If you blinked, you might have missed it—which is just what the collusion media and the left wanted.

Earlier this month, the Empire State had a spy scandal. The alleged perpetrator Linda Sun is a now-former aide to both New York Governors Andrew Cuomo and his successor Kathy Hochul. She was arrested and indicted for being an unregistered agent for the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Also arrested was her husband, Christopher Hu.

Ms. Sun is alleged to have used her government position to advance the interests of communist China by deepening ties between the regime and the New York state government; and revising official statements to portray the PRC in a more favorable light. On his part, Mr. Hu is alleged to have used his PRC-based to abet the “transfer of millions of dollars in kickbacks for personal gain.”

As Michael Cunningham, a research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, observed in the Daily Signal:

Hochul reportedly terminated Sun and alerted law enforcement immediately after learning of her misconduct but a CCP [Chinese Communist Party] agent should never have gained access to New York’s Executive Chamber in the first place… And the problem isn’t unique to New York. Most state governments are likely unaware of how aggressively Beijing targets them… This is partly because Beijing sees state and local governments as potential backdoors into a U.S. political system that is harder to infiltrate directly.

Indeed, they are not unique to the Empire State; and the means the PRC utilizes to acquire “assets” who will knowingly and/or unwittingly promote their interests are time-tested, in every sense of the term. Per Mr. Cunningham: “Beijing’s agents seek to cultivate assets at all levels, and they start targeting people early in their careers when they have little reason to suspect they are on a foreign adversary’s radar.”

Why would the collusion media desperately want to shove the New York-PRC spy scandal down the memory hole? Isn’t this the same media that in league with the Democrats and the administrative state spent years spreading the abject Russia-gate lie that Donald Trump “colluded” with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election?

The question is rhetorical, of course, because one obvious candidate for a closer examination of their ties to communist China is Minnesota’s Governor Tim Walz, who also happens to be the Democrat candidate for Vice President of the United States.

As outlets like the Washington Free Beacon and Breitbart report, Walz makes no bones about his coziness with the genocidal communist regime that has declared unrestricted warfare upon the United States.

Be it his recently discovered (in the Nebraska Alliance Times-Herald) 1991 teaching lesson that in communist China “everyone is the same and everyone shares” to his more recent remark how “one person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness,” Walz possesses a self-professed “fascination” for the regime.

It began during the (then) 25-year-old National Guardsman’s first trip to the PRC for a year-long teaching fellowship. It was a heady year for Walz. As reported by the Free Beacon (via the original 1994 article in the Nebraska Star-Herald), Walz “said he was paid more than other teachers, given a nicer apartment, and spoiled with presents. ‘They gave me more gifts than I could bring home. It was an excellent experience.’”

Little wonder Walz said the PRC treated him “like a king;” and, as he gushed to the Times-Herald upon his return to the U.S., that “no matter how long I live, I’ll never be treated that well again.”

Why any American would admire communist China can usually be boiled down to a matter of ideology, greed, or both. The far more intriguing query is why the Chinese Communist Party targeted Walz for such regal treatment.

Peering into the PRC’s blood-soaked history, we glean a possible reason. Borrowing from the Bolshevik-Soviet example, even before attaining power the CCP understood the need for “united front work” both inside and outside the PRC. The goal was to have ideologically and otherwise “friendly” individuals and organizations serve to advance CCP narratives, interests, and influence. While these individuals and organizations would have varying degrees of association with the CCP and, later, the PRC, in no instance did the party want them to be seen as being directed by the regime. Importantly, this does not necessarily mean the individuals were or are spies for the CCP. They may merely be useful idiots unwittingly serving as assets to and advancing the interests of the regime. Nonetheless, in any event, and to differing extents, communist China has compromised these individuals.

Despicably but not surprisingly, in the wake of the murderous communist regimes of students in Tiananmen Square, the CCP sought to intensify its “united front work” both internally and internationally.

Walz first trekked to the PRC mere months after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Walz and wife Gwen married on the fifth commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre. His wife, Gwen, opines how Walz “wanted to have a date he’ll always remember.” The couple honeymooned in the PRC.

Walz nor his wife did not say whether they were treated like royalty; but the communist regime did facilitate their starting “a travel company, Educational Travel Adventures Inc., which specialized in trips to China,” per the Free Beacon. “He began bringing students over to China with him in 1993, using his ties to CCP diplomats to secure funding from the Chinese government to do so.” [Per Breitbart.]

Walz’s love affair with the PRC continues unabated to this day.

Thus, at the very time the CCP spy scandal in the New York Governor’s office erupted; and mere months after Director Christopher Ray testified to Congress that the FBI opens a new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours, a trio of fundamental questions arise for both our intelligence community and Vice President Harris, specifically:

First, is Gov. Walz’s relationship with the PRC news to you?

Two: If you knew, did you do your due diligence regarding Gov. Walz’s ties to the PRC?

Three: If so, will the Harris campaign release its non-classified findings to the public?

This is not partisan sniping. For, much as is the case with our intelligence community’s competence, it bears directly upon Vice President Harris’s ability to protect our national security as commander-in-chief. She chose Walz to potentially be “a heartbeat away” from the presidency. She did so despite all the information about ties between Walz and the PRC which are now publicly emerging. The American people deserve to know why.

As Mr. Cunningham cautions in his conclusion: “Continued failure to increase scrutiny of key personnel doesn’t only pose risks for the states and their leadership, it also threatens national security.” In consequence, it is imperative for Americans to get answers as to how much of a role communist China played—and may continue to play—in building up “The Great Walz of China.”

***

An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012, and served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee. Not a lobbyist, he is a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars; and a Monday co-host of the “John Batchelor Radio Show,” among sundry media appearances.