Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is looking into Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-MN) connections to China even more after reading a recent article in the Washington Examiner about Walz supporting a study center with ties to China.

Comer wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday about his worries about Walz’s support of the Hormel Institute as governor of Minnesota. The Washington Examiner reported in September that the Hormel Institute works with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This is a follow-up to the top Republican’s August request that the agency hand over any records on Chinese companies that Walz is said to have been connected to over the years.

“News reports say Mr. Walz ‘helped secure over $2 million’ and ‘pushed for a $5 million federal earmark’ for the Hormel Institute while he was in Congress,” Comer wrote in the letter to Wray. “The Hormel Institute is a Minnesota-based medical research center with a history of working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and has been linked to the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.”

In his letter, Comer also mentioned a Fox News story that talked about how the Hormel Institute has worked with the Beijing Genomics Institute in the past. Earlier this year, the Pentagon called the Beijing Genomics Institute a “Chinese military business.” The University of Minnesota, which is the parent company of the Hormel Institute, told the Washington Examiner not long ago that the institute does not have a “formal connection” with the WIV or the Beijing Genomics Institute.

Journal records, on the other hand, show that Hormel Institute researchers work on projects with WIV and Beijing Genomics Institute researchers.

The letter says that Walz’s “documented contacts with CCP groups are inexcusable” to the head of the House Oversight Committee.

Since Walz was named Kamala Harris’s running mate for vice president, Republicans have criticized him for having ties to and support for China.

In 2016, Walz said that he does not “belong to the group that thinks China needs to have a hostile relationship” with the US.

Several news sources say Walz has been to China 30 times, including for his wedding. In the letter, Comer said that Walz had planned a trip to China for his students under some CCP sponsorship when he was a teacher at a Minnesota high school.

The senator is also looking into Walz’s time as a teaching fellow at China’s Macau Polytechnic University from at least 2004 to 2007. The New York Post said that Macau Polytechnic University promotes the Belt and Road Initiative, a major part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s attempts to gain power around the world.

Author: Scott Dowdy