversight Committee, which has a broad jurisdictional lane. But he’s also used the panel to delve into the party’s political opponents. While he told POLITICO that he wouldn’t be calling Harris in, he recently requested documents related to her work on the U.S.-Mexico border.

His most high-profile investigation — co-leading an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden that largely focused on the business deals of his family members — has quietly wrapped after months. Republicans, however, don’t have the votes to impeach Biden, after investigators failed to convince dozens of their colleagues that Biden had committed a crime or an impeachable offense.