Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison sat before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week, facing demands for their resignations, warnings of potential impeachment, and accusations that they knew about massive welfare fraud for years.
The hearing took place after an initial committee report, titled “The Cost of Doing Nothing: How Tim Walz and Keith Ellison Fueled Minnesota’s Fraud Explosion,” was published. The report states that both men were aware of widespread fraud in federally funded social programs as early as 2019 and repeatedly failed to stop the scams.
A press release from the committee reads as follows:
“By failing to act, Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison allowed billions of taxpayer dollars to be stolen by fraudsters…As a result of these failures, an estimated $300 million in federal child nutrition funds and potentially $9 billion in Medicaid-related funds were lost or placed at significant risk.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) confronted Walz during the hearing over why Minnesota resumed payments to Feeding Our Future in 2021 – the fraud nonprofit scheme which sits at the center of what prosecutors call the largest COVID-era fraud scheme in the country, involving nearly $300 million stolen from those previously mentioned child nutrition programs.
Walz has long claimed that a court order required payments to the fraud nonprofit to resume after they were initially paused. However, Jordan cited a 2022 statement from the presiding judge that directly contradicted that claim.
“Either you’re lying, or the court’s lying,” Jordan said, as reported on by The Dallas Express.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) didn’t mince words, saying to Walz, “You did not do your job, you did not protect taxpayer dollars. You allowed massive fraud. You and Mr. Ellison allowed massive fraud to go on in the state of Minnesota.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) pressed Walz specifically on autism service expenses in Minnesota that ballooned from roughly $24 million in 2019 to over $340 million by 2024. When Walz couldn’t produce any specific numbers or clarify the reason for the spending balloon, Mace called him out for essentially pretending to be prepared and still showing up to the meeting with no answers about the widespread fraud.
“It’s unbelievable,” Mace said, adding, “Thank God you’re not vice president of the United States.”
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) challenged Ellison to confirm whether or not he was personally leading the criminal fraud investigations – and, once again, got no direct answer. Higgins would also call for Ellison’s resignation.
At the hearing’s close, Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) invoked Minnesota’s own constitution to suggest that Walz could also be impeached for “malfeasance.”
The Dallas Express has previously reported that more than 480 Minnesota Department of Human Services employees publicly accused Walz of ignoring fraud warnings and retaliating against staff who raised concerns, saying he was “100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota.”
The Dallas Express has also covered allegations of voter fraud tied to Minnesota’s Somali community in Ilhan Omar’s congressional district, a thread Republicans pulled hard on Wednesday. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said after the hearing that if Walz and Ellison lied to the committee about when they learned of the FBI’s fraud investigation, “that is a criminal act of its own” – and that if a cover-up tied to the Somali political base is proven, “they should serve jail time.”
Walz barely acknowledged any fault during the long hearing, vaguely saying, “Do I wish there were things that could have happened earlier? Yes.”
Ellison called for moving past “fixing the blame” to “fixing the problem.”
The committee is now considering calling both men back for a deposition under oath.