Minnesota fraud report accuses state AG of 'incompetence, willful blindness or worse'

By Fox News · Fox News

The House Oversight Committee's Republican majority accused Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison of repeatedly contradicting public accounts of Minnesota's massive Feeding Our Future fraud scandal in a 205-page report released Monday . The scandal, which thrust the Land of 10,000 Lakes into the national spotlight, set off a chain of journalistic and congressional investigations that exposed a wider web of waste, fraud and abuse, including allegations that members of Minnesota's Somali community exploited the social services framework to funnel millions of dollars to unqualified recipients, including Mogadishu-area terror groups. The report describes several instances that investigators said show Ellison and Gov. Tim Walz were aware of fraud concerns earlier than they publicly acknowledged. "The governor and the attorney general knew about fraud in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) as early as April 2020, despite contrary claims made to the media," the committee said. WALZ ADMINISTRATION IGNORED FRAUD WARNINGS AS BILLIONS VANISHED, HOUSE OVERSIGHT REPORT ALLEGES "The governor and the attorney general knew about fraud in the Child Care Assistance Program as well as Non-Emergency Medical Transportation program as early as spring 2019. The Governor and the Attorney General also became aware of fraud in 13 additional high-risk Medicaid programs at various times during their tenure and failed to act." Interviews with education, human services and executive-office officials led investigators to conclude Ellison was aware of fraud concerns years before they became public. Those interviews found Ellison was aware of fraud in "high-risk Medicaid programs" administered by the state as early as 2019 and tied that timeline to more than $300 million in Feeding Our Future fraud and what federal prosecutors estimate could be up to $9 billion in fraud involving high-risk Medicaid programs. MASSIVE MEDICAID FRAUD SCHEME PUTS…