GOP candidate calls Minnesota welfare fraud ‘worse than Watergate’

As the city of Minneapolis faces a billion-dollar social scandal, Republican candidate for Minnesota governor Dr. Scott Jensen spoke to Fox News Digital about his belief that Governor Tim Walz is not only directly responsible for the controversy, but suggested a “cover-up” that is “worse than Watergate” is at play.

Walz’s role in what prosecutors called largest fraud scheme related to COVID-19 in the country, stemming from allegations that Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future and its associates defrauded federal child nutrition programs out of hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-19 aid, has been a major talking point in the gubernatorial race in recent weeks.

“In Minnesota, I don’t think there’s any other way to cut spending than to say the buck has to stop somewhere,” Jensen told Fox News Digital. “And it has always been that the buck stops with the governor’s office. Arguably the governor is the CEO of the state of Minnesota and the business of government. And Tim Walz has neglected to carry out his duties, and he has absolutely corrupted common sense.”

The failing, Jensen said, is evident when looking at a timeline that he says shows Walz knew about the Feeding Our Future fraud much earlier than he admitted and then misled Minnesotans about his administration’s response.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks with Star Tribune reporters in his office at the state Capitol in St. Paul, Dec. 12, 2024. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

“Tim Walz and the Minnesota Department of Education knew in 2020 that there was a problem…but they didn’t get the FBI involved until 2021,” Jensen said. “And yet they claimed that as soon as they found out about it, they involved the FBI. That’s not true. Their timeline is a year out.”

Jensen argues that this delay is not simply due to mismanagement, but is part of a broader pattern of misappropriation and dishonesty on the part of the governor’s office.

“At the end of the day, he showed a very skillful approach to deflecting, so he’s not being honest,” Jensen said.

Jensen cited several examples of Walz’s actions that he sees as shifting blame to others, including in 2022 after the first indictments in the scandal were issued by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney, and Walz blamed District Court Judge John Guthman for allegedly forcing the state to pursue fraudulent payments.

In what was described by the media At the time, as a “rare public reprimand,” Guthman fired back against Walz, accusing him of making “inaccurate statements.”

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Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen. (AP Photo/Nicole Neri)

“When Judge Guthman did that, you saw Tim Walz and Keith Ellison trying to find someone else who they could blame,” Jensen told Fox News Digital. “So they blamed it on the FBI and said, ‘Well, the FBI told us we have to keep paying because we’re not supposed to interfere with their investigation.’ And the FBI said, “We did not force you to continue making fraudulent payments to Feeding Our Future. »

Jensen told Fox News Digital that the “elephant in the room” is what will come out in the future about the “cover-up” of the scandal.

“The underlying question must be: Is there anything more nefarious than this?” Jensen said.

“Is there literally a sequestration of funds that at some point might be refunded to people when things calm down? Is there a pay-to-play system that we haven’t been made aware of yet? That’s what’s really scary, because if that’s the case, then you have to ask the question: Is there going to be, on some level, a need for criminal charges against some elected officials in Minnesota?”

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A view of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, at dusk. (Ariana Lindquist/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The welfare fraud controversy has captured federal attention in recent days.

Small Business Administration announced that it was investigating the network of Somali groups in Minnesota that they say are linked to the massive COVID fraud scandal, highlighting alleged systemic failures by Walz’s team in properly auditing public funds.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., claimed that “because of Governor Walz’s negligence, criminals — including Somali terrorists — stole nearly a billion dollars from the program while children suffered.” He is leading the investigation into Walz’s role in the Feeding Our Future scandal.

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President Donald Trump also recently announced a series of new measures aimed at cracking down and investigating fraud schemes in Minnesota, which he called a “hub of money laundering activity” and which he cited as the basis for his decision to end deportation protections for hundreds of Somali migrants.

Senior Trump administration officials announced new investigations this week, including a new Treasury Department probe into how taxpayer dollars were allegedly diverted to the al-Shabaab terrorist organization, according to Secretary Scott Bessent.

“Given what’s happened from the beginning to today, recognizing that there was an interest in covering this up, for a lot of people it brings back some of the haunting reminders of Watergate,” Jensen told Fox News Digital.

“And yet, this way, this time, it could be even worse, because it’s possible that there is something much more nefarious than just covering something up. It could be a paid scheme involving elected officials.”

Fox News Digital asked Jensen, who ran against Walz in 2022, what he thought of the governor’s legacy after two terms.

“Tim Walz’s current legacy would be fraud on an unprecedented level, and I think based on his politics, people would say that he seemed to revere the ground that AOC and Bernie Sanders walked on,” Jensen explained. “He went from someone who many people who knew him earlier in his life considered to be a moderate person to someone who literally lived on the five-yard line of the far left of the Democratic field.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to Walz’s office for comment.

Deirdre Heavey and Breanne Deppisch of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.