WASHINGTON — Republicans on the House Oversight Committee sought to turn the page Wednesday, March 4, on the federal law enforcement surge that killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis and turned public opinion against the Trump administration’s immigration policy. They returned to a familiar stomping ground: widespread fraud in Minnesota’s social safety net.
Apparent grift in a pandemic-era food assistance program was “known, documented and repeatedly brought to the attention of state leadership,” who did nothing “not because they lacked the authority to intervene, but because they feared lawsuits, bad press and political backlash,” Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer, the committee chair, said in his opening remarks.
Comer said committee staff spoke to more than 30 people from Minnesota in preparation for the hearing, including “many current (state) employees and Democrats.” He raised former Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson’s claim in December that Medicaid fraud alone may have exceeded $9 billion in Minnesota, an assertion Gov. Tim Walz dismissed the following day as “sensationalized.”
The hearing took place in a Washington distracted by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and a weeks-long partial shutdown of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as Democrats try to force changes to the administration’s immigration policy. In Minnesota, the fallout from Operation Metro Surge continued.
The state sued Monday to block the Trump administration’s Feb. 25 hold on $259 million in Medicaid funding, which state officials have said could scramble its budget outlook. Meanwhile, U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Bryan is weighing whether to hold U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen in contempt for failing to comply with his orders. Walz — for the second time this year — is seeking more details from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on children held in federal detention.
Appearing in person for a hearing that grew heated at times and covered much of the same ground as a Senate committee hearing on “Somali fraud in Minnesota” last month, Walz said his administration has made it a priority to fight fraud since the scope of the Feeding Our Future scandal became apparent in 2022.
“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. But “we will never yield to political scapegoating, particularly of our most vulnerable communities,” he added.
Walz recounted his administration’s longstanding cooperation with federal law enforcement and more recent anti-graft steps, such as the creation of an inspector general position in the state department of education and heightened scrutiny of state Medicaid providers. Last month, a report commissioned by the Walz administration traced social safety net vulnerabilities back to the 1970s.
Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who also testified in person, said the Trump administration’s singling out of Minnesota for “political retribution” had set back the state’s efforts to prosecute fraud and other crimes.
“If we are to discuss law enforcement efforts in Minnesota, we cannot ignore the devastating effects of Operation Metro Surge,” which led to mass resignations that drained capacity at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, Ellison said.
“The remaining staff should be spending their time prosecuting fraudsters and criminals. Instead, they are drowning in immigration-related petitions,” he said. Last week, the state official in charge of investigating Medicaid fraud in Minnesota said Ellison’s office had “only so many people who have so much time” to pick up the slack.
Still, Ellison said his office had secured more Medicaid fraud convictions than any state of similar size, recovered more than $80 million for Minnesota taxpayers and dissolved 17 “sham nonprofits” since 2019.
Republicans played up the fact that many Minnesotans convicted of fraud to date are of Somali descent as they hammered Ellison, in particular, for his slow response to the Feeding Our Future scandal earlier this decade. Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan said a “whistleblower” testified to committee staff that the Walz administration office downplayed the issue because Somali-Americans are a key Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party voting bloc.
Minnesota Republican Rep. Tom Emmer was even more explicit as he raised a nearly hour-long “audiotape” where — he said — Ellison sought to reassure “fraudsters” who would later come under federal scrutiny.
“(There are) grave concerns over your alleged relationships with Somali fraudsters … you have personal knowledge of these people,” he said.
Ellison, Walz and committee Democrats repeatedly brought up ties between “fraudsters” and President Trump, who California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia said had given “get-out-of-jail-free cards” to dozens of criminals, and used their time to steer the conversation back to the human toll of Operation Metro Surge.
They had help from Mariah Tollgaard, senior pastor at Hamline Church United Methodist in St. Paul.
“The hearing today is about ‘Fraud in Minnesota,’ which is serving as a pretext for the terror the federal government has brought to the people of Minnesota,” Tollgaard said in her opening remarks.
Tollgaard said some of her parishioners are too afraid to come to worship, nearly a quarter of her kids’ St. Paul Public School classmates have opted for distance learning, and her own eight-year-old has trouble sleeping out of fear that “ICE agents might break into our house.” She recounted now-familiar anecdotes of workers hiding in walk-in freezers and everyday Minnesotans humiliated and brutalized by federal agents. American students “are now practicing two kinds of drills at school: one for an active shooter, and one to protect themselves from their own government,” she lamented.
“If you feel even a flicker of discomfort hearing these stories, pay attention to it,” Tollgaard said. “That is not partisanship; that is conscience … it’s not too late to listen, to change our minds, our hearts and our policies.”
Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.
