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EXCLUSIVE: The highest-ranking Minnesotan in Congress is demanding accountability for anyone who was involved in or aware of the growing social services fraud scandal in the Gopher State.
“I think as they start to peel this onion back, which just seems to be getting deeper and deeper and broader and broader, whoever was responsible needs to be held accountable,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, the No. 3 House Republican, told Fox News Digital.
It comes after U.S. attorneys suggested that Minnesota social services programs could have seen potentially billions of dollars’ worth of fraud and abuse since 2018.
COMER SUMMONS MINNESOTA OFFICIALS AS HOUSE PROBES MASSIVE SOCIAL SERVICES FRAUD
Top state officials like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have heaped doubt on the size and scope floated by federal authorities, though Walz has said he has been working to crack down on the millions of dollars’ worth of fraud that has been detected.
Emmer stopped short of calling for Walz to resign when asked by Fox News Digital, stating, “I don’t think that’s my call,” but said anyone found to be culpable in the scandal should be held accountable.
“I would put it this way — everyone is entitled to due process, and we need all the facts. But if someone knowingly and willingly allowed people to steal the taxpayers’ money and send it back to terrorists in Somalia, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” he said.
Federal prosecutors in Minnesota have charged multiple people with stealing more than $240 million from the Federal Child Nutrition Program through the Minnesota-based nonprofit Feeding Our Future.
HHS PROBES MINNESOTA’S USE OF BILLIONS IN FEDERAL SOCIAL SERVICE FUNDS AMID FRAUD CONCERNS: REPORT
The nonprofit’s founder, Aimee Bock, was found guilty of multiple counts related to fraud in a trial earlier this year.
The probe has since widened to multiple state-run programs being investigated for potential fraud, however.
“This thing is mushrooming into a much bigger fraud issue spanning over several different programs and potentially different jurisdictions,” Emmer said. “As this thing mushrooms, number one, let’s make sure we hold the people accountable. I will tell you what I believe. My personal opinion is there is no way that a billion dollars-plus got its way out of the Walz administration without someone in the administration being aware and/or complicit.”
“That’s what we need to find out — how high does that go? According to our U.S. attorney, it goes to the highest level of Minnesota government. He didn’t use names, but I know what the highest level is. We’ll see. Let’s see the proof.”
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Walz, who is running for a third term, took accountability in remarks to reporters on Friday: “This is on my watch. I am accountable for this. And more importantly, I am the one that will fix it.”
But he questioned whether federal prosecutors’ accusations that the fraud could have totaled in the billions were politically motivated.
“You should be equally outraged about $1 or whatever that number is, but they’re using that number without the proof behind it,” Walz said. “But to extrapolate what that number is for sensationalism, or to make statements about it, it doesn’t really help us.”
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