Vice President J.D. Vance said he is referring Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison to the Justice Department for a criminal fraud investigation involving federal dollars sent to social service programs.
“Minnesota state officials are not above the law and if they facilitated fraud, lied under oath about what they knew or harassed and intimidated whistleblowers, they must face Justice,” Mr. Vance wrote Monday on X.
Mr. Vance, the administration’s fraud czar, said he was making the referral after reviewing the findings from the House Oversight Committee.
The committee’s report, published Monday, alleges that Mr. Walz and Mr. Ellison were “aware of widespread taxpayer fraud in federally funded social programs for years” and did not take steps to stop it.
An estimated $300 million in federal child nutrition funds and potentially $9 billion in Medicaid-related funds were “lost” or placed at “serious risk,” according to the report.
“As a result, potentially billions of American taxpayer dollars were allowed to flow to fraudulent actors, while vulnerable populations were harmed and whistleblowers were ignored, sidelined and retaliated against,” the report says.
Mr. Walz and Mr. Ellison, both Democrats, did not respond to requests for comments.
Both have insisted they did nothing wrong, and Mr. Walz has labeled the fraud investigations as political retribution and called the White House’s efforts to stop fraud as “absolutely not serious.”
“Trump is weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota,” Mr. Walz said earlier this year on X.
The committee wrote a letter on Sunday urging Mr. Vance to review Minnesota’s social service programs.
Mr. Vance was named head of the White House’s anti-fraud task force in February after President Trump declared “war on fraud” in his State of the Union address. Shortly after the announcement, the White House paused $259.5 million in Medicaid funds to Minnesota.
Mr. Walz responded with legislation that bolstered penalties for public fraud and extended the statute of limitations to seven years for certain fraud-related crimes.
Mr. Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president, announced in January he won’t seek reelection for governor amid the fraud scandal.
Minnesota came under federal scrutiny this year after allegations of fraud involving Somali-run daycare centers. The state said in January that the childcare facilities at the center of those allegations were properly operating.
Federal law enforcement agencies in April conducted a series of raids related to allegations of welfare fraud under what the Department of Homeland Security said were search warrants “relating to the rampant fraud of American taxpayer dollars.”
Mr. Walz hailed the raids, which were carried out alongside authorities in Minnesota, saying that people who commit fraud in the North Star State will get caught.
The referral marks the second time the Trump Justice Department opened an investigation into Mr. Walz.
In January, the DOJ launched a probe into Mr. Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, alleging they conspired to impede federal immigration enforcement through public statements. The investigation came after immigration officers surged into Minneapolis, leading to protests and federal agents’ killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
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