“Oversight of Fraud and Misuse of Federal Funds in Minnesota: Part II”

You ready? Ready. The hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order. I wanna welcome everyone here today. Without objection, the chair may declare recess at any time. I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening Good morning. Today's hearing is about a failure of leadership, plain and simple. For years, Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison presided over one of the most extensive breakdowns of oversight this committee has ever examined. Billions of taxpayer dollars were stolen from social service programs while warnings piled up whistleblowers spoke out and state officials chose delay and denial over action. Federal prosecutors estimate that as much as nine billion dollars may have been stolen from just fourteen Medicaid programs administered by the state of Minnesota. Those programs have cost taxpayers more than eighteen billion dollars since twenty eighteen, and investigators believe that half or more of that spending may have been lost to fraud. That did not happen overnight. As our investigation has shown, it happened because state leadership failed, repeatedly to intervene. Governor Walz has claimed his administration addressed fraud, and I quote, " very early," unquote. But that claim does not hold up to the facts. His administration kept payments flowing. In January, the first hearing of this series, we heard from Minnesota state representatives who made clear this fraud was not hidden. It was known, documented, and repeatedly brought to the attention of state leadership. In case after case, State agencies identified red flags and received warnings from auditors and employees, but continued to send money out the door. Not because they lacked authority to intervene, but because they feared lawsuits, bad press, and political backlash. While Governor Walz hesitated, taxpayers lost billions. Attorney General Ellison has likewise claimed his office was aggressively holding fraudsters accountable. But when his statements were In the Feeding Our Future case, Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison publicly suggested that courts forced the state to continue payments. The judges in that case took the extraordinary step of publicly correcting them. The truth is the state made a choice once again to keep sending the money out the door. The Feeding Our Future scandal alone involved nearly three hundred million dollars, stolen from programs meant to feed children. During the pandemic, we're talking about fake invoices, meals that never existed, luxury cars and overseas investments, all paid by the American taxpayer. Today, dozens have been convicted, the fraud was real, the warning signs were obvious, and state leadership failed to act. The same pattern repeats across Minnesota's social services system. In the child care assistance program, providers racked up dozens and in some cases more Violations and still collected millions. Facilities shut down and reopened the same day under new names at the same address. This went on for years. Housing stabilization systems, uh housing stabilization services, a program expected to cost two point six million dollars annually exploded to over a hundred million dollars a year. Federal prosecutors have described it as, and I quote, " Easy money." Providers built services never delivered while the Wallace administration failed to intervene until federal agents showed up. And when state employees tried to stop this, they were silenced and retaliated against for even daring to notice the fraud. We have spoken with over thirty whistleblowers, many of them current employees and Democrats, who say they were ignored, retaliated against, and even surveilled for raising concerns. Instead of protecting the whistleblowers, the Wallace administration protected the system. that enabled the fraud. We're taking oversight of fraud seriously. And today I hope the Democrats will do the same. But their track record is not promising. We followed up with the whistleblowers when state leaders ignored them. Republican staff spent thirty-six hours and forty-six minutes in nine transcribed interviews with current and former Minnesota state officials. Democrats, however, only asked three hours and fourteen minutes worth of questions. That's inexcusable and frankly embarrassing. Taxpayers deserve better. We are working with the Trump administration, which has taken a whole of government approach to stop fraud before money is stolen. What we've uncovered in Minnesota is not a paperwork error or a few bad actors slipping through the cracks. It is sustained failure of leadership. Governor Walts and Attorney General Ellison were warned repeatedly. Auditors raised red flags. Employees sounded alarms. Invoices didn't make sense, and still the money kept blowing. While state officials hesitated, billions of taxpayer dollars were stolen from programs meant to serve children, the disabled, and families in crisis. While whistleblowers were silenced, fraudsters got rich. Accountability shouldn't begin only after federal prosecutors step in and clean up the damage. A compa- accountability should compel leaders to act And here they did not. Today this committee expects answers and we expect an explanation for why it took federal law enforcement not state leadership to finally turn off the spigot. Before we proceed I'd like to ask you now to enter the committee's interim staff report titled "The Cost of Doing Nothing: How Tim Walz and Keith Ellison Fueled Minnesota's Fraud Explosion." End of the record. Without objection, so ordered. And with that, I now yield the ranking member Garcia for his opening statement.

Thank you, Chairman Kilmer. I wanna thank of course the governor for being here today, uh the Attorney General as well, and to Reverend Mariah Tolgaard, thank you so much for being here. I especially though wanna thank the Minnesotans that I know have traveled, uh here to be with us today, uh to witness this hearing but also uh in solidarity of the horrors and terrors that are happening not just in Minnesota but that have happened across the country. Now we look forward to hearing directly on what life in Minnesota has been like thanks to the Trump administration's actions. And the truth is that Donald Trump and Republicans have cut billions of dollars, billions of dollars from health care and food assistance. That is a reality. Instead, with that money they have used it to hire officers who are now terrorizing cities and killing Americans. That's where our taxpayer dollars have gone. We've taken from food assistance, we've taken from health care, and we superfunded terror on American streets. Now, Donald Trump has unleashed chaos against innocent Americans and across Minnesota and we're gonna talk about that today. Terror that has actually impacted real families and kids, like Liam Ramos, who have been used as we know, as bait. And we all know Liam's story really well. The reality is American citizens, innocent kids, people have been brutalized and ripped away from their families. They've been thrown into detention centers with horrible conditions that people are literally dying in these centers. Peaceful Americans have been killed by federal officers and agents, and labeled them as domestic terrorists or assassins by their own government. Where is the hearing and the outrage for those actions? Now, Alex Prettie, as we all know, a VA nurse, was peacefully exercising his first and second amendment rights when he was pepper sprayed, tackled, disarmed and then shot repeatedly in the back. Renee Good, a mom who told an officer and I quote, " I'm not mad at you." End quote, was shot dead. Just moments after. And this pattern of violence and lawlessness, we've seen of course all over the country. Now our committee and Democrats have documented over five hundred and ninety cases of suspected misconduct by President Trump and Kristi Noem's immigration and enforcement agents across the country, not just in Minnesota. There's been two hundred and forty incidents of violence or concerning use of force, and a hundred and eighty-one have involved United States citizens. Now we've heard testimony that ISIS training has actually completely changed and now it actually teaches our agents to violate the rights of American citizens. That's what we're teaching now to federal agents. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. DHS and ICE are out of control and must be held accountable by the Congress. Now oversight Democrats have been partnering to hold hearings to investigate these abuses to hold DHS secretary accountable Stephen Miller, Greg Bovino and make no mistake, this is Donald Trump's personal police and military force he is unleashing on American streets. Now the hearing that we have today is gonna build on those investigations. Operation Metro Surge, which we're gonna hear a lot about today. This is really about not just what's happening in Minnesota through that operation, but the ways that President Trump has waged his own personal war on Minnesota. Instead of improving systems, of course, we're talking about fraud, according to our Republican colleagues. But instead of improving systems to prevent future fraud, Trump's also cut off two hundred and fifty-nine million dollars in Medicaid funding to the state. He's threatened federal food aid for six hundred thousand Minnesotans, including two hundred thousand kids. President Trump has tried to use fraud as his excuse for all of this. But what's really happening is violence, terror, death, destruction, and ripping away services from those that need it. You don't fight fraud by issuing presidential pardons to fraudsters. You don't fight fraud from ripping away food assistance to kids. Now since his reelection, Trump has also given out jail or free cards to dozens of actual real fraudsters who could get out of repaying their victims more than one billion dollars. Where is the fraud hearing on those abuses? And we know that you just don't fight fraud by singling out states led by Democrats, and ignoring states led by Republicans. Every single person here, and I know the governor and the attorney general believe this as well, we all want to fra- fight fraud, waste, and abuse in government. Oklahoma, by the way, and Alabama lead the nation in snap fraud. In Texas and Florida, a Russian citizen has been arrested for submitting billions of dollars in fraudulent claims and funneling millions overseas. Where are those hearings? Where is the governor of Oklahoma or Alabama? Or Texas or Florida? I also want to note this. Because of the Trump administration's illegal and unconstitutional actions, we know there is now thirty-one of sixty-four, thirty-one of sixty-four, lawyers at the Minnesota US Attorney's office that have left. That is stunning. The lead attorney responsible for pursuing these fraud cases has left because the Trump administration ordered them if we know to investigate Renee Goods' widow, not her killer. They were ordered to investigate Renee Goods' widow, not her killer. If the president cared at all about fraud, we would not have all of these officers with all this illegal behavior on Minnesota streets. And we should remember that the Trump administration tried to use Operation Metro-Surge as leverage to seize Minnesota's voter rolls. The Trump administration was never serious about addressing fraud in Minnesota. Instead, they've been interested in election conspiracy theories, in terrorizing kids. And they've accused the governor and attorney general of covering up fraud only to investigate them and turn up actually no evidence. What they're trying to do is convince Americans that there's a good reason for violence, for killings and for violations of the law. That's not acceptable and we're not gonna take that here today. I wanna thank our witnesses again for being here and I yield back.

