Politics
House Oversight investigating Walz over 'longstanding connections' to China
EXCLUSIVE: The House Oversight Committee is investigating Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and his alleged “longstanding connections” to China and CCP-linked entities, Fox News Digital has learned.
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a letter that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., penned to FBI Director Christopher Wray, notifying the bureau of the committee’s investigation into Walz.
“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is conducting a government-wide investigation into the Chinese Communist Party’s political warfare operations against America and the response from federal agencies,” he wrote. “Vice President Kamala Harris recently announced her vice presidential running mate, Timothy Walz, the current governor of Minnesota.”
WALZ BACKED ‘SANCTUARY’ POLICIES, SERVICES FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AS GOVERNOR: ‘WIN FOR OPEN BORDERS’
Comer said that the committee had been briefed by the FBI on April 22 and July 17 — both briefings occurred before Walz was named Harris’ running mate.
Vice President Kamala Harris is accompanied by her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, on Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
However, Comer said that FBI briefers told the committee that the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force “investigates exactly the kind of activity that has since come to light about Governor Walz.”
Comer is now seeking information about the Chinese entities and officials Walz has “engaged and partnered with,” as well as any “warnings or advice the FBI may have given to Governor Walz about U.S. political figures being targeted by or recruited for CCP influence operations.”
Comer said Walz has “longstanding connections to CCP-connected entities and officials that make him susceptible” to the CCP’s strategy of “elite capture,” which seeks to co-opt influential figures in elite political, cultural and academic circles to “influence the United States to the benefit of the communist regime and the detriment of Americans.”
Comer pointed to reports of Walz’s “extensive engagement with CCP officials and entities while serving in public office,” saying it raises questions about “possible CCP influence in his decision-making as governor — and, should he be elected, as vice president.”
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Recent reporting reveals that Governor Walz has concerning ties to the People’s Republic of China,” Comer wrote.
Comer pointed to reports that suggest that while Walz was a teacher in the early 1990s, he organized a trip to China for Alliance High School students, where the costs were reportedly “paid by the Chinese government.”
“In 1994, Mr. Walz set up a private company named ‘Educational Travel Adventures, Inc.,’ which coordinated annual student trips to the PRC until 2003, and was led by Mr. Walz himself,” Comer wrote, adding that the corporation was “reportedly dissolved four days after he took congressional office in 2007.”
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Comer also said Walz has traveled to China an estimated “30 times.”
“In its investigation, the Committee has highlighted the importance of U.S. officials being cognizant of CCP political and psychological warfare efforts that seek to threaten national security,” Comer wrote.
Comer then pointed to Walz’s time in Congress, noting he served as a fellow at the Macau Polytechnic University — a Chinese institution that characterizes itself as having a “long-held devotion to and love for the motherland.”
Democratic vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, speaks during a campaign rally with Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris at the Liacouras Center at Temple University on Aug. 6, 2024 in Philadelphia. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“At the time he disclosed serving as a Macau fellow, Mr. Walz also had significant credit card debt,” Comer wrote, noting that in 2019, Walz headlined the 27th National Convention for the U.S. China Peoples Friendship Association in Minnesota.
“Governor Walz spoke alongside the president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which, a year later, the Department of State exposed as ‘a Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments,’ including efforts to ‘directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda,’” Comer wrote.
Comer said Walz himself has “admitted that he does not ‘fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship.’”
“Despite bipartisan efforts to identify and defeat CCP unrestricted warfare against America, Governor Walz continues problematic engagement with concerning entities and individuals,” Comer wrote.
Comer also pointed to a March 2024 meeting Walz had with Consul General Zhao Jian to discuss “China-U.S. relations and sub-national cooperation.”
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“Despite his knowledge and condemnation of communist China’s human rights violations, Governor Walz has said he ‘applaud[s] the accomplishments of the Chinese people and recognize[s] that some in the Chinese Government advocate for greater rule of law,’” Comer wrote.
