The House Education and Workforce Committee subpoenaed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Wednesday for records related to a $250 million COVID-19 relief fraud scheme that occurred on his watch.
Walz, 60, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, was ordered to hand over any documents about the scandal, which involved pandemic relief funds being distributed via “the Minnesota Department of Education’s (MDE) administration of federal child nutrition programs (FCNP).”
Rather than nourishing hungry children, however, the money funded lavish lifestyles — including fancy cars and real estate holdings as far away as Turkey and Kenya — for the operators of a fraudulent Minneapolis-based nonprofit, Feeding Our Future.
State agencies were tasked with administering the funds and then submitting reimbursement claims to the USDA.
“The Committee must now compel the production of responsive documents that will show the extent of the actions taken by you and your administration relating to MDE’s administration of the FCNP and the extent of your responsibilities and actions addressing the massive fraud that resulted in the abuse of taxpayer dollars intended for hungry children,” Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said in a letter accompanying the subpoena.
NBC News first reported on the subpoena to Walz, as well as those issued to the Minnesota Department of Education and the USDA.
At least 70 people were initially charged for their involvement in the “depraved and brazen” gambit, as one prosecutor put it, between April 2020 and January 2022, when the FBI conducted raids of the fake nonprofit.
Only five have since been convicted in what has since been called the “largest COVID-19 fraud scheme in the nation.”
According to a June audit by the Minnesota legislature, MDE “created opportunities for fraud” and maintained “inadequate oversight” during the roughly two-year period it was shelling out the money.
The department also “failed to act on warning signs known to the department prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and prior to the start of the alleged fraud” by Feeding Our Future. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Anthony Souffle/Star Tribune via AP |
The latest “shocker” of the COVID relief funding scandal involving tax dollars going toward fraudulent purchases comes from Baltimore, where a pastor admitted he blew $3.5 million of yours and my money on luxury cars, and a home and various retail and grocery items.
But that’s “shocker” in quotation marks. It’s really not surprising at all. Whenever government gets involved in taking tax dollars from one to give to another, the system goes bust. Government is not just a lousy manager of money. Government is totally unconcerned about its lousy money management skills because the members of government are too busy using that money to buy up votes and maintain power.
The second that the COVID relief funds were announced, all the greedy socialist-minded in America went yayyy! — and all the hard-working non-socialist-minded in America groaned at the immediate awareness that fraud was a’ comin’.
Boy, did it come.
“At least $276 billion designated as ‘COVID-19 relief funding’ was lost via ‘fraud’ and ‘waste,’ according to cumulative estimates from the inspectors general of the Labor Department, Treasury Department and Small Business Administration shared … [during] testimony before a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee in Washington, D.C.,” Breitbart wrote in March of 2023.
And now the headlines are ringing with the government’s recovery of millions.
That’s called Financing 101 to bureaucrats. Lose billions — lose hundreds of billions. Recover millions. Pat self on back for recovering millions. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
“Maryland Man Sentenced For Fraudulently Obtaining More Than $3.5 Million In Covid-19 Cares Act Loans,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland reported a few days ago about the case of the thieving pastor, Rudolph Brooks, 48, of Cheltenham, Maryland.
“The Department of Justice’s COVID-19 Enforcement Task Force 2024 Report: A Continued Commitment to Combatting COVID-19-Related Fraud,” the law firm of Epstein, Becker and Green wrote just this week. --->READ MORE HERE
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