Seems like the kind of thing Democrats should have known about Walz in 2024.
The New York Times headline was probably the worst for former Democratic Party presidential nominee and current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: “How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch,” Ernesto Londono reported for the NYT over the weekend.
“Prosecutors say members of the Somali diaspora, a group with growing political power, were largely responsible,” Londono revealed and then, because all roads always lead back to Trump (somehow): “President Trump has drawn national attention to the scandal amid his crackdown on immigration.”
Trump’s fault for drawing national attention to the scandal, then, obviously. Of course. Hopefully, President Trump will next talk about the untold billions lost to pandemic relief fraud or, better still, the untold billions lost to Medicare and Medicaid fraud every single year. Perhaps then the media might be forced to report on the subject, if only to perform untold feats of ethical contortion to blame Donald Trump (somehow).
Thieves, fraudsters, and criminal organizations at home and abroad are so good at stealing from government social welfare programs, they call Medicaid the “bank without a lock.”
Without adequate safeguards and proper fraud prevention, criminals are free to help themselves to American taxpayer dollars at leisure.
And do they ever.
In Minnesota, under Governor Tim Walz, a gang of thieves has been helping themselves to taxpayer largesse to such a degree that the New York Times was forced to report on a subject that might be embarrassing to prominent Democrats.
The New York Times report couldn’t be any worse for Tim Walz:
“The fraud scandal that rattled Minnesota was staggering in its scale and brazenness.
Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program meant to keep children fed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
At first, many in the state saw the case as a one-off abuse during a health emergency. But as new schemes targeting the state’s generous safety net programs came to light, state and federal officials began to grapple with a jarring reality.
Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.
Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating. That is more than Minnesota spends annually to run its Department of Corrections. Minnesota’s fraud scandal stood out even in the context of rampant theft during the pandemic, when Americans stole tens of billions through unemployment benefits, business loans and other forms of aid, according to federal auditors.” — Ernesto Londono. The New York Times
In Minnesota, tempers are running hot over the revelations and Gov. Walz is undoubtably feeling the heat, especially over accusations that his administration retaliated against whistleblowers who attempted to alert authorities to the fraud much earlier.
“Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota,” claimed a group of Minnesota Department of Health and Human Services employees in a social media post that has since been deleted. “We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response.”
“Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,” they claimed. “Instead of partnership, we got the full weight of retaliation by Tim Walz, certain DFL members and an indifferent mainstream media. It’s scary, isolating and left us wondering who we can turn to.”
“In addition to retaliating against whistleblower, Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance,” they further alleged. “Media and politicians supporting Tim Walz or the DFL-agenda attacked whistleblowers who were trying to raise red flags on fraudulent activities.”
The episode has become another flashpoint in the ongoing culture war between conservatives and progressives.
Is it racist to suspect that a deadly virus escaped from a research laboratory at the pandemic epicenter in China?
Well, what if it did?
Is it racist to accuse gangs of Somali immigrants of defrauding Minnesota out of billions of dollars?
Well, what if they did?
“‘There is a perception that forcefully tackling this issue might cause political backlash among the Somali community, which is a core voting bloc” for Democrats, said Mr. Magan, who is among the few prominent figures in the Somali community to speak about the fraud.
As a trial in the meals fraud case was coming to a close last summer, an attempt to bribe a juror included an explicit insinuation about racism, prosecutors said. Several defendants in the trial were found to have arranged to send a bag containing $120,000 to a juror along with a note that read, ‘Why, why, why is it always people of color and immigrants prosecuted for the fault of other people?’
Mr. Thompson, a career prosecutor who served as interim U.S. attorney for several months this year, and who declined to discuss his own political preferences, said he believed that race sensitivities had played a major role in the rise of fraud. As pandemic assistance was disbursed, the state was also reeling from the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, he said.
‘This was a huge part of the problem,’ Mr. Thompson said during an interview in the summer. ‘Allegations of racism can be a reputation or career killer.’” — Ernesto Londono. The New York Times
“It’s Not ‘Racist’ to Notice Somali Fraud,” insisted Christopher Rufo for Substack on November 28, 2025.
“Last week, my colleague Ryan Thorpe and I broke a story about widespread fraud committed by Somalis in Minnesota,” Rufo began. “Members of the state’s Somali community allegedly participated in complex schemes related to autism services, food programs, and housing, which prosecutors estimate have stolen billions of taxpayer dollars. Even worse, some of the cash has ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization in Somalia.”
“Progressives have suggested that our reporting and the subsequent policy change were ‘racist,’” Rufo explained. “While many of those indicted in these schemes are Somali, these critics argue, the federal government should not hold Minnesota’s Somali community corporately responsible for the actions of individuals.”
“This criticism is superficially appealing, but it isn’t persuasive on closer inspection,” he went on. “First, a description of the facts should not be measured as ‘racist or not racist,’ but rather as ‘true or not true.’”
“And in this case, the truth is that numerous members of a relatively small community participated in a scheme that stole billions in funds,” he wrote. “This is a legitimate consideration for American immigration policy, which is organized around nation of origin and, for more than 30 years, has favorably treated Somalis relative to other groups. It is more than fair to ask whether that policy has served the national interest. The fraud story suggests that the answer is ‘no.’”
But while conservatives continue to pounce, and Gov. Tim Walz continues to disavow all responsibility for this scandalous waste of taxpayer dollars, it is to be hoped that better security might be part of the solution.
Banks, corporations, and even tiny small businesses manage to buy, sell, trade, fund, defund, and move money all around the world every single minute of every single day without losing a billion dollars over it.
If Minnesota’s current leadership can’t do the same, Minnesotans should consider better leadership.
(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)