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Washington — The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing next week on alleged fraud in Minnesota public assistance programs, Chairman James Comer, announced Wednesday.
The hearing is set to take place Jan. 7 and will include testimony from Minnesota GOP state lawmakers who have investigated public assistance fraud, Comer said. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, both Democrats, have also been asked to testify at a second hearing on Feb. 10, Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said.
“The U.S. Department of Justice is actively investigating, prosecuting, and charging fraudsters who have stolen billions from taxpayers, and Congress has a duty to conduct rigorous oversight of this heist and enact stronger safeguards to prevent fraud in taxpayer-funded programs, as well as strong sanctions to hold offenders accountable,” Comer said in a statement.
The House Oversight Committee is investigating allegations of money laundering and fraud in Minnesota’s public assistance programs. Comer earlier this month asked Walz and Ellison to turn over to House investigators documents and communications about the state’s programs and has sought transcribed interviews with state officials.
“Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison have either been asleep at the wheel or complicit in a massive fraud involving taxpayer dollars in Minnesota’s social services programs,” Comer said. “American taxpayers demand and deserve accountability for the theft of their hard-earned money.”
Republican state Rep. Walter Hudson, one of the three Minnesota lawmakers who is set to testify before Congress next week, told CBS News Minnesota he hopes the hearing will offer “nuance and perspective” on the fraud issue.
“What we’ve seen in the past few days in the wake of the Nick Shirley video is a lot of sensationalism from a lot of different angles and attempts to turn this into a partisan boxing match, when a point of fact, just a few months ago, this was a very bipartisan issue,” Hudson said.
More than 90 people face federal charges as a result of what a top prosecutor in Minnesota said was “industrial-scale fraud.” The prosecutor, Joe Thompson, said earlier this month that the total amount of fraud in Minnesota could reach $9 billion billed across 14 Medicaid programs that have been deemed “high risk” for fraud. Walz and other state officials, however, have questioned that amount.
The scandal began when the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which is based in Minnesota, was accused of stealing from the Federal Child Nutrition Program by falsely claiming to distribute meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 75 people have been charged in the COVID-era fraud scheme, and at least 56 have pleaded guilty.
Since then, federal prosecutors have uncovered alleged fraud schemes involving a now-defunct housing stabilization program in Minnesota and a Medicaid-backed state program that provides services to children with autism. Homeland Security agents are also conducting investigations into child care centers in the state after a conservative YouTuber named Nick Shirley posted a video online over the weekend alleging that nearly a dozen centers that receive public dollars are not providing any services.
A CBS News analysis of the day care centers mentioned by Shirley found that all but two have active licenses, according to state records, and state regulators visited the active locations within the last six months. While the centers were cited for safety, cleanliness and other issues, there was no recorded evidence of fraud.
Still, in response to the allegations, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday that it has frozen federal child care payments for Minnesota.
President Trump has denounced Minnesota leaders for their handling of the programs and attacked Somali immigrants, claiming they have “ripped off” the state. Many, but not all, of the defendants charged in the fraud schemes are of Somali descent.
In response to the Trump administration’s decision to withhold child-care funding to Minnesota, Walz accused the president of “politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”
“This is Trump’s long game,” he wrote on social media. “We’ve spent years cracking down on fraudsters. It’s a serious issue — but this has been his plan all along.”
