'Incompetence or dereliction': Minnesota lawmaker rips Tim Walz as state fraud losses mount
The House Oversight Committee is ramping up its probe into Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as Republican lawmakers say the scale of the state’s exploding fraud schemes draw questions about whether...
By Fox News · Fox News
The House Oversight Committee is ramping up its probe into Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as Republican lawmakers say the scale of the state’s exploding fraud schemes draw questions about whether top officials should have been able to detect and stop them ahead of time. To Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., the fraud schemes coming from his state are so numerous and so costly that he believes they represent either "incompetence or dereliction of duty." "Well, with the magnitude of the fraud, I find it really almost impossible that the governor or his staff and the attorney general didn't know," Stauber said. "And the Minnesota taxpayers are paying for it." DAVID MARCUS: WHITE GUILT, APATHY FUEL MASSIVE CORRUPTION IN MINNESOTA Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital he had a high level of confidence that the committee would find out whether the governor’s office should have been aware of the mountain of fraud and whether the state’s climbing losses could have been prevented, citing whistleblowers' testimony he hopes to confirm. "We want to know how much fraud. Is it still ongoing? Were people aware [and] turned a blind eye? That’s pretty much the purpose of our investigation," Comer said on Friday. The House Oversight Committee launched its investigation earlier this month after recent reports revealed that the state had been hemorrhaging funds through fraud schemes in its social benefit programs. The most prominent example, the Feeding Our Future scheme, resulted in a $250 million loss when fraudsters received payments from the state for services that went unfulfilled, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). But the documented problems stretch well beyond the one example. Notably, the state had to shutter its housing assistance program after 77 housing providers were discontinued due to "credible allegations of fraud" uncovered by the FBI in 2025. Similarly, the state’s Medicaid costs covering autism-related services have grown exponentially. According…