GOP candidate calls Minnesota welfare fraud ‘worse than Watergate’

As the town of Minneapolis faces a $1 billion welfare scandal, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dr. Minnesota’s Scott Jensen with Fox Information Digital on his perception that Governor Tim Walz is just not solely immediately chargeable for the controversy, however steered there’s a “cover-up” at play that’s “worse than Watergate.”

Walz’s position in what prosecutors are calling the largest COVID-19 fraud scheme within the nation, following allegations that Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future and its associates defrauded federal little one vitamin applications of tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in COVID-19 aid, has been a serious speaking level within the governor’s race in current weeks.

“In Minnesota, I do not suppose there’s any strategy to reduce this apart from to say the buck has to cease someplace,” Jensen advised Fox Information Digital. “And it is all the time been the case that the cash stays on the governor’s desk. The Governor is undoubtedly the CEO of the State of Minnesota and the enterprise of presidency. And Tim Walz has been negligent in discharging his duties, and he has completely corrupted frequent sense.”

The omission, Jensen defined, turns into obvious once you study a timeline that he says reveals Walz knew about Feeding Our Future fraud a lot sooner than he admitted, after which misled Minnesotans about his administration’s response.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz sits for an interview with Star Tribune journalists in his workplace on the State Capitol in St. Paul on Dec. 12, 2024. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune/Tribune Information Service through Getty Photographs)

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“Tim Walz and the Minnesota Division of Training knew there was an issue in 2020… however they did not contain the FBI till 2021,” Jensen mentioned. “And but they declare that as quickly as they heard about it, they acquired the FBI concerned. That is not true. Their timeline is off by a 12 months.”

Jensen argues that the delay was not simply mismanagement, however a part of a broader sample of distraction and dishonesty from the governor’s workplace.

“In the end he has proven a really expert method to deflecting so that he’s not honest,” Jensen mentioned.

Jensen cited a number of examples of actions by Walz that he mentioned shifted blame to others, together with in 2022 after the primary prices within the scandal had been filed by the FBI and the U.S. lawyer, and Walz blamed District Courtroom Choose John Guthman for allegedly forcing the state to proceed fraudulent funds.

In what was described by the media In a “uncommon public rebuke” on the time, Guthman fired again at Walz, accusing him of creating “inaccurate statements.”

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Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen. (AP Picture/Nicole Neri)

“When Choose Guthman did that, you noticed Tim Walz and Keith Ellison attempting for another person responsible,” Jensen advised Fox Information Digital. “So that they blamed the FBI and mentioned, ‘Nicely, the FBI advised us we needed to maintain paying as a result of we weren’t purported to intervene with their investigation.’ And the FBI mentioned, ‘We didn’t coerce you to proceed making fraudulent funds to the Feeding Our Future company.'”

Jensen advised Fox Information Digital that the “elephant within the room” is what else will come out sooner or later in regards to the “cover-up” of the scandal.

“The underlying query must be: Is there something extra nefarious than this?” Jensen mentioned.

“Is there actually a seizure of funds that could possibly be returned to individuals in some unspecified time in the future when issues relax? Is there a pay-to-play system that we do not find out about but? That is what’s actually scary as a result of if that is the case, then you must ask your self, is there going to be a necessity at some stage for prison prosecution of a few of Minnesota’s elected officers?”

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A view of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, at nightfall. (Ariana Lindquist/Bloomberg through Getty Photographs)

The welfare fraud controversy has gained the eye of the federal authorities in current days.

The Small Enterprise Administration has introduced that it’s investigating the community of Somali teams in Minnesota that it says is tied to the large COVID fraud scandal, highlighting the alleged systemic failures of Walz’s workforce to correctly management public funds.

Home Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has claimed that “due to Governor Walz’s negligence, criminals — together with Somali terrorists — stole practically $1 billion from this system whereas the kids suffered.” He’s main the investigation into Walz’s position within the Feeding Our Future scandal.

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President Donald Trump additionally just lately introduced a sequence of recent actions to crack down on and examine fraud schemes in Minnesota, which he has attacked as a “middle of cash laundering exercise” and cited as the idea for his resolution to finish deportation protections for tons of of Somali migrants.

Senior Trump administration officers introduced new investigations this week, together with a brand new Treasury Division investigation into how taxpayer cash was allegedly diverted to the terrorist group Al-Shabaab, Secretary Scott Bessent mentioned.

“With the place it has gone from the start to now, realizing that there was an curiosity in masking this up, it has a few of the haunting recollections of Watergate for lots of people,” Jensen advised Fox Information Digital.

“And but, this time round, it could possibly be even worse, as a result of it is potential there’s one thing much more nefarious than merely masking one thing up. It could possibly be a pay-to-play scheme involving elected officers.”

Fox Information Digital requested Jensen, who’s working in opposition to Walz in 2022, what he believes is the governor’s legacy after two phrases.

“Tim Walz’s legacy at this level could be fraud at an unprecedented stage, and I feel individuals would say primarily based on his insurance policies that he appeared to worship the bottom that AOC and Bernie Sanders walked on,” Jensen defined. “He went from somebody who was thought-about a average by many individuals who knew him earlier in his life to an individual who actually lived on the five-yard line of the far left of the Democratic area.”

Fox Information Digital reached out to Walz’s workplace for remark.

Deirdre Heavey and Breanne Deppisch of Fox Information Digital contributed to this report.