{"id":62807,"date":"2025-12-06T20:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T20:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/62807\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T20:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T20:17:10","slug":"walz-to-blame-in-covid-fraud-scandal-gop-challenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/62807\/","title":{"rendered":"Walz to blame in COVID fraud scandal: GOP challenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the city of\u00a0Minneapolis\u00a0faces a $1 billion welfare scandal, Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Dr. Scott Jensen spoke to Fox News Digital about his belief that Gov. Tim Walz<\/a> is not only directly responsible for the controversy, but suggested that a \u201ccover up\u201d that\u2019s \u201cworse than Watergate\u201d is at play.<\/p>\n

Walz\u2019s role in what\u2019s been labeled by prosecutors as the\u00a0largest COVID-19 fraud scheme<\/a>\u00a0in the country, stemming from allegations that the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future and its associates defrauded federal child-nutrition programs for hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-19 aid, has been a major topic of conversation in the gubernatorial race in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Minnesota, I don\u2019t think that there\u2019s any way to cut it other than to say the buck has to stop somewhere,\u201d Jensen told Fox News Digital. \u201cAnd it\u2019s always been that the buck stops at the governor\u2019s desk. Arguably, the governor is the CEO of the state of Minnesota and the business of the government. And Tim Walz has been derelict in doing his duties, and he\u2019s absolutely corrupted common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dereliction, Jensen explained, is evident when one examines a timeline he says shows Walz knew about Feeding Our Future<\/a> fraud far earlier than he has admitted and then misled Minnesotans about his administration\u2019s response.<\/p>\n

\u201cTim Walz and the Minnesota Department of Education knew in 2020 that there was a problem\u2026 but they didn\u2019t get the FBI involved until 2021,\u201d Jensen said. \u201cAnd yet they\u2019ve made claims that as soon as they learned about it, they got the FBI involved. That\u2019s not true. Their timeline\u2019s a year off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jensen argues the delay was not just mismanagement but part of a broader pattern of deflection and dishonesty from the governor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Dr. Scott Jensen claims Gov. Tim Walz is directly responsible for the COVID-19 fraud scheme involving Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cTim Walz and the Minnesota Department of Education knew in 2020 that there was a problem\u2026 but they didn\u2019t get the FBI involved until 2021,\u201d Jensen said. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, he\u2019s demonstrated a very skilled approach to deflecting, so that he\u2019s not being honest,\u201d Jensen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jensen cited several examples of actions by Walz that he views as deflecting the blame onto others, including in 2022 after the first indictments in the scandal were handed down by the FBI and U.S. Attorney, and Walz placed blame on district court judge John Guthman for allegedly forcing the state to continue fraudulent payments.<\/p>\n

In what was\u00a0described by media outlets<\/a>\u00a0at the time as a \u201crare public rebuke,\u201d Guthman fired back at Walz accusing him of making \u201cinaccurate statements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Judge Guthman did that, then you saw Tim Walz and Keith Ellison try for someone else they could blame it on,\u201d Jensen told Fox News Digital. \u201cSo they blamed it on the FBI and said, \u2018Well, the FBI told us we had to keep paying because we\u2019re not supposed to interfere with their investigation.\u2019 And the FBI said, \u2018We didn\u2019t make you continue fraudulent payments to the Feeding Our Future agency.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The offices of Feeding Our Future on Jan. 27, 2022. AP<\/p>\n

Jensen told Fox News Digital that the \u201celephant in the room\u201d is what else will come out in the future about the \u201ccover up\u201d of the scandal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe underlying question has to be: is there something more nefarious than this?\u201d Jensen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there literally sequestration of funds that at some point in time could be paid back to people when things have calmed down? Is there some pay-to-play scheme that we haven\u2019t yet been informed about? That\u2019s what\u2019s really frightening, because if that\u2019s the case, then you have to, you have to ask yourself the question: will there be at some level a need for criminal prosecution to take place of some Minnesota elected officials?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith where it\u2019s gone from the beginning to now, recognizing that there\u2019s been an interest in covering this up, for many people it has some of the haunting reminders of Watergate,\u201d Jensen said. AP<\/p>\n

The welfare fraud controversy has received the attention of the federal government in recent days.<\/p>\n

The Small Business Administration\u00a0announced it is investigating\u00a0the network of Somali groups in Minnesota that it says are tied to the massive COVID fraud scandal highlighting alleged systemic failures by Walz\u2019s team to properly audit public funds.<\/p>\n

House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has claimed that \u201cbecause of Governor Walz\u2019s negligence, criminals \u2014 including Somali terrorists \u2014 stole nearly $1 billion from the program while children suffered.\u201d He is leading the probe into Walz\u2019s role in the Feeding Our Future scandal.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump also\u00a0recently announced\u00a0a flurry of new actions to crack down and investigate fraud schemes in Minnesota, which he has assailed as a \u201chub of money laundering activity,\u201d and cited as the basis of his decision to terminate deportation protections for hundreds of Somali migrants.<\/p>\n

Senior Trump administration officials announced fresh investigations this week, including a new Treasury Department probe into how taxpayer dollars were allegedly diverted to the terrorist organization al-Shabaab, according to Secretary Scott Bessent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWith where it\u2019s gone from the beginning to now, recognizing that there\u2019s been an interest in covering this up, for many people it has some of the haunting reminders of Watergate,\u201d Jensen told Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

House Oversight Chairman James Comer is leading the probe into Walz\u2019s role in the Feeding Our Future scandal. Star Tribune via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yet, in this way, this time, it could even be worse, because it\u2019s possible that there\u2019s something far more nefarious than simply covering something up. It could be a pay to play scheme that involves elected officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital asked Jensen, who ran against Walz in 2022, what he believes the governor\u2019s legacy is after two terms in office.<\/p>\n

\u201cTim Walz\u2019 legacy right now would be fraud at an unprecedented level, and I think from his policies, I think people would say he seemed to worship the ground that AOC and Bernie Sanders walked on,\u201d Jensen explained. \u201cHe went from someone who many people who knew him earlier in life thought of as a moderate person to a person who was literally living on the five-yard line of the hard left part of the Democratic field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital reached out to Walz\u2019s office for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the city of\u00a0Minneapolis\u00a0faces a $1 billion welfare scandal, Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Dr. Scott Jensen spoke to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6708,396,4801,9,11,10,6710,4371,30097,58,33256],"class_list":{"0":"post-62807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-covid-vaccine","9":"tag-fraud","10":"tag-minneapolis","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-pandemics","15":"tag-scandal","16":"tag-tim-walz","17":"tag-us-news","18":"tag-watergate"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62807","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=62807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}