OPINION:
It seems the chaos in Minnesota is as much about drawing attention away from corruption scandals as it is about opposition to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Even though the radicals sacrificed Gov. Tim Walz and his reelection bid, we cannot back down from connecting the dots and ending the fraud in my neighboring state and across the country.
The allegations include up to $9 billion in fraud involving Minnesota’s Medicaid programs. This information was laid out by the Justice Department. Soon afterward, according to CBS Minnesota, Mr. Walz went after U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson, saying, “You saw a U.S. attorney stand up, which has been released, would have been let go by any other administration, speculating about things with no factual information. That’s defamation, and that’s coming from the U.S. attorney. We are under assault.”
When The New York Times reported that Mr. Thompson was one of six lawyers to have reportedly resigned in response to the investigative approach taken by the U.S. Justice Department into the shooting of anti-ICE activist Renee Good, Mr. Walz praised him on X: “Joe is a principled public servant who spent more than a decade achieving justice for Minnesotans. This is a huge loss for our state. It’s also the latest sign Trump is pushing nonpartisan career professionals out of the justice department, replacing them with his sycophants.”
A week earlier, the governor seemed to want Mr. Thompson fired. Now he is singing the man’s praises. These guys will say anything, particularly if it draws attention away from their billion-dollar fraud schemes.
The ongoing scandal involves massive fraud in the administration of several federal programs in Minnesota. The information laid out against people involved with Feeding Our Future suggests that millions of dollars were taken from the programs through things such as fake meal claims. So far, there have been plenty of federal charges and a significant number of convictions.
On top of all that, new charges of fraud have appeared with child care programs. It seems that the Land of 10,000 Lakes may be the Land of 10,000 Empty Child Care Centers, with reports and videos showing few, if any, children at many of these places.
The allegations, charges and arrests related to fraud are bad, but they aren’t enough to force a two-term governor and former vice presidential candidate to drop out of the race. What appears to be the driving factor is information showing that Mr. Walz and his team did more than just ignore reports of fraud; they tried to cover them up.
A post on the Minnesota Department of Human Services Employees account on X reads, “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. In addition to retaliating against whistleblower, Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance.”
The account says it represents 480 current staff members at the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
Mr. Walz has been quick to blame the former U.S. attorney (until he praised him when he left), legislative Republicans and conservative media outlets. To date, he has been unable to take any of the blame himself. Why drop out of the race if you’re innocent? It doesn’t add up.
Liberals are notorious for overlooking bad deeds. Look at the statements of the candidate running for attorney general in Virginia. He had sent text messages about shooting the former Republican speaker, but Democrats never dropped their support for him. Because of massive Trump derangement syndrome in Northern Virginia, that candidate won.
Democrats don’t turn on their own — until they cannot win. President Biden is a classic example. For years, Democrats claimed that the 46th president was capable of doing his job. They supported his plans for reelection until the entire nation saw on the debate stage that the guy wasn’t even fit to hold office, let alone run for it. From then on, radicals couldn’t move fast enough to throw Mr. Biden off the ship.
Clearly, internal polls must have shown that Mr. Walz was in trouble with the voters. It’s my belief that he received significant blowback from politicians such as U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar. I can just see their logic now: Get Tim Walz out of the race and turn the attention of the media to wild protests over ICE in Minnesota.
Instead of calling for calm and independent investigations, liberal politicians are stoking the fires of dissent and circulating conspiracy theories. We saw it years ago in Kenosha, Portland and other cities across America.
It’s incumbent on us to keep attention on every bit of detail surrounding the fraud in Minnesota. Charges must be filed, followed by convictions and sentences. It’s time to get waste, fraud and abuse out of the government.
• Scott Walker is a columnist for The Washington Times. He was the 45th governor of Wisconsin and launched a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He lives in Milwaukee and is the proud owner of a 2003 Harley-Davidson Road King. He can be reached at swalker@washingtontimes.com.
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