Catcalling Between Trump and Walz Turns Spotlight on Widespread Fraud in Minnesota Social Services Programs

Catcalling between President Trump and Tim Walz in the past week has turned a spotlight on Minnesota, where dozens of members of the Somali diaspora are being accused of bilking social services of more than $250 million in one of several fraud cases that the governor is being accused of mishandling or ignoring.The U.S. Department of Justice has charged dozens of people in connection with a pandemic-era theft from federal government assistance programs by the nonprofit, Feeding Our Future. At least 56 Somali-Americans or immigrants associated with the program have pleaded guilty. Federal prosecutors have called it a “depraved and brazen” scheme.An additional scam has seen millions of “housing stabilization” program dollars funded by North Star State taxpayers funneled to a Somali terrorist organization operating in Mogadishu, Al-Shabaab, according to the conservative publication City Journal. “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer,” the paper quoted an unnamed source saying.A Sunday night post on an X account that claims to represent nearly 500 staff members of the state’s human services department alleged that Mr. Walz represents “failed governance” and the fraud in the state “exceeds that of much larger states like California, New York, Texas & others.”“We hope that Minnesota will be freed from fraud, good governance is restored and trust in government is rebuilt,” the post reads.Minnesota’s failure to respond to concerns about graft were in part prompted by fears of racism accusations, according to a nonpartisan audit of the state education department’s oversight of Feeding Our Future, which asserted discrimination in questioning of its invoices.However, Mr. Walz has denied that racial concerns investigations, instead crediting “a culture of generosity” for “being a little too trusting.” “I think there’s a tendency to again err on the side of we want to help. We want to get this money out,” Mr. Walz told MPRnews earlier this year. “Anytime you do that, you open up the opportunity for fraud to be there.”The series of fraudulent schemes has taken center stage since Mr. Trump ordered a review of green cards issued to Somali migrants and those from 18 other countries in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard troops near the White House in Washington, D.C. last week. At the time, the president announced that he would “permanently pause” migration from “Third World” countries and claimed that billions of dollars of government funding is missing.The president received stinging pushback from the governor and others. He then replied with criticism of Mr. Walz for the large Somali population in Minnesota, which numbers about 76,000, according to Census estimates, “completely taking over” the state with gangs “roving the streets.”The critique led to a wave of ad hominem attacks between the president and the governor that included back-and-forth insults about one another’s brain function and wellness.In a Thanksgiving message, Mr. Trump criticized the governor’s intellectual capacity, calling him “seriously retarded.”“The President is unwell. Release the MRI results,” Mr. Walz responded in a weekend post on X, referencing Mr. Trump’s previous comment to reporters that he had an MRI during an evaluation at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in October.A reporter on board Air Force One on Sunday evening asked Mr. Trump if he would heed Mr. Walz’s call to make the results public.“Governor Walz? You mean, the incompetent governor? So, if they want to release it, it’s okay with me to release it,” Mr. Trump answered, noting that he doesn’t know which part of the body was scanned by the magnetic resonance imaging machine, which requires patients to submerge themselves inside a large thumping tube to capture 3D images of the body. “What part of the body? It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test and I aced it. I got a perfect mark,” he said.Mr. Trump also re-upped his Thanksgiving remarks about Mr. Walz.“Yeah, I think there’s something wrong with him. Absolutely, sure. Do you have a problem with it? You know what? I think there’s something wrong with him,” Mr. Trump said.

Catcalling Between Trump and Walz Turns Spotlight on Widespread Fraud in Minnesota Social Services Programs

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