The House Oversight Committee has handed the Justice Department a report concluding that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison knew about widespread fraud in federally funded welfare programs for years and chose to do nothing. Committee Chairman James Comer isn't calling it a crime yet. But he's leaving the door open.
The fraud scheme centered on Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit that funneled roughly $250 million in federal pandemic relief funds meant to feed children into what became the largest pandemic-era fraud scheme ever identified. Federal prosecutors ultimately charged more than 75 defendants. The question before the Oversight Committee wasn't whether the fraud happened. It was whether Minnesota's top officials looked the other way while it did.
The committee's answer is yes.
Nine current and former Minnesota state officials testified to the committee. According to that testimony, Walz's office and Ellison's office were both aware of concerns about Feeding Our Future by April 2020. Walz himself acknowledged being informed about suspicious activity related to the organization by November 2020.
The warnings didn't start there. Minnesota's legislative auditor had already flagged persistent signs of fraud in a childcare benefits program back in 2018. The state had years of runway to act. It didn't.
Instead, when the Minnesota Department of Education temporarily cut off payments to Feeding Our Future, founder Aimee Bock threatened the state with a racial discrimination lawsuit in April 2021. Payments resumed on April 30, 2021. Bock was later charged and convicted in connection with the scheme.
The committee also presented video evidence showing daycare facilities registered to serve hundreds of children operating essentially empty. The fraud wasn't subtle. It was industrial.
According to Just the News, at the hearing, Walz defended the decision to resume payments by claiming the Minnesota Department of Education believed a court had ordered it to do so. Rep. Jim Jordan pressed him directly on the claim.
So either you're lying or the court's lying. And I'm just asking you which one is it?
Walz's response: "The agency believed that the court had required them to make those payments."
The problem is that a court-authorized news release states plainly that the judge in question "never issued an order requiring the MN Department of Education to resume food reimbursement payments to FOF." That's not a matter of interpretation. That's a direct contradiction of the governor's account.
Walz separately told media in September 2022 that a judge had ordered the state to restore funding. The court record says otherwise.
Walz arrived at the hearing ready to frame the entire investigation as a political hit job.
I have watched with dismay as members of this Committee have made unfounded allegations that I am somehow complicit in defrauding Minnesota programs.
He went further, invoking his own congressional service to add credibility to the dismissal:
As a former member of Congress, I know that this institution can be better than these evidence-free accusations levied for nakedly partisan reasons.
"Evidence-free" is a curious defense when the evidence includes your own acknowledgment that you were informed about suspicious activity in November 2020, a legislative auditor who raised alarms in 2018, nine state officials who testified to the committee, and a court record that contradicts your public explanation for resuming payments to a fraudulent organization.
The accusations aren't evidence-free. The timeline is the evidence.
Comer offered a blunt explanation for why state officials stayed quiet. Whistleblowers approached the committee specifically because they were frustrated that Walz and Ellison refused to act, and Comer says he knows why.
[T]hey came forward because they were appalled that Walz and Ellison would not do anything about the fraud, and they knew it was because of political reasons, 100% political. They didn't want to offend the Somali population, which was a massive voting block for the Democrat Party.
That is a serious allegation. It is also, given the timeline of inaction, a coherent one. A Democratic administration in a major blue state, sitting on fraud warnings for years, flinching when a discrimination lawsuit threat arrives, and then resuming payments to an organization later convicted of running a quarter-billion-dollar scheme. Political calculus doesn't make it less damaging. It makes it worse.
Comer has been measured about what comes next. The report is now in DOJ's hands. Criminal referrals depend on what follows.
We've given [the Justice Department] the report today that shows Walz and them knew. I don't know that it's a crime. Incompetence isn't a crime, unfortunately…but at the end of the day, if some of these fraudsters implicate a coordination with Attorney General Ellison or Governor Walz, then I think that you could see some referrals from the committee.
The word "coordination" is doing significant work in that sentence. Failing to act is a political failure. Coordinating with fraudsters is a criminal one. The committee isn't asserting the latter yet, but it's watching to see whether convicted defendants start talking.
For now, the established facts are damning enough on their own. Federal money meant to feed children was used to fund a $250 million fraud. The state's top officials were warned years in advance. They didn't act. And when pressed under oath on why payments resumed to the organization at the center of it all, the governor cited a court order that the court says never existed.
Tim Walz nearly became vice president of the United States. Minnesota taxpayers, and American ones, deserve to know exactly what he knew and when he decided it wasn't worth acting on.
