It’s a little bit way too late, and it certainly didn’t happen while Tim Walz was running to be Vice-President of our country, but ‘The New York Times’ is finally calling Tim Walz out for overseeing massive fraud in his state.
A damning quote on Tim Walz’s failure to stop the fraud consuming Minnesota.
“No one was doing anything about the red flags,” he said. “It was like someone was stealing money from the cookie jar and they kept refilling it.”
WOW. pic.twitter.com/jRLvSZ9HVa
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) November 29, 2025
The fraud scandal that rattled Minnesota was staggering in its scale and brazenness.
Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program meant to keep children fed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
At first, many in the state saw the case as a one-off abuse during a health emergency. But as new schemes targeting the state’s generous safety net programs came to light, state and federal officials began to grapple with a jarring reality.
Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.
Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating. That is more than Minnesota spends annually to run its Department of Corrections. Minnesota’s fraud scandal stood out even in the context of rampant theft during the pandemic, when Americans stole tens of billions through unemployment benefits, business loans and other forms of aid, according to federal auditors.
Outrage has swelled among Minnesotans, and fraud has turned into a potent political issue in a competitive campaign season. Gov. Tim Walz and fellow Democrats are being asked to explain how so much money was stolen on their watch, providing Republicans, who hope to take back the governor’s office in 2026, with a powerful line of attack.
In recent days, President Trump has weighed in, calling Minnesota “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” and saying that Somali perpetrators should be sent “back to where they came from.”
Many Somali Americans in Minnesota say the fraud has damaged the reputation of their entire community, around 80,000 people, at a moment when their political and economic standing was on the rise.
Debate over the fraud has opened new rifts between the state’s Somali community and other Minnesotans, and has left some Somali Americans saying they are unfairly facing a new layer of suspicion against all of them, rather than the small group accused of fraud. Critics of the Walz administration say that the fraud persisted partly because state officials were fearful of alienating the Somali community in Minnesota. Governor Walz, who has instituted new fraud-prevention safeguards, defended his administration’s actions.
The episode has raised broader questions for some residents about the sustainability of Minnesota’s Scandinavian-modeled system of robust safety net programs bankrolled by high taxes. That system helped create an environment that drew immigrants to the state over many decades, including tens of thousands of Somali refugees after their country descended into civil war in the 1990s.
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High trust societies require its people to have standards and morals. Something went really wrong here.
A few years late, but credit to the NYT for finally covering the extensive fraud schemes in Minnesota under Tim Walz. https://t.co/Der3pq6rSv https://t.co/CuU3GgRkoP pic.twitter.com/uOU9WY2m5F
— AG (@AGHamilton29) November 29, 2025
The fraud is so rampant and so much harm has been done.
Reminds me of the Pigford fraud that the right (including yours truly) wrote about for years–T.N. Coates called me a racist in a piece entitled “NR Writer: Somewhere, a Black Person Is Getting Away With Something”–before the Times rehashed our reporting and said, yup. https://t.co/o8ddWFIrE0
— Foster (@foster_type) November 29, 2025
Charlatans use the race card to keep people from checking their work.
How does the left deny this now that even the NYT reports how bad it is? https://t.co/yd6NPQakeM
— The New Englander (@RBerestka) November 29, 2025
Now, they’ll move on to pretending it never happened.
Well reported, with many honest quotes in it.
— Brandon (@Amb8819) November 29, 2025
Really, I’m surprised they covered it at all. I have to assume one of his (D) enemies wanted this to be out there. Typically, the NYT would just not report on it, like it didn’t happen.
— CD74 (@ComputerDad74) November 29, 2025
Wait until you hear about the Housing Stabilization fraud committed by Somalis in MN.
According to the US Attorney in MN it is well over $1 BILLION in Minnesota taxpayer dollars stolen by Somalis and most sent back to Somali (they believe).
— Justin Redalen (@Justinredalen) November 29, 2025
Minnesota taxpayers were robbed blind and they didn’t even know it.
I still don’t get how this guy was even remotely the best option for VP
— Will Duffy (@willmduff) November 29, 2025
Because the other option was a Jewish guy and the Left hates Israel and Jewish people.
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