Right, you remember yields back, I'd like to welcome our witnesses, uh First we have Tim Walts, Governor of the state of Minnesota. Governor Walts first took office in January of twenty nineteen. Next we have Keith Ellison, Attorney General of the State of Minnesota. Attorney General Ellison also first took office in January twenty nineteen. Finally we have Reverend Mariah Furniss-Tolgaard, Senior Pastor, Hamlin Church, United Methodist. Thank you all so much for joining us today and we look forward to your testimony. Pursuant to Committee Rule nine G, the witnesses will please stand and raise their right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Let the record show that the witnesses answered the affirmative and please take a seat. We appreciate you being here today and look forward to your testimony. Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written statement. They will appear in full in the hearing record. Please limit your oral statements to five minutes. As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it's on and the members can hear you. When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn green, after four minutes the light will turn yellow. When the red light comes on, your five minutes have expired, and we would ask that you please wrap up. I now recognize Governor Walts for his opening statement. Governor.

Thank you, Chairman Kolmer, Ranking Member Garcia, members of the committee. I'm proud to be here today as the governor of the great state of Minnesota. Under my leadership, Minnesota has dedicated its resources to ensuring that all Minnesotans can live dignified and full lives with access to top-notch public schools, Quality health care, good jobs. Thanks to these initiatives, Minnesota's been ranked as one of the best states to raise a family in, one of the best states to find a job in, and one of the best states to live in. Although Minnesota's programs have overwhelmingly achieved their intended purposes, they're not immune from fraud. I'll be the first to acknowledge that. But let me be clear. In Minnesota, if you do fraud public programs, if you steal taxpayer money, we'll fine you, we'll prosecute you, we'll convict you, and we'll throw you in jail.

Fraud.

In this anti-fraud mission, we keep good company. Across the country, our nation's governors work hard every single day to combat fraud in their programs. But even as we confront issues similar to our sister states, the people of Minnesota have been singled out and targeted for political retribution at an unparalleled scale, including blocking Medicaid reimbursements to our sp- state just last week. Under the guise of combating fraud, the federal government has flooded Minnesota with masked, untrained and unaccountable agents who are wreaking havoc in our communities. On the streets of Minnesota, federal agents have entered US citizens' homes who have committed no crimes. They have violated the constitutional rights of our citizens. They have ignored court orders. They have shot first and asked questions later. Time and again, they have gaslit us by demanding that we ignore what we see before our very eyes. But the American people are not so easily fooled. The image of this brutal campaign are seared into our collective memory. The fragile innocence of the five-year-old boy in a bunny hat being led away from his family. The maddening cruelty of a barely clothed man, a US citizen, being dragged from his house in the dead of winter. The sheer devastation we feel of seeing the lifeless bodies of Rene Good and Alex Preti. Long after the federal government's agents of chaos pack up and leave, and long after the fraudsters who whose name this hearing was supposedly called are prosecuted and imprisoned, the good people of Minnesota will still be picking up the pieces from these senseless acts of cruelty and violence. As we forge ahead, I hope Minnesotans will remain grounded in a sense of justice. a sense of right and wrong. We know that the way to deter crime is to pursue offenders regardless of who they are, not to pardon them because of who they know. We understand that a key to keeping our people safe is to allow prosecutors to uphold the law, not to punish them for refusing to violate it. And we appreciate that public trust comes from building common sense anti-fraud safeguards into our programs, not by tearing down established norms. I've been invited here today to talk about how Minnesota pursues these objectives. And I hope we can have a conversation about how to strengthen program integrity in every state in the nation. A single taxpayer dollar wasted on fraud is a dollar to- we can't tolerate. That's why as governor, I have taken decisive action. I appointed a head of program integrity to oversee statewide anti-fraud efforts. I created the position of inspector general at the Minnesota Department of Education. At the Department of Human Services, I ordered data-driven reviews and, where appropriate, corrective action against providers. I've directed my administration to work with our partners in state, federal, and tribal law enforcement to make sure that fraudsters go to jail. Our cooperation with the FBI and the Department of Justice have led to serious criminal charges for over seventy-five individuals. Most importantly, year in and year out, and long before Minnesota programs were featured on right-wing social media, I've worked with the Minnesota legislature to give state agencies the authority they need to take action based on red flags when they discover them. There's undoubtedly more to do. We'll continue to do the important work of combating fraud, but as we do so, we're gonna remain true to Minnesota principles. We will feed our hungry children. We will help the poor afford health care. We will assist people with disabilities, while also keeping fraud in check. We'll demonstrate our decency, our integrity, and never yield to political scapegoating, particularly of our most vulnerable communities. In these extraordinarily trying times, The people of Minnesota have come together to show the world their values. I'm proud and honored to be their governor, and I look forward to today's questions.

Thank you, Governor. We now recognize Attorney General Ellison.

