Comer Releases DHS Message Discussing Tim Walz’s China Ties, Accuses Agency of Stonewalling Probe

House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) is accusing the Department of Homeland Security of obstructing his investigation into Minnesota governor Tim Walz’s (D) ties to China.

Comer wrote a letter Tuesday to DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas following up on the agency’s failure to respond to the Oversight Committee’s subpoena for documents related to Walz’s China ties. Due to the DHS’s refusal to fully comply with the subpoena, Comer released a message from a Microsoft Teams group chat where Walz’s China connections were discussed.

“DHS has been unresponsive to the subpoena. Because of DHS’s lack of compliance with the Committee’s legal subpoena and unwillingness to cooperate in good faith, the Committee is releasing a small portion of the Department’s internal communications it received from a whistleblower,” the letter reads.

The groupchat message was sent when Vice President Kamala Harris announced Walz as her running mate in August. A DHS official with subject-matter knowledge appears to suggest the Walz selection “feeds into what [People’s Republic of China] has been doing here with him and local gov.”

A whistleblower also turned over information to the Oversight Committee about how the DHS office of intelligence and analysis and the Homeland Security Investigations team have gotten involved in the agency’s investigative work surrounding Minnesota and the Chinese Communist Party, Comer said.

The subpoena specifically covered documents from the Microsoft Teams group chat and any intelligence reports about Walz from November 2023 to the present day. Instead of producing the relevant documents, DHS wrote the committee a letter and held a briefing with a senior advisor from the agency’s legislative affairs team. Comer is now asking a senior adviser to the department’s legislative-affairs staff to testify behind closed doors to the committee.

“It appears to the Committee that DHS officials are specifically concerned about Governor Walz’s involvement with the PRC, but that DHS leadership is covering up such concerns by refusing to produce related documents and communications,” Comer added.

Comer’s investigation of Walz’s links to the Chinese Communist Party is part of a broader effort by the Oversight Committee to investigate Chinese attempts to influence the federal government and other American institutions. He previously accused the FBI of similarly declining to cooperate with the investigation into Walz.

Walz took numerous trips to China when he was a high school teacher in the 1990s. One of Walz’s trips doubled as a honeymoon for him and his wife after their wedding coincided with the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy protesters.

Tiananmen Square became an issue for Walz on the campaign trail when he falsely claimed that one of his visits coincided with the brutal crackdown in 1989. Asked about his false claim during the vice presidential debate, Walz confessed to being a “knucklehead” and justified his routine visits to China.

Walz was previously affiliated with Macau Polytechnic University, an institution linked to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an economic investment program designed to expand China’s geopolitical influence.

Walz has called for further cooperation between the U.S. and China, unlike most D.C. politicians. He has also criticized China’s human rights atrocities against religious and ethic minorities.