Top officials in Minnesota were made aware of fraud concerns surrounding government assistance programs as early as 2019 but failed to take action as billions of dollars were stolen and warnings piled up.

Former Minnesota state officials testified to the House Oversight Committee that Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were first informed that the state’s social services programs had been compromised by widespread fraud in 2019 and 2020, according to a new report from the committee.

“Testimony obtained by the Committee reveals that Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were aware of widespread fraud in social service programs, lied about their knowledge of the fraud, and retaliated against employees who dared to raise concerns. Instead of protecting vulnerable Americans, they handed over billions in taxpayer dollars to fraudsters and threw their own state employees under the bus,” said House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.).

Several different entities and state-level programs are implicated in Minnesota’s fraud scandal. The most prominent program is Feeding Our Future, which fraudsters targeted during the Covid era to steal $300 million from the Minnesota Department of Education that had been designated to provide food to poor children. Feeding Our Future is now dissolved and dozens of defendants have been convicted in connection with the scheme since 2022.

According to the committee report, Minnesota Department of Education officials first received allegations of fraud against Feeding Our Future from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2019. The USDA alleged Feeding Our Future was created with forged signatures and misled sponsored food distribution sites about certain federal requirements. Minnesota officials dismissed the allegations at the time. By April 2020, Walz and Ellison’s offices were briefed about the Minnesota Department of Education’s concerns regarding Feeding Our Future, Assistant Commissioner Daron Korte testified to the committee. State officials contacted the USDA about Feeding Our Future in late 2020, but the agency’s inspector general did not act, a failure that emboldened the scammers at Feeding Our Future.

The Oversight Committee report asserts that Minnesota officials could have suspended payments to Feeding Our Future but chose not to because of potential litigation and racism accusations. Minnesota officials blamed the USDA and Feeding Our Future for perpetuating the large-scale fraud. In March 2021, the Minnesota Department of Education stopped payments to Feeding Our Future, but resumed payments voluntarily the following month after a court hearing on the matter. A court order was never issued requiring the payments, contradicting Walz’s 2022 assertion to the contrary. The lack of a court order was confirmed during the course of the Oversight Committee’s investigation.

In early 2019, Walz’s administration became aware of fraud tied to two programs administered by Minnesota’s Department of Human Services, former agency commissioner Tony Lourey testified. Another former commissioner, Jodi Harpstead, testified that Walz’s administration believed fraud connected to a child care program run out of the Department of Human Services had already been resolved. But the Oversight Committee report references two auditor reports showing otherwise, both of which were issued in 2019. The Department of Human Services lacked fraud mitigation mechanisms and felt pressure to get money out the door to justify state appropriations, the committee found. Despite credible allegations of fraud, the agency failed to act on the warnings and unilaterally stop making payments to the social services programs in question.

The Oversight Committee’s report is based on testimony from nine top current and former state officials, documents and communications, and briefings with federal and state officials. The Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s office recently speculated that the interwoven fraud schemes totaled nearly $9 billion in misallocated funds. Of the fraud defendants, 85 percent of them come from Minnesota’s Somali-American immigrant community. Social services programs that provide food, child care, housing, and special education have all come under scrutiny as federal investigators unravel the fraud scheme.

“The Committee has found that Minnesota lacked adequate oversight efforts to verify that taxpayer dollars were being used appropriately and could have stopped the flow of money to fraudsters at any time but chose not to for fear of political retribution from the politically active Somali community,” the report concludes.

Walz and Ellison are testifying before the congressional panel Wednesday to address the findings in the report. The hearing is part of the committee’s continuing investigation into fraud in Minneapolis, a years-long web of schemes that gained prominence among online conservatives and Republican lawmakers in late 2025.

During his testimony, Walz defended his state’s response to the fraud scandal and said he would not have stopped payments to the social services programs unless there was proof of fraud. Likewise, Ellison said his office has pursued fraud cases in situations where he has jurisdiction.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks at the hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., March 4, 2026.

“Let me be clear: In Minnesota, if you defraud public programs, if you steal taxpayer money, we'll find you, we'll prosecute you, we'll convict you, and we'll throw you in jail,” Walz said.

Walz is not running for reelection this year in part because of fallout from the fraud scandal. The abrupt end of Walz’s political career represents a sharp downfall from 2024, when he was the Democratic vice presidential nominee and considered a national figure in the party.

Walz and other Democrats used the hearing to criticize the Trump administration’s response to the fraud scandal, including a sharp increase in immigration enforcement and suspending certain federal spending. The Trump administration’s surge of immigration agents to Minneapolis due to the fraud scandal created significant backlash among the local population.

The backlash intensified in January after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by immigration agents, two separate incidents that each drew national attention. In February, the Trump administration ended the surge after President Trump sent border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to reduce tensions with state officials and mitigate the intense backlash.