Thank you, Chairman Ko- Comer, and thank you, Ranking Member Garcia. And thank you to all the members of the committee. My name is Keith Ellison, and I have the honor of serving as Minnesota's Attorney General. You have invited me here today to speak about the topic I feel very strongly about, fraud enforcement. I look forward to discussing the contributions of my office, uh, and the contributions we've made to fighting fraud in our state. Fraud in government programs is reprehensible. It takes food from the tables of the hungry. It takes shelter from those without it. I have worked every day as Attorney General to hold fraudsters accountable, and I'm proud of our record. We've won three hundred Medicaid fraud convictions, more than any other state of similar size, and recovered over eighty million dollars for Minnesota taxpayers. We've returned tens of millions of dollars to victims of consumer fraud in Minnesota. Since twenty nineteen, our charities division has resolved over fifty investig- investigations, and dissolved seventeen sham nonprofits. It's important to note that under Minnesota law, my office has limited jurisdiction over criminal matters, the only kind of criminal case we can prosecute all on our own is Medicaid fraud. Any other kind of ca- criminal case must be referred to us in uh by county attorneys. Still, we've punched above our weight where we do have criminal jurisdiction. I'm proud of that. Over the past six years, my Medicaid con- uh con- Fraud Control Unit has ranked fifth in the nation in fraud convictions. Last week I urged the state legislators to pass a bipartisan Medical Assistance Protection Act which would give us additional resources to prosecute Medicaid fraudsters. Where fraud occurs outside of our jurisdiction, my office has and will continue assisting our local and federal partners. When our help is requested, we support our eighty-seven county attorneys in Minnesota, and we regularly coordinate with federal investigators or, Investor and prosecutors to combat fraud. That type of collaboration between enforcers at all levels of the government is essential in this fight. And that is why if we are to discuss law enforcement efforts in Minnesota, we cannot ignore the devastating effects of Operation Metro Search. As you know, the Trump administration, on the pretext of fighting fraud, unleashed over three thousand masked armed agents on the streets of Minnesota. And as a result, two US citizens were killed by federal agents, Renee Good and Alex Preddy. Federal law enforcement still refuses to cooperate with us in investigating their deaths. Young, innocent children were detained and traumatized. Schools and businesses were forced to close, costing countless families their jobs, their livelihoods, their education, and costing our state hundreds of millions of dollars in economic damage. Operation Metro Surge did nothing to address fraud in our state. It harmed our economy, it scarred our people, and it dealt a devastating blow to fraud enforcement in Minnesota. As a result of Metro Surge, federal prosecutors' efforts to fight fraud in Minnesota have suffered a major setback. In the US Attorney's Office, six high ranking attorneys resigned because of the Department of Justice, pressured them to investigate Rene Rene Goodes' grieving widow. Eight more prosecutors then followed. The remaining staff should be spending their time prosecuting fraudsters and criminals. Instead, they are drowning in immigration related petitions resulting from Operation Metro Search. Mister Chair, members of the committee, I, we cannot combat fraud without consistent messaging and support from our political leaders. All sides, Republicans and Democrats, the federal government and the states must work together if we are going to win the fight against those who would steal from the public. We need our leaders to unite in that effort, not to use it as a political tool to score political points. I stand ready and willing to work with the members of this committee to advance the cause of holding fraudsters accountable. Now more than ever, we need coordinated, cooperative engagement across law enforcement if we are to achieve our goals. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, General. Uh, now I recognize Reverend Tolgaard for her opening statement.

Chairman, ranking members, member of the c- members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I am the Reverend Mariah Tolgaard, and I serve as Senior Pastor at Hamlin Church United Methodist in St. Paul, Minnesota. I come before you today in my personal capacity as a pastor, as a citizen, as a mother, an ordinary Minnesotan who has witnessed up close the fear and harm that Operation Metro-Surge has inflicted on our state. The hearing today is about fraud in Minnesota, which is serving as a pretext for the terror the federal government has brought to the people of Minnesota. This fraud has been used as a rationale for deploying three thousand federal immigration enforcement agents into our state in operations that target the most vulnerable among us, but are indiscriminately impacting all of us. Let me tell you about what this looks like where I live. In my church, members have been afraid to come to worship and have even postponed funerals. An elderly Hmong man in our city, a US citizen, was taken from his home in the freezing cold, wearing only his underwear and a blanket. ICE vehicles drive recklessly through our neighborhoods in packs of four to six, stopping people of color for proof of citizenship, including a local police officer. In St. Paul Public Schools, where my three daughters attend, nearly a quarter of students enrolled in distance learning because families were too afraid to leave their homes. My eight year old struggles to sleep at night because she is afraid ICE agents might break into our house. At local elementary schools in Minnesota and across the country, students are practicing drills for what to do if ICE is near their school. Let that sit with you. American children are now practicing two kinds of drills at school, one for an active shooter and one to protect themselves from their own government. That is not security. That is a nation failing its children. This is happening to all of our neighbors in Minnesota. Every Minnesotan has stories that will stay with you. From hearing of someone hiding in a walking cooler, or the back room when ice stormed into their workplace, to friends and family members being followed when dropping off their children at daycare. In Minnesota, we love our neighbors. We care for one another. And because we believe that every person bears the image of God, we've built systems that reflect that belief. Free meals for all children, health care for families who need it, schools where every kid belongs. That's what love of neighbor looks like in action. This administration has targeted Minnesota because we live out our values of loving our neighbors. These tactics, aimed at undermining those values, have not succeeded. When unidentified masked agents appeared on our streets, Minnesotans put on their own uniforms, and it said " neighbor". Motivated by faith and conscience, We bought groceries for families in hiding. We paid rent. We drove children to school. We stood vigil at mosques. We served as constitutional observers. We pledged to care for children if parents were detained. We sang. We marched. We prayed. As a pastor, I say to you, if you feel even a flicker of discomfort hearing these stories, pay attention to it. If you hear about children like Liam Ramos, if you saw the videos of the murders of Alex Pratty and Renee Good, if you know of workers arrested in the very restaurants where they serve federal agents their meals, if you understand that citizens and legal residents have been wrongfully detained and something in you tightens, that is not partisanship, that is conscience. In my faith tradition, we call that the still, quiet, voice, the voice of God. It's not too late to listen, to change our minds, our hearts and our policies. To the members of this committee and our leaders across government, the question I leave with you is simple. What are you willing to do about it? Your silence has a cost, and it is being paid right now by children who cannot sleep, families who cannot grieve, and communities that are hollowed out. To Americans across the country and those watching from home and particularly particularly to the families still too afraid to leave their houses. There are more people fighting for you than you know. Jesus teaches us in Matthew twenty-five, whatever you do for the least of these, you do unto me. History will tell its story about us. But long before then, our own souls will know whether we stood with them or turned away. No nation can build a true future on the terror of its own people. Security built on fear security will shatter the first time it is tested. Only a community that chooses love of neighbor over fear will endure, and that is still within our power to become. Thank you for allowing me to share our story. I am deeply proud to be a Minnesotan.

Thank you. With that objection, majority whip Tom Emmer from Minnesota and representative McCollum of also of Thank you, Mister Chair, uh, I would like to, for the record, have a unanimous request put in with the statement. Thank you. Without objection, so ordered. Uh, we'll now begin our questions, and Chair recognizes the

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, Governor, why didn't you tell the truth? Why didn't you just tell the truth about the Feeding Our Future program? This program, my understanding, received three million dollars the first year within a couple years was getting two hundred million dollars of taxpayer money. Whistleblowers raised concerns, as the chairman said, auditors raised concerns, everybody raised concerns. March thirtieth, twenty twenty one, the payments are stopped. And a little over a month later, the payments are restarted. Why didn't you tell the truth about why you restarted the payments?

Well, Chairman, we we did tell you, and feeding our future grew because of the pandemic. And uh

I didn't ask that question. I said, why didn't you tell the truth about why you restarted the payments? The payments stopped cuz there were concerns, obviously, we wouldn't stop the payments. Then they're restarted a month later. What was the reason for restarting the payments?

My understanding was the the agency believed that the court had required them to make those payments.

And that was false, wasn't it? You repeated that, you said that, didn't you?

I think that is

You said that's why the reas- you you said the reason

I I don't think

you restarted is cuz the court ordered you to do so. Is that right?

I don't believe that is settled yet, uh to the best of my knowledge.

