As Democrats enthusiastically turn their attention to the Democratic Party’s new presidential ticket, so have House Republicans, who in recent weeks have launched a series of investigations into Vice President Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
House Republicans, who had spent much of the past 3 1/2 years investigating President Biden, are now re-aiming their congressional firepower at Harris’s limited role in migration and border policy and Walz’s China ties.
In a move that served to counter pro-Harris messaging at the Democratic National Convention, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.), and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) held a press call last week criticizing the vice president in the wake of a new inspector general report about the challenge Immigration and Customs Enforcement has had in tracking court dates for unaccompanied migrant children.
The report did not mention Harris at all. But in keeping with the GOP strategy of placing most of the blame for problems at the border on Harris, the Republicans focused almost entirely on her.“
Vice President Harris was put in charge of the border when the UAC [unaccompanied minor] disaster began and — and these original decisions were made, and this is largely her fault and done on her watch,” Johnson said on the call.
While the GOP has tried to pin overall border conditions on Harris, labeling her the “border czar,” her role on the issue was narrower, focused instead on addressing the root causes of migration. The effort to stem flows from the south has largely involved investing heavily in development and democracy building throughout Latin America.
In another effort to highlight Harris’s involvement in border issues, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — an agency with little role in responding to broader migration factors — asking for documents and communications with Harris about her work on immigration matters.
Comer did not seek documents from the two agencies most involved in the root causes strategy: the State Department and USAID. While both have numerous resources on the strategy referenced on its websites, the CBP website does not contain a single reference to the program.
The sudden shift in focus to Harris has not been missed by House Democrats, who see it as a broader pattern of using the chamber’s investigative might to aid former President Trump.
“This entire Congress, Chairman Comer has had a simple MO: block any investigation into Donald Trump and use the Committee gavel to conduct sham inquiries into Trump’s political rivals,” a spokesperson with House Oversight Democrats said in a statement.
“Rather than working with House Democrats to pass the bipartisan bill to secure the border or investigate Trump’s receipt of millions of dollars from the Chinese government while he was Commander-in-Chief, he is once again using the Oversight Committee to boost Donald Trump’s failing campaign.”
And it is not only Harris getting the scrutiny. Lawmakers have also seized on Walz’s connections to China.
The former educator spent a year teaching in China in 1989, and later led field trips to the country — visiting China dozens of times.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin questioning whether Walz complied with foreign travel reporting requirements for his security clearance as he traveled to China while serving in the National Guard.
And in a letter to the FBI, Comer asked the agency to acknowledge whether it has ever offered any defensive briefings to Walz, a practice by which the agency informs politicians and other figures whether they may be a target of Chinese intelligence or influence efforts. Comer also asked the FBI to turn over information on more than a dozen Chinese entities, including some it’s unclear Walz had any contact with.
A Harris-Walz campaign spokesman said in a statement that the governor “has stood up to the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], fought for human rights rights and democracy, and always put American jobs and manufacturing first,” and accused Republicans of “twisting basic facts.”
Walz has also been a critic of China, meeting with the Dalai Lama and a Hong Kong democracy activist, and cosponsoring the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in the House.
“Unlike the relationship that we discovered during our relationship with the Bidens, where China was paying Joe Biden’s family, with Walz it doesn’t appear to be any type of payments being transacted,” Comer said on Fox Business on Friday.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4844771-house-republicans-harris-walz-investigate/