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Minnesotans are finally waking up to a scandal that should have been stopped years ago, and yet Governor Tim Walz keeps ducking real accountability while his administration scrambles to manage the fallout. More than 400 employees inside the Department of Human Services publicly accused the governor of ignoring early fraud warnings and retaliating against whistleblowers who tried to raise alarms about systemic theft.
Federal prosecutors continue to dismantle one of the largest COVID-era fraud operations in the country, with the 78th defendant recently charged in the Feeding Our Future scheme after allegedly billing for millions of fake meals and laundering proceeds. The Justice Department’s indictments show how easily taxpayer dollars were siphoned off through sham nonprofits and fake rosters, and Americans have every right to be furious that this was allowed to happen on Walz’s watch.
The catastrophe didn’t stop there — Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services program exploded in cost and was ultimately scrapped after hundreds of providers were cut off amid credible fraud allegations. Investigators and prosecutors have said the program, built with “low barriers to entry,” ballooned into what federal lawyers call a largely fraudulent operation that drained state and federal coffers instead of helping the vulnerable.
Worse still, investigative reporting suggests some of the stolen cash didn’t just disappear into luxury purchases but flowed through informal hawala networks back to Somalia, where it may have ended up supporting the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabaab terror group. These are serious, disturbing allegations that demand a full federal probe — not platitudes from a governor trying to deflect blame.
When pressed publicly, Walz offered a half-measure of responsibility — saying he’s responsible for putting people in jail while simultaneously warning against “demonizing” an entire community for crimes a number of its members are accused of committing. That answer is hollow to the taxpayers who write the checks and to the state workers who say they were silenced when they tried to stop the bleeding.
This is the predictable result of soft-on-fraud policies and an administration that prioritized identity politics over basic accountability. When leadership excuses failure and punishes truth-tellers, crooks treat the system like an ATM and extreme groups may profit from the chaos. Minnesotans deserve leaders who protect the public, not leaders who shield malfeasance to avoid uncomfortable conversations.
The remedy is simple and nonpartisan: full, transparent investigations; prosecutions up the chain where culpability exists; immediate audits of remaining assistance programs; and an overhaul of the rules that let this happen in the first place. If Walz and his appointees can’t or won’t clean this up, then voters must use every tool — from recall to the ballot box in 2026 — to restore integrity to state government.
Enough with the excuses. Hardworking Minnesotans are entitled to a government that defends taxpayers and secures our communities, not one that lets fraudsters siphon off billions while pretending everything is under control. The question now is whether the political class will finally choose accountability over comfort, or whether they’ll keep protecting a system that’s failing our people and, possibly, funding our enemies.