Well, I think it is. Cuz the court did something that I just don't, I I don't know if I've ever seen it, they issued a statement Saying you were wrong in what you were saying. This is from the court. It says feeding our future versus Minnesota Department of Education correcting reports and statements by Governor Tim Walz concerning orders issued by the court Here's what the judge says. Governor Tim Walz told the media that the Minnesota Department of Education attempted in payments to FOF because of possible fraud, but that Judge Guthman uh Guthman ordered payments to continue in April, twenty twenty one. Next sentence. That is false. So you said something wasn't true. He further states this, Judge Gutman. The court says this, Judge Gutman never ordered the Department of Education to resume payments to Feeding Our Future in April twenty twenty one or at any other time. So I wanna know why didn't you tell the truth?

Congressman, the attorneys at the Department of Education interpreted that differently. Both of those judges are no longer on the bench. And I think that interpretation

Let me just read the very first sentence. The first seven words, this is not some unnamed source talking to the New York Times. It's not some anonymous source talking to whatever your Minnesota Star Tribune or whatever your paper is. This is the court speaking. First sentence, first seven words, due to inaccurate statements by the governor, Ramsey County District Court Judge has issued and authorized that this following news released. That's pretty straightforward. So the court's lying?

I c- I c- I can't tell you, Congressman, but the interpretation was

Well, somebody's lying. Somebody's lying. Cuz you can't say the court ordered you to restart the payment and then the court says we didn't order you to restart the payment. So either you're lying or the court's lying. And I'm just asking you, which one is it?

I just simply know what the attorneys at the agency believed that it was a misinterpretation.

Could it be,

And I would note that those payments

could it be you were trying to hide behind the court, Governor? Could that maybe be the reason why you issued the statements you did and why the court had to do

That was not the interpretation of the attorneys and, and you're not court or work, you can uh appeal those congressmen as you well know, I'm sure they're

Was it all about politics, Governor?

No, it's cert- it's about taking care of our people, which Minnesota does better than anyone else.

Yeah, these programs go from three million, the behavioral intervention program went from three million to four hundred million, and five years the housing stabilization went from two point

I don't know who Casey Magen is. I don't know who Casey Magen is.

Mister Magen is a Somali-American and a fraud investigator, and the guy beside you's office, in the Attorney General's office. And here's what he said. There was a perception that forcefully tackling this issue might cause political backlash.

It did not, Congressman.

So you're now you're saying Mr. Casey Magen is a lie, is lying too?

I'm not.

You're the only one telling the truth in the whole state. Mr. Magen, who's a fraud investigator at the Attorney General's office, says it's politics. The court said you were, you were stating.

I couldn't speak for Mr. Magen. You asked me a question.

I know. I'm asking.

And I said no, when you asked me the question.

I'm say- and I'm saying Casey Magen said just the option.

I don't.

So the court's wrong and Casey Magen's wrong. You're the only guy right. How many people have been indicted in your state right now? Do you know, governor?

I don't have those numbers with me.

You don't? Ninety eight people been indicted. You happen to know how many are Somali American?

I don't. We don't investigate or prosecute people based on ethnicity, religion.

Neither do I. We shouldn't do that. But I'll uh but Mr. Magen is a Somali American who just said that the court, one of the one of the concerns was this is a core voting block and I just wanna know if you know how many of the ninety eight people who have been indicted in your state are Somali.

I don't. Their ethnicity is not my concern.

Eighty-five, eighty-five percent of the people indicted were Somali-American in key voting block, and I think that's what drove this whole thing. With that, I yield back.

Gentlemen, yields back, before I recognize the ranking member, it's my understanding. Mister Biggs, you seek recognition.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have some uses. Um, here you go. Biden clemency for convicted fraudsters met with outrage. Next one, Biden's clemency and pardon list includes former elected officials. Next one, the drug dealers, thieves and gang leaders granted clemency by Joe Biden. Next one, North Dakota judge blasts Biden for setting fraudsters free. Next one, victims shocked after Biden grants clemency to kids for cash. Who has, next one, who has Joe Biden pardoned?

Without objection, so ordered chair now recognizes ranking member Garcia from California.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and I wanna thank of course our witnesses again for being here. Now of course over the past two months, countless brave Minnesotans have shared their stories of heartbreak and violence and terror, not just with us on this committee but with acro- with folks across the country. Peaceful protesters have been shot in the streets, children have snatched, been snatched from their schools, people dragged from their cars and tackled at work. And we know that parents of course have been missing work, and children have been missing school. Now, Reverend Tolgaard, I want the country to really understand the effects on kids. Are you seeing families who can't go to work, who can't go grocery shopping, and who can't take their kids to school or the library or the park because you're terrified to leave their home, are you seeing that?

Yes, that's what we are seeing in Minnesota.

And this includes of course, US citizens, right? We're talking about also families, US citizen families and kids who are United States citizens, is that is that correct?

Yes, people who are US citizens and legal residents.

Well, thank you. I wanna um just show this image here. This is an image of some kids, including by the way, a Le- one of Liam Ramos's classmates. These are kids that are being held at US detention centers and detention facilities. Now, Reverend Tolgaard, when children hear about thousands of kids being detained, reportedly almost four thousand, that must be terrifying. Is that correct?

That is absolutely terrifying for children, too. hear these stories and to fear for that experience.

And would you say that kids are scared at their school?

Kids are scared at their schools, at their home.

Parents are scared of what's gonna happen to their children. Would you say that is correct also?

Yes, that is correct.

Well, thank you. Now, we're discussing the violence and brutality that's happened, and I wanna show another image that's kind of difficult, I think, to s- to see, but I think it's important for the American public to continue to see it. Now, this is the driver's seat of Renee Good's car seat after an a ice agent shot her dead. Now, Reverend Tolgaard, are families in the community afraid that this sort of horrific image could happen to them next?

Yes.

Are kids scared that this type of horrific image could happen to one of their parents?

Kids like my own, kids like the kids in my church are afraid that that could happen to their parents when they speak out.

And let's remember that an ICE agent specifically told a protester Have you all not learned from the past couple of days? This is just two days after Rene Good was shot. That is being told to people on the ground in Minneapolis and across the country, across Minnesota, and it's not acceptable. We should be clear here. This violence does not make us safer. It does not address fraud, waste and abuse. It doesn't help families with health care. Does not grow or build small businesses. And it certainly, as we're continuing to discuss, is not preventing the kind of

Well, thank you, Congressman. Well, first of all, as I said, we've been partners with the federal uh our federal partners, whether that be the FBI or be the US Attorney's Office, which I will note was one of the premier US Attorney's Office, regardless of who they were appointed by.

Mm.

Uh, right now, those lead investigators and basically that whole team has left that office. They've not been filled back in. The US attorney himself was in front of a federal judge yesterday, um, on contempt issues of the, that office not working together. Now look, we're gonna prosecute, as we have, every single person that's involved in fraud, but we can't do it alone. The attorney general's office is doing everything they can. He has consistently come and asked the legislature for more money, more, more of the investigators he needs. But right now is the backlog at the U. S. Attorney's office is being challenged by the federal courts. Uh, it makes it more difficult for us to get those cases over to them. But the good news is the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, uh, is continuing to do those. We got a conviction this week. Um, those are things that'll continue on, and while we need to put in all the safeguards, we need to, as you heard the Attorney General's opening statement, if we partner together in this, our chance of defeating this fraud is, is that much higher. But right now, um, it's stymie. There's no investigators over there, there's no U. S. attorneys, the FBI has been decimated, and it's very difficult.

