A House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report released Monday paints a devastating picture of both Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison, finding that they both knew about widespread fraud in state social services programs and failed to act.
The report centers on the Feeding Our Future scandal, in which a Minnesota-based nonprofit systematically exploited federal COVID-19 relief funds intended to provide meals to children.
So far, more than 60 people have already been found guilty of fraud in connection with the scheme, the majority of whom are of Somali descent. Some defendants used stolen taxpayer money to buy luxury goods, while others funneled proceeds to a radical Islamic terrorist group operating in Somalia. At least $300 million in federal child nutrition funds were placed at serious risk, and approximately $9 billion in Medicaid losses resulted from the broader fraud environment state officials allowed to fester.
“Fraud warnings were elevated to the most senior levels of the Minnesota state government, meaningful corrective action was delayed or avoided, and payments continued long after credible signs of fraud emerged,” the report states.
Senior officials in Walz’s office and Ellison’s office knew about systemic fraud concerns as early as 2019 within the Minnesota Department of Human Services and, by April 2020, within the state Department of Education, the report says, directly contradicting Walz’s and Ellison’s public statements.
This matters because both men held legal authority to cut off payments to fraudulent operators. Neither exercised it, even though Walz was aware of the suspected fraud in Feeding Our Future by 2020, and the payments continued.