KSTP 5 Eyewitness News spotlights the massive defrauding of Minnesota state programs in the report “What the fraud?” The four-minute clip below has nothing that will be new to Power Line readers, but it flags the scope of the problem.
Former Acting United States Attorney Joe Thompson is the star of the clip. With the swearing-in of Dan Rosen as United States Attorney on October 10, Joe has accepted Dan’s appointment of him as First Assistant United States Attorney. He is still on the case. Speaking of what they have found so far, Joe speaks as Everyman: “Every time I think I’m too cynical I realize I think I’m not cynical enough.”
The 49-minute “special report” tells the larger story with more detail in a scattershot manner:
Food, housing, disability, addiction. Government services meant to help Minnesotans have been hijacked by criminals.
One after another, investigations into taxpayer-funded programs have uncovered evidence of fraud that could total billions. Federal prosecutors call it an “extraordinary” and “pervasive” problem in this state, saying, “every time we look under a rock, we find more.”
In “What the Fraud?” 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS delves into how the problem developed, what’s been done to correct the issue and what could come next.
I have posted the “What the Fraud?” below. “WTF?” indeed.
Anyone who has followed the underlying stories on Power Line will be frustrated by the indirection and self-imposed limitations of this report. Who did what to whom? Who wasn’t minding the store? Who invited the looting of the store? Is there a common thread that links these cases?
Eric Rasmussen takes up the Feeding Our Future case at about 13:30. Keith Ellison is noted to be pushing for tougher laws 18:35 As I say, “WTF?”
Tim Walz appears at about 23:00. Interested readers should take a look at Judge John Guthmann’s statement responding to Walz’s utterly characteristic move to blame him for the Feeding Our Future fiasco.
KSTP arbiter elegentiae and chief political reporter Tom Hauser interviewed Walz. According to Hauser, “Cracking down on state fraud remains a priority for Governor Tim Walz…”
“WTF?” To which I would add “OMG.” You have got to be kidding me. Diverting blame would be more like it.
Walz implied to Hauser that his administration lacked sufficient resources to take a look at any given fraudulent Feeding Our Future site, although there were several within a few miles of the capitol. Walz seems to claim credit for the successful investigation of frauds conducted by the FBI the United States Attorney. They’re getting on top of it. As always, he’s talking as fast as he can. (I submitted my own questions to Walz twice this past March. The second time they asked me to submit my questions to a different email address, though they failed to responded either time.)
Please forgive the self-reference, but I have tried to tell the story somewhat more bluntly in the City Journal column “Mogadishu, Minnesota,” in the Free Beacon column “From Feeding the Kids to Fleecing the Government: Inside the Country’s Largest COVID Fraud,” in the New York Post column “Vast fraud of Somali migrants, starting with Ilhan Omar, finally being exposed,” in my “Feeding Our Fraud” trial reports, and in subsequent Power Line posts including “The fraud this time.”