And that, that right there, the American, American public needs to hear. I mean, it's completely outrageous what's happened to those that are actually trying to take on fraud in Minnesota and across the country. Those, those offices have been decimated and there's no support, not acceptable. And, and Governor, finally, there appears to be actually no evidence that ICE and DHS reign of terror in Minnesota, that continues, has actually prevented any fraud. Is that your assessment, sir?

That's correct. The, what you saw on the streets uh didn't do anything to it, and we've we've actively asked, if you have folks who can help us, if you have folks who are good at at the forensics, if you're go- they can help us do this, we want you there, as we have uh for the last seven years that I've been governor, we've partnered together and convicted people.

Thank you, and with that I also just for the record wanna introduce our report as well. Uh, today the Democratic staff released it as well as far as as it relates to this hearing in Operation Metro Search. So thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Without objection, so ordered, chair now recognizes our majority whip, representative Emmer from Minnesota.

Thank you, Chairman Kolmar, and actually thank you, uh, Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison for appearing before the committee today. Uh, gentlemen, let's see if we can agree agree on at least one thing today. Today's hearing is titled " Oversight of Fraud

Yes, any fraud is serious.

Thank you. Because it's interesting, uh, that you and I agree that it's a serious thing, considering the man sitting next to you, your Attorney General Keith Ellison, uh, just two months ago said, quote, "This is a political matter. This is not a serious thing." End quote. Attorney General Ellison, is there an organized crime ring? I'll answer for you, sir. Governor Walz believes there is an active crime ring in our state. In October, the governor said, quote, "We've got an organized crime ring in Minnesota. I think it's been going on for years." Moving on, Mister Ellison, I, along with millions of Americans, have grave concerns over your alleged relationships with Somali fraudsters, who have since been and convicted of federal crimes. I'm sure you are aware that over ninety percent of the defendants charged in the feeding our future fraud case are of Somali descent. In fact, you have personal knowledge of these people. There's a fifty-four minute audio tape of your meeting with these criminals in December of twenty twenty one. And during your meeting, they complained to you about increased scrutiny of their nonprofits, and you told them, quote, "Of course I'm here to help," end quote. It's on the internet. Anyone can listen to you say that. Since then, you claim you were not aware of their crimes in the two hundred and fifty million dollar feeding our future scheme, the largest pandemic fraud case in the nation. But just weeks after your December twenty twenty one meeting, the FBI executed search warrants that you never would have requested in the feeding our future fraud investigation. Now let's fast forward to September of twenty twenty two. Ten months. after you met with the Somali fraudsters. Your office issued a press release stating quote, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and his office have been deeply involved for two years in holding feeding our future accountable, end quote. So according to your office, sir, you have been deeply involved in the feeding our future case since September of twenty twenty. That actually sounds like you are saying that at the time of your infamous meeting with the Somali fraudsters you were already aware of the allegations of fraud. When you had this meeting in December twenty twenty one, did you know, sir, about the long running FBI investigation in defeating our future, yes or no?

Mister Chairman, uh, mister, Representative Emmer.

Reclaiming my time, when did you personally become aware of the FBI investigation? That's all I'm asking.

Representative Emmer, as you know, I have addressed this issue many times.

All right, in in reclaiming my time.

I have

In that same meeting with the fraudsters, I, Mister Attorney General, you took aim at the Minnesota Department of Education. You stated that the Minnesota Department of Education had fought the non-profit in very disgusting ways in a very racist, xenophobic, and Islamophobic manner. You actually asked for the names of all these folks who are just hung up, and offered to call the Minnesota Department of Education to quote, demand some explanations. We now know that when you made these comments, the Biden DOJ was working with the Minnesota Department of Education, and that their work exposed the massive fraud ring. Pretty bad look for you, sir. Either you were oblivious to what was going on under your nose, or worse, you were trying to obstruct the work of the Minnesota Department of Education. So, I can see the time is getting short. I, I, Mr. Chairman, we are left with two questions. One, what did Governor Walz and Keith Ellison know about the fraud? And two, when did they actually know it? I would suggest that if they do not give direct and truthful answers to both these questions at this hearing then they both need to be put under oath in a deposition. This is a serious thing, Mr. Attorney General. You are the only one who thinks protecting taxpayer dollars is political. Mr. Ellison, my concern is that you actively obstructed this investigation in exchange for

Gentleman yields back, chair now recognizes Miss Norton from Washington DC.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, it is critical that the federal government support people who need assistance with food, housing and health care. Unfortunately, as long as the government provides these services, there will be bad actors trying to take advantage of them.

Mm.

We need to prevent and identify these fraudsters so that social services can reach those who need them. However, we cannot recklessly deny help to many people who need services because of a few bad actors. Um, my Republican colleagues have now held two hearings to talk about fraud in one single state. But they have completely ignored the fact that the Trump administration is the most corrupt administration in history. If Republicans really cared about fraud, abuse, and holding criminals accountable, they would call them out. Donald Trump for fir- for firing seventeen uh inspectors general. These internal uh watchdogs are the front line of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse of federal agencies, the Trump administration. has also retaliated against whistleblowers whistleblowers and allowed administration officials to engage in serious conflicts of interest that often cross the line into outfraud, outright corruption. We need inspectors general, whistleblower protections, and rules prohibiting conflicts of interest to protect federal programs and make sure that people can get the services they need. Across the country, Americans are struggling to afford their health care, premiums and groceries. The Trump administration should be strengthening the social safety net, not cutting the safeguards that catch the fraudsters uh taking advantage of it. And I yield back.

Good lady yields back. I'll now recognize myself for five minutes. Governor Walts and Attorney General Elson, my questions are gonna be simple and direct. Governor Walts, you were inaugurated as governor on January seventeenth, twenty nineteen, and have served in that role through two terms ever since, correct?

That's correct, Mr. Chairman.

During the time period twenty nineteen and twenty twenty, while you were serving as governor, isn't it true that state

I I can't confirm that, but I'm assuming we have always ongoing LA.

I I'll take that as a yes. Those warnings were communicated to senior officials in your administration including yourself, correct?

I I can't speak if it was correctly.

I I think the correct answer to that would also be yes. Despite those warnings, you did not order a broad stop payment or suspension of payment in any program at that time, correct?

We're not going to stop payments that feed children until we have the proof that things happened. In twenty nineteen we did start taking action. I went to the legislature that legislated section.

OK, OK, Governor Walts, when fraud concerns were raised early in your tenure in the child care assistance program did your administration stop payments at that time?

The the child care assistance program and the

The the the answer is is no. When fraud concerns were raised

Would you like me to answer?

Well, it's yes or no.

I'm trying, you know, I want you to help me.

You you've already answered the question. You said you didn't ever stop payments. And that's what the problem is. And that's what the Democrats are complaining about. Oh my gosh, Trump stopped payments. Well, my God, you you lost billions to fraud in Minnesota. That's what this hearing's about.

Well, that's, Mr. Chairman, that's

You didn't stop payments because you didn't want to rock the boat.

that's

And and when fraud concerns were raised,

That's not correct, Chairman.

when fraud concerns were raised in Medicaid, home and community-based services, did your administration stop No, you you did not. When fraud concerns were raised in non-emergency medical transportation did your administration stop payments?

Chairman, if I could mention what a stop payment meant by what the administration did last week is four hundred thousand children without health care are you stopping payment of one person?

Uh and and and that's, we believe that's your fault and the Attorney General's fault because you you do nothing about fraud even though everyone in America sees,

Our Medicare error rate is lower than your state.

with their own eyes, the fraud. You have been the fraud. You have not been good stewards of the taxpayer dollars and the Democrat position is, " Well, keep the money flowing." The American taxpayers have had enough.

