{"id":58011,"date":"2025-12-02T02:09:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T02:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/58011\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T02:09:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T02:09:20","slug":"exclusive-treasury-house-panel-launch-probes-into-tim-walzs-handling-of-1b-food-aid-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/58011\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | Treasury, House panel launch probes into Tim Walz’s handling of $1B food aid fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 A powerful US House committee and the Treasury Department both launched investigations into Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz\u2019s involvement in a \u201cmassive fraud\u201d scheme that involved Somali immigrants bilking more than $1 billion from taxpayers<\/a>, they revealed Monday.<\/p>\n

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told The Post that his panel \u201cwill conduct a thorough investigation into Governor Walz\u2019s failure to safeguard taxpayer dollars\u201d as a result.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinnesota Governor Tim Walz was warned about massive fraud in a pandemic food-aid program for children, yet he failed to act. Instead, whistleblowers who raised concerns faced retaliation,\u201d Comer said.<\/p>\n

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told The Post that his panel \u201cwill conduct a thorough investigation into Governor Walz\u2019s failure to safeguard taxpayer dollars\u201d as a result. Michael Brochstein\/ZUMA \/ SplashNews.com<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of Governor Walz\u2019s negligence, criminals \u2014 including Somali terrorists<\/a> \u2014 stole nearly $1 billion from the program while children suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n

As chairman of the powerful GOP-led panel, Comer can issue subpoenas and refer alleged crimes to the Department of Justice for potential criminal prosecution. <\/p>\n

The DOJ has already convicted 59 fraudsters in the scheme.<\/p>\n

Also on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posted on X that he had instructed his investigators to dig into how \u201cthe feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz\u201d allowed tax dollars to be funneled to Al-Shabaab terrorists.<\/a><\/p>\n

The revelations about the scale of the $1 billion fraud for a COVID-era food relief program are new \u2014 as is the claim that some of the money flowed back to the Somali terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

But House Republicans have been onto Walz and Minnesota over its leaky aid programs for months. <\/p>\n

Last year, Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee issued a subpoena to Walz for records, though it\u2019s unclear what information \u2014 if any \u2014 his office provided. A rep for that panel didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

As chairman of the powerful GOP-led panel, Comer can issue subpoenas and refer potential crimes to the Department of Justice, which has already convicted 59 fraudsters linked to the Feeding Our Future scheme. AP<\/p>\n

The House Oversight probe comes following prosecutions of 78 scammers<\/a>, often from Somalia, who took Minnesota taxpayers\u2019 money as part of what the feds have called the Feeding Our Future fraud<\/a> scandal.<\/p>\n

The ploy, according to prosecutors, involved funneling money from state social services coffers \u2014 including at the Department of Human Services and Department of Education \u2014 to the nonprofit Feeding Our Future and other organizations to ostensibly feed school children.<\/p>\n

Instead, their \u201cdepraved and brazen\u201d plot used the funds to splurge on the lavish lifestyles of the nonprofit\u2019s workers \u2014 including for\u00a0brand new fancy cars and real estate holdings as far away as Turkey and Kenya<\/a> \u2014 between April 2020 and January 2022, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

The House Oversight Committee is investigating a \u201cmassive fraud\u201d scheme under Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz that bilked more than $1 billion from taxpayers meant for food aid during the COVID-19 pandemic. REUTERS<\/p>\n

The FBI raided the fake nonprofit that same month and it later dissolved. Many of the reimbursement claims from the organizations were sent to state departments and then on to federal agencies such as the USDA.<\/p>\n

A whistleblower X account purporting to be 500 employees with Minnesota\u2019s Department of Human Services slammed Walz on Saturday for being \u201c100% responsible\u201d for the fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response,\u201d their account posted on Saturday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of Governor Walz\u2019s negligence, criminals \u2014 including Somali terrorists \u2014 stole nearly $1 billion from the program while children suffered,\u201d Comer said, referencing payments made to al-Shabaab terrorists. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cTim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports. Instead of partnership, we got the full weight of retaliation,\u201d added the account, which was apparently suspended on X Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s scary, isolating and left us wondering who we can turn to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The employees claimed that Walz had weakened safeguards, including at the Office of the Legislative Auditor, during the episode.<\/p>\n

The FBI raided Feeding Our Future in January 2022 and it later dissolved. Star Tribune via Getty Images<\/p>\n

In a June 2024 audit<\/a>, that office found that the Minnesota Department of Education had \u201ccreated opportunities for fraud\u201d and maintained \u201cinadequate oversight\u201d during the roughly two-year period it was paying for the fake feeding of schoolchildren.<\/p>\n

President Trump slammed Minnesota as effectively \u201ca hub of fraudulent money laundering activity\u201d<\/a> after recent reports on the extent of the Feeding Our Future scheme.<\/p>\n

Walz has boasted that he took \u201cresponsibility for putting people in jail\u201d who were connected to the fraud \u2014 but also hit Trump in comments to NBC News\u2019 \u201cMeet the Press\u201d that \u201cthere\u2019s a big difference between fraud and corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fraudsters tried to bribe a juror on a Feeding Our Future fraud case in June 2024. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd corruption is something he knows about,\u201d the Minnesota governor said of the 47th president.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump: Deflect, demonize, come up with no solutions. He\u2019s not going to help fix anything on fraud,\u201d Walz told NBC News\u2019 \u201cMeet the Press\u201d in an interview that aired Sunday. \u201cMy God, there\u2019s a big difference between fraud and corruption. And corruption is something he knows about.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 61-year-old governor, who is currently running for a third term in office, told the Minnesota Reformer that he was aware of suspicious activity by the nonprofit as early as November 2020. Minnesota\u2019s Department of Education first moved to stop payments to Feeding Our Future at the time.<\/p>\n

Walz later awarded a fraudster from another nonprofit linked to the scheme with an \u201cOutstanding Refugee Award\u201d in July 2021. AP<\/p>\n

But Walz let the payments flow again after Feeding Our Future sued the department for alleged racial discrimination.<\/p>\n

When federal indictments began being handed up, Walz further told media outlets that he attempted to put a stop to the fraud in April 2021, before blaming a Minnesota judge<\/a>\u00a0for ordering the funds to continue flowing.<\/p>\n

That jurist, Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann, fired back in a rare statement<\/a>\u00a0that none of those payments were made due to a court order and were, in fact, \u201cmade voluntarily\u201d after Feeding Our Future claimed it had resolved \u201cserious deficiencies\u201d that caused the suspension in state spending.<\/p>\n

Walz later awarded a fraudster from another nonprofit linked to the scheme with an \u201cOutstanding Refugee Award<\/a>\u201d in July 2021.<\/p>\n

Reps for Walz\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 A powerful US House committee and the Treasury Department both launched investigations into Minnesota Gov. Tim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[383,68,5970,396,22635,31371,9,11,10,87,30097,58],"class_list":["post-58011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-department-of-justice","tag-exclusive","tag-fbi","tag-fraud","tag-house-oversight-committee","tag-james-comer","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics","tag-tim-walz","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}