Tim Walz, Keith Ellison Face Congressmen on the Rampant Fraud They Encouraged and Enabled

Full hearing here. A bunch of clips are below the fold.

Tim Walz says that Trump is "terrorizing" his state and he believes that Minnesota should to be able to defraud the American taxpayer without consequence.

Here's Politico, whining:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told lawmakers Wednesday that his state has been terrorized by the Trump administration over mass welfare fraud allegations, pointing to the killing of U.S. citizens in the midst of an immigration enforcement surge around Minneapolis.

"Let me be clear: In Minnesota, if you defraud public programs, if you steal taxpayer money, we'll find you, we'll prosecute you, we'll convict you, and we'll throw you in jail," the Democrat said in his opening remarks at a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

But, he added, "the people of Minnesota have been singled out and targeted for political retribution at an unparalleled scale, including blocking Medicaid reimbursements to our state just last week."

Walz, the 2024 nominee for vice president, is fending off accusations from congressional Republicans that he didn't do enough to prevent a scandal that has embroiled his state. Prosecutors have charged more than 90 people with defrauding the government, and two individuals connected to the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future were convicted of stealing federal nutrition funds in March.

The revelations have led the Trump administration to take drastic, punitive measures, such as prompting the Department of Health and Human Services to freeze its child care funding and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to cancel hundreds of millions in Medicaid money.

Walz, alongside Minnesota's Democratic attorney general, Keith Ellison, have been hauled to Capitol Hill to testify before the committee about the scandal -- and also to respond to an interim report committee Republicans released early Wednesday morning alleging that Walz and Ellison "knew about the fraud in federal programs administered by the State of Minnesota much earlier than they told the American people."

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) asked why Walz did not order the stop or suspend welfare program payments, despite warnings of fraud.

"We're not going to stop payments to feed children until we have the proof that things happen," Walz said.

Comer objected: "You didn't stop payments because you didn't want to rock the boat."

In his opening statement, Ellison maintained that his office has pursued fraud convictions aggressively where it has the jurisdiction to do so.

Republicans have homed in on the welfare scandal as an opportunity to disparage the state's Democratic leadership, but it also has fueled anti-immigrant rhetoric within the GOP -- specifically against Minnesota's large Somali community. At one point, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, who is also a member of the Oversight panel, asked Walz whether he knew how many of those indicted have been Somali-American.

"We don't investigate or prosecute people based on ethnicity, religion--," Walz said, before Jordan interrupted him.

"Neither do I, we shouldn't do that," Jordan responded. "85 percent of the people indicted were Somali-American, a key voting bloc, and I think that's what drove this whole thing."

The White House quickly amplified video of the exchange on X.

The House Oversight Committee released a report revealing that Walz knew of the rampant fraud long before it was exposed -- but covered it up to keep the federal money flowing to his Somali Pirate Supporters.

Senior Minnesota government officials, including Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, were aware of claims of widespread fraud in the state's federally funded welfare programs for years, but failed to act other than to retaliate against whistleblowers, the House Oversight Committee concluded in a report released Wednesday.

Both Walz and Ellison are scheduled to testify before the committee on Wednesday at 10:00 AM, the committee previously announced. They are likely to face questions from the committee about fraud schemes estimated to have cost taxpayers as much as $18 billion and that were first reported by Just the News in summer 2024.

Dozens of defendants, many of them Somali immigrants who settled in Minnesota, have been indicted or convicted in a sweeping federal fraud investigation.

Walz and Ellison were aware of fraud

"Testimony obtained by the Committee reveals that Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were aware of widespread fraud in social service programs, lied about their knowledge of the fraud, and retaliated against employees who dared to raise concerns," Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said in a statement.

"Instead of protecting vulnerable Americans, they handed over billions in taxpayer dollars to fraudsters and threw their own state employees under the bus," Comer added.

...

The new video evidence allegedly showing empty daycare facilities registered to serve hundreds of children aligned with warnings from the state's legislative auditor dating back to 2018 that there were persistent signs of fraud in the program, Just the News reported.

The investigation also centered on a Minneapolis fraud ring connected to the state's Somali immigrant community that exploited the state's federally-funded food program. The Department of Justice first charged 47 people in 2021 as part of a $250 million scheme involving the nonprofit Feeding Our Future that prosecutors alleged diverted federal COVID-19 relief funds for personal gain.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who served during the Biden administration, called it the largest pandemic-era fraud scheme ever identified.

Testimony from nine state officials

Walz, who was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2024, previously acknowledged there is fraud in his state, but said his administration has made it a priority to root out for years.

However, the Oversight Committee believes the evidence shows the opposite, that Walz and his senior officials knew about the fraud concerns from the very beginning of his tenure and ultimately failed to act to address it before facing public backlash and pressure from the federal government in recent months.

...

Though Walz originally said that he was informed about suspicious activity related to Feeding Our Future in November 2020, but he could not recall the precise date, one MDE official told the Oversight Committee that the Minnesota government had received complaints about the program as early as 2018.

MDE Assistant Commissioner Daron Korte, whose agency oversaw the money funneled to the Feeding Our Future food program from federal pandemic-era relief funds, confirmed that such complaints were received between 2018 and 2021.

He testified that Gov. Walz's office would have been informed of the concerns by April 2020 and that Attorney General Keith Ellison's office would have received a notice also.

When threatened with a lawsuit, Minnesota officials resumed funding

Once MDE found in March 2021 that Feeding Our Future was in "serious deficiency," the agency moved to cut off all funding to the organization. However, despite officials acknowledging the agency's authority to unilaterally cut funds, it resumed payments by April 30, 2021 over fears that the nonprofit would sue, Korte told congressional investigators.

"[We] could unilaterally make that decision, but we just knew, with Feeding our Future, it was going to end up in court and had the potential to be overturned," Korte testified.

Feeding Our Future's founder and executive director Aimee Bock -- who was eventually charged and convicted as part of the million dollar fraud scheme -- threatened MDE with a lawsuit in April 2021 claiming racial discrimination if funding was terminated. The nonprofit formally filed the lawsuit in November that year alleging violations of state law.

Minnesota official approved more food program sites after fraud concerns

Because of the threat of the lawsuit, MDE approved an additional four sites administered by Feeding Our Future even after fraud concerns had been raised by the agency. Korte said the agency did this because the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused to provide a justification under federal law for the state to cut off the funds.

Read the whole thing.

Tim Walz is doing his typical Blustering Homosexual Retard act, claiming simultaneously that he knows nothing about any of this but also that he knows enough that he can guarantee that everyone in his government acted perfectly.

Tim Walz can name every illegal arrested by ICE, but says he has no idea who two of his constituents murdered by illegal aliens are.

Jack @jackunheard

3h

Tim Walz might have just landed himself in prison.

He just got exposed for RESTARTING taxpayer payments to Somali fraudsters tied to 'Feeding Our Future'

This is so damning...

Jim Jordan: "Why didn't you tell the truth about why you restarted the payments?"

WALZ: "The agency believed the court required them to make those payments."

JORDAN: "That was false. The court says the judge never ordered you to resume Feeding Our Future payments. So the court's lying?!"

WALZ: "I can't tell you!"

JORDAN: "Somebody's lying! Either you're lying or the court's lying. Which one?"

WALZ: "I just know what the attorneys said."

JORDAN: "Are you hiding behind the court? Is this about politics?!"

Insane @Jim_Jordan

This is just an unwarranted insult except it's totally warranted.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:24 PM

| Access Comments