I don't, I think that's a fair uncharacterization.

They have had enough. They want their taxpayer dollars spent wisely. We all support social programs to the vulnerable,

That's not a fair characterization.

but if you're gonna waste the money to to fraudsters, then we have to stop and recalculate.

We're not. We're putting them in jail when we can, Chairman, and and some of these these programs are crafted in such a way that there's a procedure to follow and I'm with you. one dollar is too much. I don't think there's a lot of difference here if you wanna help us get at this. The question is, is it a sledgehammer, is it a scalpel? I understand there's no political upside to it.

Well, let's let's get into what we've we've talked you you eventually did pass payment in certain programs, but that wasn't until late twenty twenty five after the federal government stepped in. Is that correct?

I don't I don't think that's a fair characterization of stepped in. We've been partners in this and working on them, but

Uh, let's let's move on. And that That decision occurred only after large scale fraud had already taken place for years. Now, Governor Walts, employees inside state agencies raised concerns about fraud and improper payments for years. Is that correct?

Inside agencies? We've been prosecuting them for years. That, yes.

But they have raised concern. Agencies have raised concern about fraud in Minnesota, correct? For years.

Each of those, yes, when they do and they're prosecuted.

Some some of those employees faced retaliation.

Yes.

after raising those concerns. Is that correct?

That is not correct, Chairman.

OK.

Minnesota has strong whistleblower protections.

Attorney General Ellison, you are the Chief Legal Officer of the State of Minnesota, correct?

Yes.

Your office advises agencies on compliance with federal and state law, correct?

Yes.

Retaliation against whistleblowers reporting fraud is unlawful, correct?

That is right.

At any point during your tenure did you tell state agencies to stop payments due to credible fraud allegations, yes or no?

Sir, we prosecuted over three hundred people in the Medicaid fraud c- uh uh area.

I Three - three hundred I would

We convicted them.

predict is a drop in the bucket,

We

but - but you've never said to stop payments. That's what -

It's the high - it's - it's one of the highest rates in the country, sir.

Well, you have one of the highest fraud rates in the country,

Yeah.

in Minnesota.

That's right.

I- and that's not true. And my office doesn't have the authority to do a stop payment.

Right.

We prosecute criminals when they're presented us by - by the agents.

So - so the answer No, unfortunately, no one's ever from your office said to stop payments until we can get the fraud under control. So to summarize, you both knew about fraud risk and payments continued. Our investigation has shown that whistleblowers who were alerted about the widespread fraud were ignored, sidelined, and even retaliated against. Only after federal authorities ultimately stepped in did you take any action. It's not this committee's responsibility to decide guilt or or uh dole out punishment. But it's clear there was a massive failure of oversight, and quite frankly, a failure of leadership. One wonders whether either of you should bear some personal responsibility for the billions of dollars siphoned off by fraudsters, under your noses in the state that you led. Again, this isn't for the committee to decide, but based on your answers today and apparent failure to take any responsibility, still the answer to that question has become abundantly clear. And now I recognize

Mister Chair, I seek unanimous consent.

All right, before I recognize Mr. Lynch, Miss Randall, you have a use of.

Thank you. Um, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a November twelfth, twenty twenty five article from Pope ProPublica entitled " How Trump has exploited pardons and clemency to reward allies and supporters", which shows President Trump rewards those in his good graces. I also seek recognition to insert into the record a Washington Post article from December nineteenth, twenty twenty five entitled " Trump's Pardons Wipe Out Payments to Defrosted Victims". which shows that President Trump lets criminals and fraudsters walk free.

OK, with that.

And I also seek unanimous consent to enter into the record an article from May twenty ninth twenty twenty five from ABC News titled " Trump's flurry of pardons includes some to campaign contributors."

Without objection, so ordered. And uh Miss Miss uh Presley, we'll do one at a time. We'll go to Mister Lynch, then I'll recognize you. Mister Lynch from uh Massachusetts.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Governor, good to see you, my friend. Attorney General Ellison, good to see you again. Uh, Reverend Thank you for your willingness to testify before the committee. I wanna shift gears here a minute and I wanna focus on ice. Uh, so I was recently asked to serve as the co-chair of the FIFA twenty-six uh soccer tournament. It's a global tournament, the largest sporting event in the world. And uh my home city of Boston has been asked to - to - to host uh a lot of the games. Uh, in Boston we're gonna We'll host uh teams from Morocco, Ghana, Bolivia, Iraq, Scotland, France, England and Suriname. Uh we'll also uh host over three million foreign national visitors who are coming into Boston for these tournaments. And uh we recently learned from the Trump administration that ICE will play a key role in the security operations during those games. So we've got all these people flying in, foreign nationals, a lot of different countries, South America and elsewhere. Uh, Governor, since you've had direct and relevant experience on dealing with uh the metro surge and and the security operations uh of ICE, I was interested in getting your thoughts and your observations and any recommendations you might have to help us with with confronting our experience or what we expect uh to see uh during these games with with ice coming in as well as uh so many foreign visitors.

Well, it's as I think the world saw, and don't take my word for it, take professional law enforcement across Minnesota and across the country, um the most unprofessional, aggressive uh force that I I think you could imagine. And I was here in front of this committee and answered all your questions on June twelfth. And I warned this committee what a masked group of folks turned loose in an American city could do. And I I'm not, if I'm not mistaken, I said someone could get killed doing this. And I just want to be very clear about this. When Tom Holman had to come in to clean up the mess of of Secretary Noem and Greg Bovino, Secretary Holman himself acknowledged Minnesota follows the law, exactly as I told you in this committee. So, my advice to you, Mister Lynch, is to get very public up-front commitments from these folks. While I disagree with Mister Holman's views on many things, he's at least professional enough that he pulled the leash back, and pulled these folks out of Minnesota after, again, misrepresenting the number of people they were detaining, misrepresenting before he got there, exactly what Minnesota did, and I'm just gonna name it on accountability. The secretary of DHS, being chastised by Republican senators, added insult to injury to Minnesota, pouring salt in the wounds of the parents of Alex Preti and Renee Goods' family by not even apologizing or acknowledging. And if you want accountability for the one of the times, as far as I know, the attorneys know better, we are not being included in the investigation. And the actions that were taken of a gentleman who was shot in the leg was the night that Christy Noem called me a domestic terrorist and said that this gentleman was attacking federal agents. Well, now we know the story. They lied. They are now under investigation, they being the federal agents. So look, I'm with you. I want your help on fraud. Why would I not want money to go to the programs I care deeply about, feeding people, clothing people, housing people? But what ICE did disrupted everything that we were doing, it disrupted our federal partners, and it forced our law enforcement agencies, who have worked hard to gain the public trust, to have the public believe in them. So my advice to you is, and especially when the world's coming to see this, let Boston's finest lead. Let the people of Massachusetts lead. Let the tenth amendment stand for something and allow us to be able to do this. The people of Minnesota will hold us accountable if they don't feel we're doing a good enough But to demonize and retribution against a state in the words of the president, in the words of the vice president, have done nothing. So, Mister Lynch, um, the world should be looking forward to coming, but I would get it up front and I would make sure that Boston's police department are in the lead.

Thank you. Uh, Attorney General Ellison. We need coordination between law enforcement agencies. This is a big job. What i- what are your views on that likelihood of cooperation from ICE?

