By SCOTT BAUER
Minnesota’s governor and legal professional normal on Wednesday defended their efforts to fight fraud and instructed a U.S. Home committee that their efforts have been hampered by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown within the state.
Republicans on the Home Oversight Committee accused Gov. Tim Walz and Legal professional Basic Keith Ellison of stalling to battle fraud in authorities applications, saying they put politics forward of rooting out abuse as an alternative of pausing funds.
“You haven’t been good stewards of the taxpayer {dollars},” mentioned Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the committee. “And the Democratic place is preserve the cash flowing. The American taxpayers have had sufficient.”
Walz mentioned he needed to work with the federal authorities to assist with fraud investigations, however the immigration surge was making that tougher.
“The folks of Minnesota have been singled out and focused for political retribution at an unparalleled scale,” Walz mentioned. “We’re going to prosecute, as we have now, each single person who’s concerned in fraud, however we are able to’t do it alone.”
Walz and Ellison defended their efforts on fraud, whereas additionally making an attempt to show the main target of the listening to to the surge of three,000 federal brokers in Minnesota that started in December. The Trump administration cited fraud as one justification for its enforcement motion. Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem testified Tuesday that about 650 investigators stay in Minnesota as a part of a broader fraud probe.
“Operation Metro Surge did nothing to handle fraud in our state,” Ellison mentioned. “It harmed our financial system and it scarred our folks and it dealt a devastating blow to fraud enforcement in Minnesota.”
Ellison famous the sequence of resignation of attorneys within the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace in Minnesota, leaving those that stay “drowning in immigration-related petitions” as an alternative of prosecuting fraud. On Tuesday, the U.S. legal professional for Minnesota appeared earlier than a decide for a contempt listening to associated to Immigration and Customs Enforcement not returning private property of detainees.
Ellison mentioned his workplace has “punched above our weight” in profitable 300 Medicaid fraud convictions and recovering greater than $80 million for taxpayers.
Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana referred to as on Ellison to resign, accusing him of not main investigations into prison fraud exercise.
Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., speaks throughout a Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform listening to on oversight of fraud and misuse of Federal funds in Minnesota, Wed., March 4, 2026, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Picture/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
1 of 4
Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., speaks throughout a Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform listening to on oversight of fraud and misuse of Federal funds in Minnesota, Wed., March 4, 2026, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Picture/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Final week, Vice President JD Vance mentioned the Trump administration would “briefly halt” $243 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota over fraud issues, as a part of what he described as an aggressive crackdown on misuse of public funds. Minnesota sued on Monday to cease the cash from being withheld, warning it could have to chop well being take care of low-income households if the cash is held again.
Comer on Wednesday accused Walz of not stopping Medicaid funds regardless of data of fraud as a result of he “didn’t need to rock the boat.”
Comer and different Republicans accused Walz of mendacity about when he first discovered about fraud in a $250 million scheme generally known as Feeding Our Future and stalling to behave with a view to shield the Somali American neighborhood. Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio requested Walz if he know what number of of those that had been indicted had been Somali Individuals.
“Their ethnicity just isn’t my concern,” Walz mentioned.
Somali Individuals make up 82 of the 92 defendants charged to date within the Feeding our Future case, in line with the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for Minnesota.
Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California, as a part of the hassle to focus the listening to on the immigration crackdown, held up photographs of youngsters detained by federal officers and an image of the blood-stained automobile seat of Renee Good who was killed by an officer. Federal officers additionally killed one other Minnesota resident, Alex Pretti, who had been filming enforcement operations.
“This violence doesn’t make us safer,” Garcia mentioned. “It doesn’t deal with fraud, waste and abuse.”
