Authored by Kristin Robbins via RealClearPolitics,

In my testimony before the Senate last week as chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and Oversight Committee, I outlined the genesis of Minnesota’s massive fraud scandal,how it expanded under relaxed COVID-era rules, and what steps the federal government can take to help stop the theft of federal tax dollars throughout the country.

Minnesota’s fraud crisis didn’t happen overnight; it took years. But it exploded when COVID hit, right when oversight was thrown out the window.

How did Minnesota get so bad?In March 2020, Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar authored a bill called the MEALS Act, which eventually became part of a larger COVID relief package. That law allowed states to waive the normal eligibility requirements for the National School Lunch Program. It eliminated income requirements and site inspections and expanded distribution methods.This opened the door for Feeding Our Future, which became the largest COVID fraud scandal in state and national history,stealing at least $250 million from taxpayers. To date, there have been 78 indictments and 61 convictions, with more cases headed to trial this spring.

This was organized, deliberate theft, enabled by weak controls, refusal to take multiple reports of fraud from whistleblowers and the legislative auditor seriously, and a government culture that refused to treat fraud like a crime.

The Feeding Our Future case revealed something even more disturbing: As many ashalfof the defendants were also receiving state money through other Medicaid-funded programs. But even after that became public back in 2023, Tim Walz and his agencies did nothing to stop those defendants from receiving additional state dollars.

Billions of federal COVID dollars didn’t start the staggering fraud in Minnesota, but that did supercharge a system that had already been compromised.

The original fraud scandal was tied to the Child Care Assistance Program, a federal program meant to help low-income families with children. There had been allegations of fraud reported with CCAP since 2011. By 2014 and 2015, there were raids, charges, and convictions of child care providers for billing non-existent or absent children, often exceeding $1 million in fraud in a single case.

Then in March and April of 2019, just months into the Walz administration, the legislative auditor published two major reports outlining CCAP fraud. Those reports detailed fraudulent providers and alleged movement of millions of dollars in cash out of Minnesota to Somalia, including allegations that some of that money was funding terrorism.

Whistleblowers have told us that shortly after those reports were released, the Department of Human Services shut down the criminal investigation unit for child care fraud.

Source: ZeroHedge News