Citing whistleblowers’ allegations that Minnesota officials covered up or ignored massive welfare fraud, a powerful congressional committee is investigating—and demanding responses from the state’s governor and attorney general.
Records sought include “all documents and communications” starting from January 2019 regarding various people, businesses, government programs, and nonprofit organizations.
Those include Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit at the core of a meals-for-needy-kids scam case in which 78 people have been charged in recent years; the state’s Housing Stability Services program intended to prevent homelessness; and a business called Smart Therapy that claimed to be providing care for autistic children.
Neither Walz nor Ellison responded to The Epoch Times’ request for comment on Dec. 5. House Democrats have issued no statements about the Republicans’ investigation.
In addition, Comer’s committee wants Walz to provide all Minnesota Department of Commerce records, dating to January 2014, “related to any complaints and/or occurrences of remittance payments to Somalia sourced from fraudulent activity.”
The committee seeks similar records from Ellison, along with an additional category of documents: Medicaid-fraud-control data submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services, including information on investigation outcomes and Medicaid expenditures.
Comer said concerns over officials’ responses to reports of fraud arise from insiders at the state welfare department as well as from official sources.
In addition, a former Minnesota Attorney General’s Office fraud investigator “said that state regulators, especially those in the Democrat-led administration, were ‘reluctant’ to take action in response to allegations involving the Somali community,” Comer’s letter to Walz said.
Comer also cited a June 2024 Minnesota Department of Education report, which “found that a threat of litigation and negative press from providers engaged in these fraud schemes ‘affected how state officials used their regulatory power.’”
The Treasury Department began investigating whether portions of the welfare stolen funds ended up in hands of the Somali terror network al-Shabab, when Minnesota Somalis transferred money to relatives and friends in their native land.
Questions About Motives
Ellison, in a Dec. 4 interview with CNN, defended his handling of the fraud that has emerged in his state.
Minnesota’s Education Department turned down “questionable claims” in the meals program, but “a judge actually found the department in contempt for denying claims,” Ellison said.
State officials fully cooperated with the FBI in the fraudulent-meals investigation, he said, adding that his office “convicted over 300 people in the last few years for Medicaid fraud.”
Ellison called upon other leaders to cooperate in such efforts instead of “using this tragic situation as a political weapon to gain advantage.”
“I am telling you, as an attorney general: Yeah, fraud happens,” Ellison said. “We should prosecute it. Hold people accountable for their individual conduct, not for their ethnicity. … And we’re doing that. We’ll do more.”
