A leading U.S. House committee and the Treasury Department have opened parallel investigations into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s alleged role in a “massive fraud” scheme involving Somali immigrants accused of siphoning over $1 billion in taxpayer funds, officials confirmed Monday, the New York Post reports.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) told The Post that his committee “will conduct a thorough investigation into Governor Walz’s failure to safeguard taxpayer dollars.”
According to Comer, Walz was alerted to extensive fraud within a pandemic food-aid program for children but did not take action. Instead, he explained, those who reported their concerns faced retaliation.
“Because of Governor Walz’s negligence, criminals — including Somali terrorists — stole nearly $1 billion from the program while children suffered,” Comer said.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has already convicted 59 individuals in the scheme, according to The Post.
On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on X that he had ordered an investigation into what he described as “the feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz,” claiming their failures allowed taxpayer money to be diverted to the terrorist group Al-Shabaab.
The concern has been on the radar of House Republicans who have been investigating Governor Walz and Minnesota’s oversight of relief programs for several months. According to The Post, last year, Republican members of the House Education and Workforce Committee issued a subpoena to Walz for related records, though it remains unclear whether his office provided any documents in response.
The House Oversight probe follows prosecutions of 78 “scammers,” many with Somali ties, accused of stealing millions from Minnesota taxpayers through the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme. Prosecutors say state funds meant to feed schoolchildren were funneled from agencies like Human Services and Education into fake meal programs. Instead of helping kids, the money financed luxury cars, real estate, and overseas properties between 2020 and 2022.
According to The Post, “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.”
On Saturday, a whistleblower account on X—claiming to represent 500 employees from Minnesota’s Department of Human Services—criticized Governor Tim Walz, calling him “100% responsible” for the fraud. The account posted that the department had alerted Walz to the issue early on, seeking cooperation to stop it, but received the “opposite response.”
According to The Post, Walz, who is now seeking a third term, told the Minnesota Reformer that he learned of the nonprofit’s suspicious activities as early as November 2020. Around that time, the Minnesota Department of Education began taking steps to halt payments to Feeding Our Future, but, The Post reports, “Walz let the payments flow again after Feeding Our Future sued the department for alleged racial discrimination.”