RealClearPolitics has posted the video and transcript of CMS administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz reporting from the Griggs-Midway Building at the corner of University and Fairview in St. Paul. Originally a canning factory and candy and cracker manufacturing facility, the building was reportedly the world’s largest canning factory when built. The main building was converted to office use in 1955 when Griggs Cooper ceased major operations there. Chuck Griggs, a descendant of the family that gave its name to the building, was my high school classmate.
The building has fallen on hard times. In “The curious case of 1821 University Avenue,” Bill Glahn found that it could claim to be the site with the largest free-food capacity in the Feeding Our Future case. With ten “sites” in the complex, it had a maximum capacity to serve 11,000 children a day. Impressive, in a sense.
After the Feeding Our Future case “went overt” with the execution of search warrants all over the Twin Cities in January 2022, (alleged) vendors of Medicaid services including pioneers in Minnesota’s late Housing Stabilization Services program opened up shop in the building. The HSS and other “waivered” Medicaid programs made for a cesspool of fraud. Like the operators of the Feeding Ouf Future sites at the building, the cast of vendors was mostly Somali. For an overview, if I may repeat myself, see my Imprimis essay “Learning From Minnesota’s Somali Fraud Scandal.”
In July 2025, the FBI raided offices of the (alleged) HSS providers. We covered the raid in “Another massive Minnesota fraud.” The fraud was so gross that Governor Walz subsequently killed the program. HSS, RIP. In the video below Dr. Oz decries the use of the Griggs-Midway Building by Medicaid fraudsters.
HOLY SMOKES. Trump officials Dr. Oz and Jim O'Neill just dropped a Minnesota BOMBSHELL: They found a former linen factory transformed into 400 Medicaid businesses to generate nearly half a BILLION DOLLARS
To repeat, 400 Medicaid businesses in one building. IT'S FRAUD!
"Why… pic.twitter.com/7BphX93ZpY
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 23, 2026
