A social media account representing over 400 Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) workers recently accused Minnesota Democrat Governor Tim Walz of being “100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota” — in relation to a scheme that took advantage of the “Feeding our Future” program —among other fraud across state agencies.  Walz is an idiot.

     During the Biden administration, Feeding Our Future sponsored sites participating in the federal Federal Child Nutrition Program under the U.S. Department of Agriculture — a program intended to provide meals to children, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The program allowed for-profit restaurants and off-site food distribution to qualify for financial reimbursements. However, a slew of fraudsters exploited the program, and according to federal prosecutors, the total fraud exceeded a whopping $250 million.

     Meanwhile, this past weekend, the Minnesota DHS employees X account accused Walz (D-Minn.) of actively working to quiet whistleblowers attempting to uncover systematic fraudulent activity in which state agencies were billed for millions of dollars in social services that were never delivered. The post also accuses Walz and admin officials of “systematically retaliating against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression,” and of working to discredit and suppress fraud reports.

     At first, the fraud appeared to be isolated to Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future scandal, which claimed to be feeding children during the COVID-19 pandemic, only to create a network of fake meal sites and inflated invoices to Minnesota’s U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-funded school nutrition programs. The organized scheme resulted in the theft of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, making it the largest COVID-19 fraud case in the nation and leading to the conviction of at least 59 individuals.

     Adding fuel to the fire, a June 2024 report from the Center of the American Experiment also estimated that more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds were lost to fraud across several Minnesota programs since 2019, including autism treatment centers, personal-care-attendant services, housing assistance, and the Feeding Our Future child-nutrition scandal.  On November 24th, “District Judge Nancy E. Brasel sentenced [Somali immigrant] Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, 24, to 120 months in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release for his role in the $300 million Feeding Our Future case, the largest Covid-19 fraud scheme in the United States, announced U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen. Nur was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $47,920,514,” Minnesota’s DOJ announced.