Gov. Tim Walz, vice presidential nominee, delivers remarks at the AFSCME’s 46th International Convention in Los Angeles on Aug. 13, 2024. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Comer is now requesting that the FBI assist in the committee’s investigation by providing documents and information related to any Chinese entity or individual with whom Walz may have engaged or partnered.
Comer is also asking for any records between the FBI and Walz, or his gubernatorial office pertaining to warnings or guidance about subnational government officials engaging with the PRC, CCP and the CCP’s proxies.
Comer, in a statement to Fox News Digital, said “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 longstanding 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.”
Comer added, “FBI briefers recently informed the Committee that the Bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force investigates CCP activity that is similar to China’s engagement with Governor Walz.”
“The American people deserve to fully understand how deep Governor Walz’s relationship with China goes,” Comer told Fox News Digital.
The Harris-Walz campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Politics
Federal judge blocks Trump from cutting childcare funds to Democratic states over fraud concerns
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A federal judge Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from stopping subsidies on childcare programs in five states, including Minnesota, amid allegations of fraud.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, a Biden appointee, didn’t rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but said the states had met the legal threshold to maintain the “status quo” on funding for at least two weeks while arguments continue.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns.
The programs include the Child Care and Development Fund, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and the Social Services Block Grant, all of which help needy families.
USDA IMMEDIATELY SUSPENDS ALL FEDERAL FUNDING TO MINNESOTA AMID FRAUD INVESTIGATION
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
“Families who rely on childcare and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purpose,” HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said in a statement on Tuesday.
The states, which include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, argued in court filings that the federal government didn’t have the legal right to end the funds and that the new policy is creating “operational chaos” in the states.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian at his nomination hearing in 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
In total, the states said they receive more than $10 billion in federal funding for the programs.
HHS said it had “reason to believe” that the programs were offering funds to people in the country illegally.
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The table above shows the five states and their social safety net funding for various programs which are being withheld by the Trump administration over allegations of fraud. (AP Digital Embed)
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.” (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital has reached out to HHS for comment.
In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”
“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”
WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.
That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.
Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.
Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.
WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.
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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leveling a stunning accusation at Vice President JD Vance amid the national furor over this week’s fatal shooting in Minnesota involving an ICE agent.
“I understand that Vice President Vance believes that shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not,” the four-term federal lawmaker from New York and progressive champion argued as she answered questions on Friday on Capitol Hill from Fox News and other news organizations.
Ocasio-Cortez spoke in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good after she confronted ICE agents from inside her car in Minneapolis.
RENEE NICOLE GOOD PART OF ‘ICE WATCH’ GROUP, DHS SOURCES SAY
Members of law enforcement work the scene following a suspected shooting by an ICE agent during federal operations on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Video of the incident instantly went viral, and while Democrats have heavily criticized the shooting, the Trump administration is vocally defending the actions of the ICE agent.
HEAD HERE FOR LIVE FOX NEWS UPDATES ON THE ICE SHOOTING IN MINNESOTA
Vance, at a White House briefing on Thursday, charged that “this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order.”
“That woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation,” the vice president added. “The president stands with ICE, I stand with ICE, we stand with all of our law enforcement officers.”
And Vance claimed Good was “brainwashed” and suggested she was connected to a “broader, left-wing network.”
Federal sources told Fox News on Friday that Good, who was a mother of three, worked as a Minneapolis-based immigration activist serving as a member of “ICE Watch.”
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Ocasio-Cortez, in responding to Vance’s comments, said, “That is a fundamental difference between Vice President Vance and I. I do not believe that the American people should be assassinated in the street.”
But a spokesperson for the vice president, responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s accusation, told Fox News Digital, “On National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, AOC made it clear she thinks that radical leftists should be able to mow down ICE officials in broad daylight. She should be ashamed of herself. The Vice President stands with ICE and the brave men and women of law enforcement, and so do the American people.”
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