The fall of Tim Walz

OPINION:

Gov. Tim Walz won’t be seeking a third term. His surprise announcement Monday was the first acknowledgment from a senior Minnesota Democrat that the reporting about organized welfare fraud in the state’s Somali community was on target. It also suggests there’s more to the story.

Independent journalist Nick Shirley raised a ruckus with his video that showed several Somali-run day care centers empty during operating hours. He took the lack of children as a sign that these outfits, drawing millions of dollars per year in taxpayer subsidies, might not be on the up and up.

Mr. Walz wilted under the spotlight. He had every intention of staying in office and had kicked off his reelection campaign in September. Now, the man who was supposed to be second in line to the presidency is reduced to attacking the 23-year-old who highlighted scheming that had been an open secret in the state.

“We’ve got conspiracy theorist right-wing YouTubers breaking into daycare centers and demanding access to our children,” Mr. Walz wrote in a weird statement posted on the Minnesota governor’s website.

Knocking on the door of a business isn’t a crime, and Mr. Shirley demonstrated that there weren’t any children to “access.” The governor’s delusions don’t stop there. Mr. Walz insists he is the true fraud buster.

“We’ve fired people who weren’t doing their jobs. We’ve seen people go to jail for stealing from our state,” he said. “We’ve cut off whole streams of funding, in partnership with the federal government, where we saw widespread criminal activity. We’ve put new locks on the doors of our remaining programs, and we’ve hired a new head of program integrity to make sure those locks can’t be broken.”

Those locks are phonier than the failed vice presidential candidate’s claims to military combat valor. Democrats are the ones who set this operation into motion. They used federal funding to flood Minnesota with 80,000 freebie-craving “refugees.” The influx tipped the balance in a state that was once more politically moderate.

It also sent far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar to Congress, where she brags of representing the interests of her country of birth. At a gathering in Minneapolis in 2022, she used the Somali language to introduce its leader, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. “We are very happy he is our president. Somalia is our home,” she said.

Ties between Minnesota politicians and the fraudsters abound. Fox News found photographs of one of the handful of convicted Somali scammers posing in smiling photos with Ms. Omar and Mr. Walz. President Trump hinted that the growing scandal may even drive Mr. Walz from the governor’s mansion before his term is up.

“He was caught, red-handed, along with Ilhan Omar, and others of his Somali friends, stealing Tens of Billions of Taxpayer Dollars. I feel certain the facts will come out, and they will reveal a seriously unscrupulous, and rich, group of ‘slimeballs,’” the president wrote on Truth Social.

The conversation has begun, and Republicans need to act. In 2023, the House condemned Ms. Omar over her use of “anti-Semitic tropes,” but in September, four squishy Republican members blocked her censure for saying the people upset by the assassination of Charlie Kirk were “just using his death to further their Christofascist agenda.”

Given the magnitude of the swindle in economic and political terms, the customary sternly worded letters and grandstanding are insufficient. Arresting low-level con artists won’t cut it either. Until the ringleaders, whoever they might be, are held accountable, the theft will continue.