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Washington — The Home Oversight and Authorities Reform Committee will maintain a listening to subsequent week on alleged fraud in Minnesota public help applications, Chairman James Comer, introduced Wednesday.
The listening to is about to happen Jan. 7 and can embody testimony from Minnesota GOP state lawmakers who’ve investigated public help fraud, Comer stated. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Lawyer Common Keith Ellison, each Democrats, have additionally been requested to testify at a second listening to on Feb. 10, Comer, a Kentucky Republican, stated.
“The U.S. Division of Justice is actively investigating, prosecuting, and charging fraudsters who’ve stolen billions from taxpayers, and Congress has an obligation to conduct rigorous oversight of this heist and enact stronger safeguards to forestall fraud in taxpayer-funded applications, in addition to sturdy sanctions to carry offenders accountable,” Comer stated in a press release.
The Home Oversight Committee is investigating allegations of cash laundering and fraud in Minnesota’s public help applications. Comer earlier this month requested Walz and Ellison to show over to Home investigators paperwork and communications concerning the state’s applications and has sought transcribed interviews with state officers.
“Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Lawyer Common Keith Ellison have both been asleep on the wheel or complicit in an enormous fraud involving taxpayer {dollars} in Minnesota’s social companies applications,” Comer stated. “American taxpayers demand and deserve accountability for the theft of their hard-earned cash.”
Greater than 90 folks face federal costs because of what a high prosecutor in Minnesota stated was “industrial-scale fraud.” The prosecutor, Joe Thompson, stated earlier this month that the whole quantity of fraud in Minnesota might attain $9 billion billed throughout 14 Medicaid applications that have been deemed “excessive threat” for fraud. Walz and different state officers, nonetheless, have questioned that quantity.
The scandal started when the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which relies in Minnesota, was accused of stealing from the Federal Youngster Vitamin Program by falsely claiming to distribute meals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Greater than 75 folks have been charged within the COVID-era fraud scheme, and a minimum of 56 have pleaded responsible.
Since then, federal prosecutors have uncovered alleged fraud schemes involving a now-defunct housing stabilization program in Minnesota and a Medicaid-backed state program that gives companies to kids with autism. Homeland Safety brokers are additionally conducting investigations into baby care facilities within the state after a conservative YouTuber named Nick Shirley posted a video on-line over the weekend alleging that just about a dozen facilities that obtain public {dollars} will not be offering any companies.
A CBS Information evaluation of the day care facilities talked about by Shirley discovered that each one however two have lively licenses, in accordance with state data, and state regulators visited the lively places inside the final six months. Whereas the facilities have been cited for security, cleanliness and different points, there was no recorded proof of fraud.
Nonetheless, in response to the allegations, the Division of Well being and Human Providers introduced Tuesday that it has frozen federal baby care funds for Minnesota.
President Trump has denounced Minnesota leaders for his or her dealing with of the applications and attacked Somali immigrants, claiming they’ve “ripped off” the state. Many, however not all, of the defendants charged within the fraud schemes are of Somali descent.
In response to the Trump administration’s resolution to withhold child-care funding to Minnesota, Walz accused the president of “politicizing the problem to defund applications that assist Minnesotans.”
“That is Trump’s lengthy recreation,” he wrote on social media. “We have spent years cracking down on fraudsters. It is a severe challenge — however this has been his plan all alongside.”
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