Well, I hope you get the cooperation that you need. Uh, in Minnesota we don't have a good record of cooperation, which is interesting because so many times in the past we have had great cooperation between local federal enforcers and local state ones, and we've just worked seamlessly. Nowadays that has all changed, and that's quite unfortunate.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you for the courtesy.

Gentleman yields back. Uh, Miss Presley?

Thank you. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a February,

With that, with that objection, it's ordered. Chair recognizes Doctor Fox from North Carolina.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and I thank our witnesses for being here. Governor, you've reminded people that you were here last June. At that time, I reminded you that defeating our feature scam made Minnesota ground zero for the largest COVID-nineteen fraud scheme in the nation. Two hundred fifty million of federal taxpayer funds were taken out of the mouths of hungry children. And as the FBI noted, they were quote " funneled into luxury homes, cars and lavish lifestyles while families struggled." You assured me then that you wholeheartedly supported the federal government's effort to bring those responsible to justice. I appreciate your sentiment, but a person's actions matter more than their words. Governor Walz, when did you first become aware of the fraud in feeding our future? A specific date, please.

Well, Congressman, it's good, it's good to see you, and having served in your job for twelve years, I can tell you my job is a little different as governor for seven years. I take a lot of meetings. Um, I certainly don't. Wouldn't specifically state, but I think during that pandemic, I think by late twenty twenty, we started to see, uh, the irregularities, they were flagged. And I will note that we cooperated.

OK, but the state officials, state officials were aware of the fraud in early twenty twenty.

So you're asking when I, in my office,

Yes.

the governor became good and I don't have a specific date.

OK.

But what I would say is, we provided witnesses' documents, the US Attorney and the FBI, and seventy nine of the,

K. Well, when I was chair of the Committee on Education and Workforce, I issued you a subpoena in September, twenty twenty four, because you and your administration were not forthcoming about how your administration quote failed to identify what has been described as the largest pandemic fraud in the nation end quote in September, twenty twenty four, you were aware of the feeding our future fraud and your administration's handling of it, correct? Yes or no?

Twenty twenty four? Yes, by that time we had already put people in jail and had extensively uh investigated.

OK. This this this committee has testimony that the Minnesota Department of Education briefed your office about defeating our future's draft lawsuit and litigation hold on April twenty eighth, twenty twenty. That, let me jog your memory, is that correct?

I can't speak specifically to that, and they, if it's my

OK. It was April twenty twenty. That means Feeding Our Future received a total of over two hundred million in federal funds after you and your administration knew about the fraud concerns. Why didn't you stop sending money to Feeding Our Future as soon as the fraud concerns were raised?

Congressman, as following the program, we notified USGA under the Trump administration's first term, we had notified them too because it's a program

Were you were didn't you say you were fear fearful of political retaliation?

Eventually convicted.

From the FOF founder?

No, I I never said any such thing. I never said any such thing.

Well, that's what we understood. You were afraid of political retaliation. So, given the size and scope of the Feeding Our Futures fraud, I think you and your administration would have been on high alert, looking for additional fraud in the state. But after seeing the handling of Feeding Our Futures and its two hundred and fifty million in fraud, it came as no surprise to learn that even more staggering amounts of fraud, estimated at up to nine billion dollars, were uncovered in the Child Care Assistance program, the Minnesota Medicaid program and other programs. How could you allow such massive fraud schemes in your state to get to this point?

Congresswoman, we don't we don't see anything by nine million local press, and everyone reports it about three hundred million. But as I've said, if it's one dollar, it's too much. But we started in twenty nineteen putting anti-fraud programs forward. After feeding our future, we started going through and making sure every program had the integrity in it that it needed. And that's why you see convictions. That's why you see these programs going forward.

But why did it take nearly seven years for you to get engaged to stop the fraud? Seven years.

We started in twenty nineteen, congresswoman, it may it may be a surprise. If you arrest someone for stealing a car, other people are still gonna try and steal cars. What we've tried to do is bring program integrity, but I'll go back to this. We're not gonna shut down programs that have things that are going well in it, and we need to find that proper balance. And I've acknowledged that every year we're putting things in place and Inspector General

Mister, Governor Walt, Governor Walt, you did not do your job. You did not do your job. You did not protect taxpayer dollars. You allowed massive fraud. You and Mr. Ellison allowed massive fraud to go on in the state of Minnesota. And it is unfortunate, as somebody said, that you can't be held personally responsible at this stage of the game. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Good lady yields back. Chair now recognizes Mr. Christom Orte from Illinois.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Governor Wallace, you've seen firsthand the brutal excess force used by ICE and CBP agents in Minnesota. Unfortunately, we saw this the same tactics employed in Chicago during Operation Midway Blitz. I wanna turn now to ICE and CBP's horrific pattern of abuse. Secretary Noem went to our cities ostensibly under the guise of arresting quote the worst of the worst. But in Illinois, less than three percent of those arrested during Operation Midway Blitz had criminal In Minnesota, the vast majority of those detained had never been in trouble with the law, correct?

I believe that's correct, Congressman.

There were also more than one hundred seventy cases this year where ICE and CBP detained US citizens. US citizens should never be detained by ICE, correct?

That is correct.

According to the

I would hope we all could agree on that.

Well, I hope so, too. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, federal agents have pepper sprayed children. including this one-year-old baby in Chicago. And children should never be pepper sprayed, right?

I would hope we could all agree on that too. They should not.

And according to the Independent, CBP agents dragged a sixty-seven-year-old US citizen out of his car, breaking his ribs and causing internal bleeding. No person should be subjected to that kind of treatment, right?

They should not, Congressman.

Attorney General Ellison, let me turn to another topic, in President Trump's second

No, I'm not, sir.

Republican Senator John Kennedy yesterday grilled

I do.

This gross misuse of funds must end now, and Secretary Noem must be held accountable. Not tomorrow, not next week, now. Chicago was ground zero for sh- for Secretary Nome's overreach when she launched Operation Midway Blitz. Chicago media reported that ICE and CBP agents had pepper sprayed a one-year-old baby, shot at a pastor, harassed seniors, tased US citizens, and even killed a person. It's clear that Midway Blitz was never intended to make Chicago safer. In December, ICE and CBP began Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. Over three thousand agents were sent to one There were military style raids at child care centers. Child children kept home from school. Adults postponing medical care. In Minneapolis, Renee Good and Al- Alex Pretti, both US citizens were fatally shot by federal officers.

Yes.

It's clear that Operation Metro Surge was never intended to make Minnesota safer. But this is not isolated to just Illinois and Minnesota. Inside detention centers across the country, the suffering continues. Detainees report physical and sexual abuse, medical neglect, and pressure to self-deport. On top of that brutality, Christy Noem is misusing funds to buy herself private jets and enrich her associates. Christy Noem is testifying in the House Judiciary Committee today, but she must come before this committee to explain the rampant corruption and waste within her a- agency. DHS is out of control. There is no congressional oversight. I was denied entrance to to ICE facilities twice in Illinois. There's no accountability. Secretary Noem has still not appeared before this committee, nor has she responded in a substantive manner to more than one dozen letters I've sent her. There are no consequences. Noem is still the leader of DHS despite regularly breaking the law and abusing her authority. Secretary Noem must answer for her wrongdoing. For Jaime, my State of the Union guest, who raises his little sister after his father was coerced into For Chicagoan Marimar Martinez, who was shot five times, for my constituent Evelyn, an eighteen year old US citizen who was wrongfully detained by ICE. For Rene Good, Alex Pready, and Silverio V- Villegas-Gonzalez, and all the other victims of ICE and CBP. For the American people. It's for all those reasons that Mr. Chairman, pursuant to s- clause two K six of House Rule eleven, I move to subpoena Christy Noem, to testify before the House Committee on Oversight in Government Reform. This is for every family impacted by Christy Noem's terror campaign. They demand answers and so do I.

