House Oversight Committee majority staff report alleges Walz, Ellison ignored fraud warnings in Minnesota social services programs

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform majority released a 205-page staff report on June 8, 2026, alleging that Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison and their administrations repeatedly failed to halt fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs despite, the report says, repeated warnings elevated to senior officials. The report, titled “The Cost of Doing Nothing: How Tim Walz and Keith Ellison Fueled Minnesota’s Fraud Explosion,” was issued by House oversight majority staff.

According to the staff report executive summary, the committee says its investigation found Walz and Ellison’s offices were aware of widespread fraud concerns in federally funded social services programs “for years,” had legal and procedural authority to stop payments and ban providers, and “repeatedly failed to act,” resulting in what the report calls potentially billions in taxpayer dollars being paid to “fraudulent actors.” The report also says its investigation identified a pattern in which corrective actions were delayed or avoided after red flags emerged, and that whistleblowers were ignored, sidelined, and retaliated against.

The report says the House committee’s investigation was launched in December 2025 and included requests for documents and communications. It states that formal requests were sent on December 3, 2025 to Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison, and that the offices responded on December 17, 2025 by producing limited and incomplete sets of documents, according to the report. The committee also describes transcribed interviews with multiple current and former Minnesota officials.

In its background section, the report describes an evolving federal enforcement picture and Minnesota program oversight design. It says that since 2022, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota brought charges against at least 113 individuals in relation to fraud in Minnesota, “the vast majority” from Minnesota’s Somali community, and that at least 64 had pled guilty or been convicted. The report further says that, based on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services claims data, 14 Minnesota Medicaid programs designated “high-risk” due to significant fraud have cost taxpayers more than $18 billion since 2018, including $3.5 billion in 2024, and that the U.S. attorney’s office suspects that half or more of those expenditures were fraudulent.

The staff report highlights alleged long-running issues in child nutrition and Medicaid-related programs. It says Feeding Our Future (FOF), a nonprofit that sponsored meal sites, was alleged to have overstated the number of meals provided, and that the state continued payments after identifying “serious program deficiencies,” describing the continued payments as a voluntary state action not tied to a court order to resume payments. The report asserts that the state’s continuation allowed funds to continue for another eight months until the FBI executed a search warrant at FOF’s offices, and it estimates $300 million in federal child nutrition funds and potentially $9 billion in Medicaid-related funds were lost or placed at serious risk.

On retaliation and internal governance, the report asserts that rather than trying to stop widespread fraud, Walz’s administration retaliated against employees who raised concerns, describing intimidation through regular check-ins with high-level agency officials and threats of surveillance. The report also says senior officials’ concern within Minnesota’s Department of Human Services arose only after, according to the committee, they recognized the risk of negative media attention.

The report’s executive summary includes what it calls next steps, saying it is “imperative” for President Trump’s Anti-Fraud Task Force, the Department of Justice, and other law enforcement and regulatory agencies to conduct a thorough review of Minnesota’s social services program reimbursements and provider enrollment from 2019 to the present. It also says legislative efforts at the federal level are necessary to create new safeguards against fraud and preventable waste, adding that the committee’s investigation remains ongoing.