Report: Walz Helped Secure Millions in Funding for Minnesota Researchers With Ties to Wuhan, China Lab

If you've been wondering about Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's many voyages to the Middle Kingdom, you're not alone. It's a bit of a curiosity, an American politician who is so cozy with China, a Communist country under the single-handed control of Chairman Xi, and a nation that's not exactly friendly to the United States. It's a bit like the daffy old Bolshevik from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, honeymooning in the Soviet Union - only Tim Walz went back to China, again and again. It's enough to provoke questions.

On Wednesday that curiosity was rewarded, although the Harris/Walz campaign may not be too happy about it. It turns out that Tim Walz may well have provided indirect support for the Wuhan Institute of Virology - yes, that Wuhan Institute of Virology:

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz is coming under fire for supporting a U.S. research institute with connections to China.
The University of Minnesota's Hormel Institute has published research and worked with scientists from China's infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the same lab the FBI concluded was likely the birthplace of COVID.
The WIV was also host to numerous experiments by the Chinese military's People's Liberation Army (PLA), including some grisly ones on animals.
And Walz, who has spoken highly of China and has taken dozens of trips there including his honeymoon, has worked to secure at least $7 million in funding for Hormel Institute.

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So, we have an American politician working to obtain funding for an American organization, the Hormel Institute, which supports and works with a Chinese virology lab that has a history of conducting ethically questionable experiments, and which is very likely the origin of the COVID-19 virus. Now that American politician is a candidate for the second-highest elected position in the land; a heartbeat away from being commander-in-chief of all the armed forces.

Curioser and curioser.

These ties are now drawing attention from at least one U.S. senator, according to a letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Mail

Now, a worried Republican is demanding the Institute, which 'reflects a troubling disregard for national security concerns' turnover information regarding Walz's 'steadfast' support.
'I write to you today with growing concern regarding the Hormel Institute’s longstanding partnership with China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV),' Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wrote in a letter to the research group's leader David Clarke exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com.
'It is critical to understand the full extent of your institute’s involvement in a partnership that risks benefitting our nation’s chief geopolitical adversary,' the letter adds.

I'll say it's critical. Tim Walz, in addition to being a lousy debater, as we saw on Tuesday, has some pretty questionable ties to Chinese interests, and this has to be one of the most questionable of all. The Hormel Institute and Tim Walz owe the American people some answers, and soon, because the Chinese Communist Party sure isn't going to talk about this, not with Senator Cruz or anyone else.

The COVID debacle, of course, set the United States (and the world) back two years, economically. It destroyed businesses, it probably cost trillions in lost revenues for private and public organizations alike; it cost kids valuable in-class educations and resulted in millions of Americans (justifiably) having their trust in the national healthcare apparatus permanently damaged. And now we are learning that a candidate for vice-president, one who demonstrated in Tuesday night's vice-presidential debate, that he can't even seem to remember for sure when he was actually in China, much less explain precisely what the appeal is that drew him to repeatedly visit that Communist nation?

What other Chinese institutions is Walz connected to, in one way or another? What was his motivation for raising money (indirectly, perhaps, but even so) for China's Wuhan Institute of Virology? These are questions that damn well ought to be answered before Election Day.

Later on Wednesday, Governor Walz attempted more damage control (see link below):

Walz was pressed on the Tiananmen Square story again on Wednesday while traveling for his campaign.
'I had my dates wrong. I was in Hong Kong and China in 1989,' he told reporters.
'I need to be clearer,' he continued, adding 'I understand China helluva better than Trump.'

Indeed. That's what we're worried about.