In a letter to (former)Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray during his tenure, Committee Chairman Comer requested information, documents, and communications related to the CCP-connected entities and officials Governor 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.
“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. 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. 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,” said Chairman James Comer.
In October, a House Oversight report warned that ‘The Chinese Communist Party (CCP or the Party) is engaging in warfare tactics against the United States with increasing efficacy. …[It] poisons tens of thousands of Americans every year with fentanyl …For now, the CCP conflict is not fought with weapons aimed at physical destruction…the U.S. government and its constituent agencies, departments, and commissions under the Biden-Harris Administration have not engaged the CCP malefactor with urgency or candor… the Biden-Harris Administration stayed largely silent, forcing agencies to determine whether and/or how to confront the CCP. Unfortunately, most agencies’ solutions and policies either ignored, placated, or only weakly addressed the PRC’s political warfare. By any reasonable analysis, the United States faces a new cold war, but under the [Biden Administration] only its opponent—the CCP—is committed to winning….Unlike the first Cold War, the adversary is already within, having entrenched itself within U.S. borders, institutions, businesses, universities, and cultural centers by capturing elites in influential circles warfare, a component thereof—is a prelude to larger, more direct conflicts, which the CCP anticipates. Through political warfare, the CCP seeks to establish footholds, dependencies, and both willing and unwitting allies that further its larger effort to weaken the United States. Myopic business decisions capitalizing on cheap labor sourced from the PRC, rosy narratives promulgated by government officials in exchange for PRC special treatment, and social tensions the CCP exploits are all CCP tools that make any U.S. effort to excise dependence on the PRC difficult and politically delicate. President Trump [in first first term] and administration officials spoke in a unified voice on the dangers posed by CCP infiltration and influence operations to show the American people the threat the CCP poses to every aspect of American life… the Oversight Committee’s investigation has revealed that too many of these efforts—especially transparent communication about the CCP threat—were not built upon by the Biden-Harris Administration. While CCP infiltration and influence operations target every sector and community in America, much of the federal government under the Biden-Harris Administration …failed to understand, acknowledge, and strategically combat CCP political warfare. discretion, and fulfillment of duties by federal agencies themselves. This has left a
[during the Biden Administration] The size, complexity, and compartmentalization of the federal government has amounted to excuses and blame shifting that finds no parallel in the CCP, which is, because of its totalitarian nature, unsparingly unified and efficient in carrying out its plans to weaken the United States.
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