We knew Tim Walz didn't care about the massive welfare fraud in Minnesota. Over the last year, stories have trickled out about how Walz not only turned a blind eye to all the stolen taxpayer money, but also actively tried to punish whistleblowers. His attorney general, Keith Ellison, was also elbows-deep in the corruption, meeting with the fraudsters on at least one occasion.

Now a new, damning report shows just how badly Walz, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, and Ellison performed in their basic duties.

According to Faircloth's report, Walz didn't act on the fraud until the summer of last year, following another federal raid of businesses tied to Minnesota's Medicaid program. It was only then that Walz and advisers met with acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson to "discuss how to tackle fraud, especially in Medicaid programs."

By 2025, Minnesota's fraud problem had persisted for years. This includes skyrocketing state spending on housing assistance, autism services, and other Medicaid-related programs.

Faircloth says that over hundreds of pages of testimony, a picture became clear: Walz's leadership style was to delegate to senior staff and others instead of getting involved with the programs his administration was tasked with managing.

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Walz took office in 2019 when state officials knew there were issues with two programs administered by the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS). One was the program that helped low-income families pay for childcare and the other was a program that provided non-emergency medical transportation. Then-DHS commissioner Toney Lourey, said he informed longtime Walz Chief of Staff Chris Schmitter of the problems.

According to Schmitter's testimony, agencies did not notify his office of individual fraud investigations because "that's not the level of granularity that the office generally can get into."

Schmitter also said he wouldn't go to Gov. Walz and inform him of fraud allegations on an ongoing basis.

This hands-off approach led directly to the handling of the $250 million fraud in the Feeding Our Future program. The Minnesota Department of Education (DOE) knew there were "irregularities" with the program in 2020. After stopping payments to the program, a judge ruled those payments had to resume until the "questionable conduct" was addressed.

Most of the Feeding Our Future fraudsters were Somalian, and the nonprofit used accusations of racism to thwart investigations by state regulators. State employees also told federal law enforcement that fear of lawsuits, coupled with accusations of racism, discouraged aggressive oversight.

Payments to the state's housing program ballooned from $3 million in 2020 to $108 million in 2024, and spending in the autism program skyrocketed from $6 million to $341 million.

Despite that, no one at DHS was alarmed. In fact, former DHS Assistant Commissioner Natasha Merz told another outlet in 2024 that the explosion in spending was "pretty consistent" with other programs.

"I don't think we were surprised or particularly disturbed by the rate of growth," she said. Other Walz staffers were unaware of the autism program's massive spending change.

U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said that the fraud in the state's Medicaid programs cost the state at least $18 billion since 2018, and more than half was fraud.

Exactly this. The Walz administration didn't drop the ball on this. They ignored it on purpose.

A keen-eyed reader also pointed out someone who was completely absent from this report: Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.

She's running for the U.S. Senate and they didn't want to derail her campaign.

No one believes that Walz and his administration "failed" to see the fraud. They saw it, and admitted they were cowed by accusations of racism and threats of lawsuits.

That's not leadership.