More than 400 employees of the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) accused Gov. Tim Walz of failing to act on widespread fraud warnings and retaliating against whistleblowers.
The Minnesota Department of Human Service Employees account, which says it consists of more than 480 current staff members at the Minnesota DHS, wrote on X that Walz is “100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota.”
“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,” the group claimed. “In addition to retaliating against whistleblower[s], Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance.”
Walz’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz deals with the fallout over fraud allegations against the Somali community in his state. (Abbie Parr/AP Photo)
The group’s claims come as federal prosecutors continue to unravel one of the nation’s largest COVID-era fraud cases.
The Justice Department announced new charges last week against the 78th defendant in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, which prosecutors say involved more than $250 million in stolen funds from a federally-funded child nutrition program and has already resulted in over 50 convictions. Many of the individuals charged come from Minnesota’s Somali community.
The New York Times reported that what initially appeared to many Minnesotans as an isolated case of pandemic-era fraud has broadened into a much wider concern for state and federal officials.
The Times reported that over the past five years, according to law enforcement authorities, several fraud schemes proliferated in parts of Minnesota’s Somali community. A number of individuals allegedly created companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never delivered.
A street sign for “Somali St” is pictured with Riverside Plaza in the background in Minneapolis’ Cedar–Riverside neighborhood. (Michael Dorgan/Fox News Digital)
The Manhattan Institute’s City Journal also alleged in a report
, citing unnamed federal counterterrorism sources, that some stolen funds were transferred to Somalia and may have ended up with the terror group Al-Shabaab, though none of the federal charges in the fraud cases include any link to terrorism.
Walz addressed the fraud at a press conference last week, saying it “undermines trust in government,” and “undermines programs that are absolutely critical in improving quality of life.”
“If you’re committing fraud, no matter where you come from, what you look like, what you believe, you are going to go to jail,” Walz said.
Walz faced a question about the situation on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, when host Kristen Welker pressed him on the allegations and asked him if he takes responsibility for failing to stop the fraud in his state.
President Donald Trump and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. On Friday Walz called for a “shadow government” to provide Americans with the truth about the Trump administration’s actions. (Getty Images)
“Well, certainly, I take responsibility for putting people in jail,” the governor responded.
“I will note, it’s not just Somalis. Minnesota is a generous state. Minnesota is a prosperous state, a well-run state. We’re AAA-bond rated. But that attracts criminals. Those people are going to jail. We’re doing everything we can. But to demonize an entire community on the actions of a few, it’s lazy,” he said.
Trump said in a Nov. 21 Truth Social post that he would be terminating the temporary protected status for Somalis in Minnesota, citing “fraudulent money laundering activity.”
“Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!” he wrote.
Ashley Carnahan is a writer at Fox News Digital.
Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein cut ties with Bill Clinton because he thought the former president was a liar, according to new emails his estate turned over to Congress on Wednesday.
The emails, obtained by the House Oversight Committee, also reveal that Kathryn Ruemmler — former White House counsel to Barack Obama — maintained a remarkably cozy relationship with Epstein. The two exchanged friendly messages and regularly chatted politics in the run-up to the 2016 election, underscoring just how deep Epstein’s connections ran inside Democratic power circles, the New York Post reported.
In a Jan. 23, 2016, email, Epstein wrote that he broke off contact with Clinton after “he swore, with whole-hearted conviction to me that he had done something, he had forgotten that he also swore the exact opposite to me only weeks before.”
“Who knows what they’re talking about,” a Clinton spokesperson replied in a statement. “What we do know and have always said is that President Clinton knew nothing about Epstein’s heinous crimes and hadn’t spoken to him in twenty years. Now here it is in black and white.”
“I will just say I told you so. Not to sound overly dramatic, but he is very close to being a psychopath,” Ruemmler had said earlier in the exchange of the mysterious individual. “[H]e has no conscience. It’s scary.”
“He obviously said something to you yesterday that was disturbing, and you don’t want to tell me. Just tell me — I can take it. I promise,” added Ruemmler of the person, who at one time was listed in January 2019 as a backup executor to Epstein’s estate, according to The Wall Street Journal.
who was once listed as a backup executor to Epstein’s estate in January 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported.
But it remains unclear how long the rift lasted, as Clinton appears in other emails within the more than 20,000 pages of documents released Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee.
“Let’s do a men of the world conference,” theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss said in an April 5, 2018, email to Epstein, sending a proposed invite list that included Clinton, actor Kevin Spacey, former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and director Woody Allen.
Ruemmler met Epstein while working as a partner at Latham & Watkins. She is now the chief legal officer and general counsel at Goldman Sachs. A spokesperson for the firm said her interactions with Epstein were limited to business.
“They shared a common client that originated as an Epstein referral,” the spokesperson said, referring to her time at Latham & Watkins.
Clinton and Epstein’s ties date back to at least the early 1990s, when Epstein donated to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. He later contributed $20,000 to Hillary Clinton’s 1999 Senate campaign. White House visitor logs show Epstein visited the White House more than a dozen times during Clinton’s presidency.
After Clinton left office, the two remained in contact. Epstein continued donating to the Clinton Foundation, and flight records show Clinton took more than two dozen trips on Epstein’s private plane, often referred to as the “Lolita Express.”
Epstein was known to travel with young women on his jet while maintaining relationships with a number of prominent public figures.
The former president was photographed receiving a shoulder massage from Chauntae Davies, a 22-year-old massage therapist, during a refueling stop on a 2002 humanitarian trip to Africa aboard the “Lolita Express.”
Clinton also visited Epstein’s New York apartment, though a spokesperson said he never traveled to Epstein’s private island, Little St. James. Notably, Epstein kept a painting in his Upper East Side residence depicting Clinton in a blue dress — a reference to the garment central to the former president’s scandal involving Monica Lewinsky.