Tim Walz and Keith Ellison are testifying this morning before the House Oversight Committee on fraud in Minnesota’s federally funded welfare programs. This will, to some degree, put Minnesota fraud back in the news. I am on vacation and don’t plan to watch the testimony, but Bill Glahn likely is doing so.
[Bill: Yes, I am watching the hearing live here. Democrats will only talk about Operation Metro Surge and ICE. They are refusing to talk about fraud.]
This morning, the House committee also released a preliminary report on its investigation into fraud in Minnesota welfare programs. You can read Chairman Comer’s press release and click through to read the actual report here.
Having quickly skimmed the report, it repeats some of what we already knew about the multiple Walz administration scandals. Investigators interviewed a number of employees in the state bureaucracy, whose testimony is helpful but doesn’t seem to break new ground.
Many people from around the country have asked my why Tim Walz has not been arrested. The answer is that incompetence is not a crime. Nor, as far as I know, is looking the other way while fraud is being committed, which Walz, Ellison and others obviously did. The only potential crime I am aware of in Walz’s conduct would be retaliation against whistleblowers. Such retaliation has been rumored, but I am not aware of any hard evidence.
Today’s House report refers to this question, but it does not contain any evidence of such retaliation, let alone connect it directly to Governor Walz. So I don’t think it adds anything material to our understanding of the scandals. I doubt that today’s hearing will produce anything new either, although there could be entertainment value.
