Minneapolis, Minnesota, may not be the childcare and Medicaid fraud capital of the country. That dubious honor may actually go to California when all is said and done. Independent investigative journalist Nick Shirley first found a bunch of it in Tim Walz’s state, but then found even more in Gavin Newsom’s state.
Time will tell who the all-time winner will be. But in the meantime, it’s Walz who will first have his you-know-what in a sling over the issue:
Just when Minnesota Democrats thought the fraud issue would go away, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform dropped a bombshell report on Monday detailing how Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison were aware of the rampant fraud and did nothing to stop it.
A significant portion of the report focuses on the Feeding Our Future scandal in which a Minnesota-based nonprofit exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to con the federal government out of millions of dollars. They claimed they were using the money to provide meals for children and others. In reality, they pocketed the cash.
The report revealed that top officials in the Walz administration and Ellison’s office were given clear warnings about fraud in multiple programs as early as 2019 and 2020.
“Senior officials in Governor Walz’s office and Attorney General Ellison’s office were aware of credible, systemic fraud concerns in social services programs as early as 2019 within the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) and by April 2020 within the state Department of Education (MDE), despite later public statements by Governor Walz suggesting otherwise,” the report found.
BREAKING: We just released a BOMBSHELL report exposing how Governor Tim Walz and AG Keith Ellison fueled Minnesota's fraud explosion.
$9 billion in Medicaid lost. $300 million in federal child nutrition funds were placed at serious risk.
Read the report and key takeaways ?? pic.twitter.com/Srh819XTDh
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) June 8, 2026
Walz and Ellison will plead ignorance here. But the fact is, they both had the authority to cut off taxpayer payments to the fraudulent operations. Instead, Walz looked the other way, and Ellison allegedly conspired with some of the fraudsters for campaign cash.
This, despite the red flags being raised in the Feeding Our Future scam.
More:
The report highlights how the Department of Education continued paying Feeding Our Future and other fraudsters out of fear of political repercussions. The social services provider community in the state wields tremendous political influence that could have been leveraged against the Walz administration. Indeed, his team was more concerned about getting ahead of media reports about the fraud than actually addressing the problem.
Providers accused state workers of racism when they tried to check for fraud in child care and other programs. The fear of being called racist prompted officials to look the other way even though they had evidence that the money wasn’t going to its stated purpose.
WATCH:
What’s worse is how the Walz regime treated whistleblowers who were raising red flags. One Minnesota Department of Education official who first contacted the FBI about Feeding Our Future fraudsters told House investigators she was pressured by superiors “at every turn” to stop looking into the issue. She also testified she got her “hand slapped” for refusing to stop investigating, the committee said.
It gets worse:
The report says dozens of staff in the human services department reported being warned not to speak up about the issue or they would be called racist and harm the government’s reputation. Some were yanked into meetings with bosses. Others were excluded from work meetings about the fraud problems they identified. Many said they feared reporting fraud to the Homeland Security Office of Inspector General because the agency would contact the Commissioner or HR, who would retaliate against the workers.
The report says Walz’s team spent money on monitoring employees and hiring outside help to silence critics instead of actually fixing the fraud.
Most of the fraud found in Minneapolis is coming from the city’s large Somali population. In other words, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s people. Some of the stolen taxpayer funds were reportedly sent back to the Motherland.
Walz and Ellison did nothing about it, either. Disgraceful.
Will anything happen to these ne’er-do-wells? Hard to say, but the fraud scandal was enough to convince Walz to drop his reelection bid and vow to swear off politics. So there’s hope. This new House Oversight report will help.
