Congressional report finds Minnesota officials were more concerned about bad press than fraud

A congressional investigation into Minnesota’s exploding fraud scandals delivered a stunning — yet to many, unsurprising — conclusion: senior state officials were aware of widespread fraud for years but only appeared to become seriously concerned once they feared the scandal would become a public relations disaster.

“Concern among senior officials within DHS only arose after they recognized it would receive negative media attention,” the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wrote in its executive summary released Monday.

That finding was part of the committee’s 205-page report that describes years of state inaction under Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison while billions in taxpayer-funded fraud allegedly flourished across Minnesota social service programs.

“The Committee’s investigation found that senior officials in Minnesota state government, including Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison, were aware of widespread fraud in federally funded social services programs for years, possessed the legal and procedural authority to stop payments and ban fraudulent providers from participating in these programs, but repeatedly failed to act,” the report states.

The report, titled “The Cost of Doing Nothing: How Tim Walz and Keith Ellison Fueled Minnesota’s Fraud Explosion,” alleges that state leaders became more alarmed about political fallout and media scrutiny than the fraud itself.

“The Walz Administration was more concerned about getting ahead of media reports about fraud than rooting out actual fraud to protect taxpayer dollars,” the report says.

The committee wrote that billions in taxpayer dollars were potentially lost while “vulnerable populations were harmed and whistleblowers were ignored, sidelined, and retaliated against.”