Republicans want to investigate Tim Walz for teaching high school students abroad

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Aug. 16 requesting information on so-called connections between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential candidate, and officials and entities connected with the Chinese Communist Party.

In his letter, Comer asks for “information about the Chinese 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,” noting, “Reporting about Governor Walz’s extensive engagement with CCP officials and entities while serving in public office raises questions about possible CCP influence in his decision-making as governor—and, should he be elected, as vice president.”

After graduating from college in 1989, Walz taught for a year in a high school in the south of China as part of the nonprofit program WorldTeach. People he worked with and met at that time are presumably the “connections” to which Comer refers in his letter.

During a 2014 hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China marking the 25th anniversary of the massacre by Chinese troops of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Walz described his decision to teach at the school as an attempt to help improve relations between the United States and China.

“It was my belief at that time that the diplomacy was going to happen on many levels, certainly people to people, and the opportunity to be in a Chinese high school at that critical time seemed to me to be really important,” Walz said.

In response to Comer’s letter, Walz spokesperson Teddy Schann told ABC News: “Throughout his career, Governor Walz has stood up to the CCP, fought for human rights and democracy, and always put American jobs and manufacturing first. Republicans are twisting basic facts and desperately lying to distract from the Trump-Vance agenda: praising dictators, and sending American jobs to China.”

The newly launched congressional investigation follows the decision by the House Republican majority to investigate Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, with Comer sending a letter to the acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection that said, “The [Oversight] Committee requests documents and communications to understand Vice President Harris’s role in the worst border crisis in American history.”

The investigations coincide with improved polling for the Harris-Walz ticket in the 2024 election. As of Aug. 19, the Democrats were polling an average of 3 percentage points ahead of the Republican ticket of former President Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance.

“It’s against ethics rules to use official resources for campaign purposes. You’re telling me after almost two years of this committee operating, NOW they want to look into the Governor of Minnesota?” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), a member of the committee serving in the minority, wrote on social media.

After taking control of the House following the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden in 2023 when it was expected that Biden would be the party’s presidential nominee the next year.

That inquiry has failed to produce evidence of wrongdoing and has not resulted in the introduction of articles of impeachment in Congress. Alexander Smirnov, a witness who was the source of many of the Republican allegations against Biden, has been charged by the FBI with making false statements.

Trump, the Republican nominee, is the only president in U.S. history to have been impeached twice. He was also convicted on 34 felony counts in New York.