As Congress prepares to come back from August recess with less than two months before the Nov. 5 presidential election, House Republicans are taking aim at the Democratic ticket through a flurry of investigations and hearings.
With only three weeks of the congressional session left before Vice President Kamala Harris squares off against former President Donald Trump in the presidential election, Republicans in Congress have their work cut out for them. Not only does House Speaker Mike Johnson need to negotiate and pass a continuing resolution that protects conservative priorities to fund the government past Sept. 30, but Republicans in Congress also need to find a way to end the Harris honeymoon—which some polls suggest is already coming to an end—or risk defeat.
At least four separate House committee investigations, from the Oversight Committee to the Armed Services Committee, are looking to use subpoena powers to put pressure on the Democratic ticket.
The Oversight Committee, led by Rep. James Comer, R.-Ky., has two separate probes trained on Harris and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota.
Comer on Aug. 6 announced the first investigation, which seeks to uncover Harris’ complicity in the ongoing illegal migrant crisis at America’s southern border. In a letter to Troy Miller, the Customs and Border Protection senior official performing the duties of the commissioner, Comer claimed the committee is “investigating Vice President Harris’s role in effectuating the worst border crisis in American history.”
“Since the Biden-Harris Administration assumed office, there have been more than 8 million illegal aliens encountered entering the country through the southwest border and over 1.6 million ‘getaways,’” Comer’s letter reads. “The mass illegal migration under the Biden-Harris Administration has contributed to murders, sexual assaults, and serious bodily injuries committed against numerous Americans at the hands of illegal aliens.”
Comer asked Miller to turn over any documents and communications from Customs and Border Protection to understand the vice president’s role in the Biden administration’s border policies.
The second House Oversight Committee investigation deals with Walz’s seemingly extensive connections to China. In an Aug. 16 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Comer announced the probe and requested information, documents, and communications from the FBI regarding possible connections to Chinese Communist Party-linked entities.
“Governor Walz has long-standing connections to CCP-connected entities and officials that make him susceptible to the Party’s strategy of elite capture, which seeks to co-opt influential figures in elite political, cultural, and academic circles to influence the United States to the benefit of the communist regime and the detriment of Americans,” Comer’s letter stated. “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.”
As evidence of Walz’s alleged connections to the CCP, Comer said that Walz organized a Chinese government-funded trip to China when he was a teacher at Alliance High School in Nebraska. From 1994 to 2003, Walz coordinated annual trips to China for students using a company he started called Educational Travel Adventures Inc.
Walz himself has been to China an estimated 30 times.
“The [Chinese Community Party] has sought to destroy the United States through coordinated influence and infiltration campaigns that target every aspect of American life, including our own elected officials,” Comer said in a statement:
Americans should be deeply concerned that Governor Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, has a long-standing and cozy relationship with China.
Mr. Walz has visited China dozens of times, served as a fellow at a Chinese institution that maintains a devotion to the CCP, and spoke alongside the president of a Chinese organization the State Department exposed as a CCP effort to influence and co-opt local leaders.
In a statement to The Washington Post, a Walz spokesperson claimed, “Republicans are twisting basic facts and desperately lying to distract from the Trump-Vance agenda: praising dictators and sending American jobs to China.”
Meanwhile, the House Education and Workforce Committee is subpoenaing the Democratic vice presidential nominee for documents relating to an alleged $250 million fraud scheme involving a nonprofit in Minnesota.
The nonprofit in question, Feeding Our Future, was ostensibly an organization meant to provide healthy, nourishing meals to at-risk children during the COVID-19 pandemic—with the help of taxpayer dollars.
Prosecutors accuse Feeding Our Future of defrauding the public of $250 million worth of pandemic funds by creating 50 distribution sites and then submitting falsified rosters of children supposedly receiving meals from the nonprofit. The Justice Department has charged 70 individuals caught up in the scheme—18 of whom have pleaded guilty. Five others have already been convicted.
In a June report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor for the state of Minnesota, the office claimed that the Minnesota Education Department failed to adequately monitor the state and federal funds to reimburse nonprofits such as Feed Our Future and that the Education Department’s “actions and inactions created opportunities for fraud.”
After the June report, Walz claimed at a news conference that there was no “malfeasance” on the state government’s part. “There’s not a single state employee that was implicated in doing anything that was illegal,” the governor added. “They simply didn’t do as much due diligence as they should have.”
Nevertheless, the House Education and Workforce Committee issued subpoenas to Walz, the Minnesota Education Department, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday regarding the alleged fraud. The committee is seeking all documents concerning the apparent failure to oversee Feeding Our Future.
“As the chief executive and the highest-ranking official in the state of Minnesota, you are responsible for the [Minnesota Department of Education] and its administration of [federal child nutrition programs],” Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., wrote in her letter to Walz:
Statements in the press by you and your representatives indicate that you and other executive officers were involved, or had knowledge of, [Minnesota Department of Education’s] administration of the [federal child nutrition programs] and responsibilities and actions regarding the massive fraud.
In early August, House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin seeking more information about Walz’s military service record. Walz has consistently lied about serving in combat, the circumstances of his departure from the National Guard, and the rank he achieved while serving.
“The American people deserve transparency into the military records of service members who serve in public office and especially when they represent such service as credentials for public office,” Banks wrote to Austin. “Misrepresentation and deceit intended to mislead the public about their service erode the integrity of our military and impact all Americans who choose to serve.”
The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is also working to turn up the heat on the Harris-Walz ticket. On Friday, the committee held a hearing in Santee, California, titled “The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: California Perspectives.” The committee featured California politicians, law enforcement officers, and residents who explained how their communities have struggled due to a surge of illegal immigrants.
“We are a major artery of highways utilized by cartels and other bad actors to facilitate the trafficking of narcotics and human smuggling to other major cities and criminal hubs across the state and nation,” Don Sharp, undersheriff of Riverside County, California, told the committee. “The current administration could be complicit in the delivery of a child into the sex-trafficking world.”
While the Judiciary Committee’s hearing Friday was in Harris’ home state, they will also bring the probe back to Washington. A hearing, “The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: Victim Perspectives,” is scheduled for Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, one of the Judiciary subcommittees has a hearing focused on noncitizens voting in elections.
Some House Republicans are skeptical the barrage against Harris and Walz will have the intended effect. “We have an election to win. Don’t make these people martyrs,” one anonymous lawmaker told Axios. Others, such as Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., think the investigations are “fair,” but warned that Republicans need to “handle it professionally.”