A motion is may has been made. The committee will hold this motion in advance until the end of today's hearing. The committee will now proceed with today's hearing and I wanna remind everyone, I believe Christy Noem's testifying uh in front of the Homeland Security Committee in the House today after testifying in the Senate yesterday. Chair, uh before I recognize Mister Cloud, I believe uh Mister Higgins has a UC.

Yes, Mister Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an interview from twenty twenty four, December twenty twenty four, the Minnesota Star Tribune with Governor Walz noting the uh federal investigation into the early intensive developmental and behavioral intervention program, the EIDBI program, serving autism patients since its first year of inception in two thousand seventeen growing from one point seven million per year, to over four hundred million per year. Unanimous consensus.

Yes, sir. Without objection, so ordered. Chair now recognizes Mister Cloud from Texas.

Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing. This hearing was designed to be a a hearing looking into the massive expansion of But, Reverend Tolgaard, I was struck by part of your opening statement because you invoked Matthew twenty five, and that's a scripture we see tossed around a lot, uh up here, but often without context. And so I went and got my Bible and thought we'd dig into Matthew twenty five for a minute. The scripture you invoked was, uh Matthew twenty five thirty five through forty. It ends with this. It says, " Then the righteous will answer to him, Lord, when did we see you hungry? Feed you." or thirsty, and give you something to drink. And when did we, and when did we see you a stranger, and invite you in, or naked, and clothe you? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you? And the king will answer to them, " Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did to one of the, one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did this to me." Uh, I, I would ask you, who's the you in that passage?

Thank you for your question. You meaning all of us, the followers of of Christ.

Followers of Christ, right. In Matthew twenty four three it says after Jesus was sitting on the mountain of olives and the disciples came to him privately and then they asked him, that began this whole chapter. And now what Christ didn't say was to lobby your government. He said, if you have you give, that's the general biblical principle here. Uh you know, second Corinthians chapter nine gives us probably the best uh, scriptural understanding of what charity is. It says, " Each of you should give what you've decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly, under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." Um, would you say that taxes are under compulsion?

I Taxes are not my area of expertise, but I certainly have the chance of

But are they given under compulsion? Do you pay your taxes? You

As a US citizen, I pay my taxes, and that's the thing I'll do.

Yes, because what happens if you don't?

we don't have the services that we need to support our

What happens to you personally if you don't pay your taxes?

uh You get in trouble.

You get in trouble. I would say that's under compulsion. So if we're talking about what charity is, I'm always amazed in in DC how much of we get to define our personal worth as a politician or statesman or whatever you wanna call us, by how much of other people's money we give away. Um and and so there's certainly a a place for a social safety net potentially but the idea that that Matthew twenty-five kinda used as a blanket statement. As a matter of fact, the parable that it gives right before that scripture that you go into, is the parable of the talents, where uh you see someone, uh a business owner go away and he leaves three uh employees in charge and gives them each a bit of investment. And uh two of them turn their investment into a profit, and the one that turns it not into a profit, he does nothing with it, just sits on it. What does he call him? It's your pastor, right?

Yes, I am, sir. I I don't have that in scripture.

Because I'm a wicked and a lazy servant. Uh, and so, you know, scripturally speaking, God expects us to do something with what he's given us. Now, uh, Romans thirteen talks about the purpose of government. You know, scripture is replete with there's different institutions that each have a different thing the primary job of raising our kids and taking care of our families and the institution of the family the government has a different one it says, for the one in the authority is God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid. For the rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants to bring agent of wrath on the wrongdoer." Uh, would you say that someone who commits frog- fraud is doing wrong?

We all are against fraud.

Eh, right. I- is fraud theft, would you agree that that's theft?

Yes.

As the eighth commandment says, " Thou shalt not steal." Would you recommend that someone in your church go into debt to give an offering in your church?

No.

Okay, so uh we have a massive program of fraud that's being paid for by taxpayers, and it's not really our, us paying it, it's really our kids and our grandkids that are paying it. Uh and yet we continue to see this massive expansion all under the uh taken out of context of what charity is being defined as. Uh you know it's interesting, I I find it odd that the left continues to bring up Matthew twenty-five because at the very beginning of that, right before he goes in that uh scripture that we talked with, it says Matthew twenty five thirty two, all the nations will be gathered to him and he will separate the people from one another as sheep and goats. He'll put the sheep on his right, his goats on the left, and the king will say to those on his right, come in, you are blessed to the father, take your inheritance to the kingdom. And those on his left, he will say, depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. You know, so uh I would caution those who begin to use Matthew twenty five to do so in the proper context understanding that we have multiple s- biblical institutions and they each have a purpose and

The context.

And, And, Mister Chairman, Mister Chairman, I'd like to submit the entirety of Matthew twenty-five into the record. I'd like to submit entirety of Matthew twenty-five into the record.

Without objection.

Mister Chairman, I also have a unanimous consent item.

What what without object does anyone object to

Thank you. It's a Huffington Post article.

Wha- what what I didn't recognize yet Mister, wa- wa- does anybody object to Mister Cloud?

OK.

Without objection, so ordered. Now I'll recognize Miss Randall.

Thank you, Mister Comer. Um, I'd like to enter into the record an article from the Huffington Post. Yesterday, troops being told Trump's been anointed by Jesus to cause Armageddon in

Without objection, so ordered. Well, we do want it, let's recognize Mr. Khan and then I'll get Mr. L- Mr. Khan from California.

Thank you, um, Mr. Chairman. Governor Walts, uh, when I went to Minneapolis and, uh, was at, uh, Alex Prettys Memorial, I was, uh, struck, I, that, uh, by the, the people there. I expected, uh, lot of folks who were immigrants, And I expected uh, were folks who were children of immigrants, who looked brown like me. And there at the memorial were fourth and fifth generation Minnesotans. Most of them, white Americans, talking about how they faced tyranny, how when they go to church they were being followed by ice agents, when they'd go to give a meal to an immigrant. They were being followed by agents. And I, I just had so much hope for our country, seeing them there. And I wanna thank Minnesota, as a Californian, as someone who grew up in Pennsylvania, as an American, for their character, for their courage, for what they have modeled in a multiracial democracy. And my question for you, I mean, having served as a congressman, a governor, what is it about Minnesota that we can learn? What is it that leads to this kind of inclusive feeling about immigrants in our nation.

Well, thank you, Congressman, and thanks for your work on many fronts. Um, look, I think Reverend Tolgaard summed it up in in getting at the heart of this. It's about the neighborliness and the care. And, um, left to our own devices, I'm gonna make the case. Minnesota, and by the way, I would remind folks, states have to balance their budgets. We're triple-A bond rated, one of the states that's ranked the highest. We have a surplus and we also have the highest rainy day funds, one of the strongest, So we understand fiscal responsibility, but we also understand this caring, this neighborliness. People saw their neighbor. I believe our politics can change with that idea of what the next door neighbor looks like. Now I will have to tell you, Mister Khanna, I was deeply concerned last year when the Vice President of the United States mentioned he can understand why people wouldn't want to live by somebody who's not like them which seems to go against our entire ethos in Minnesota, whether it was the first wage of Norwegian and Swedish immigrants that came to Minnesota, German immigrants like my family, or whether it was Hmong coming after the Vietnam War or Somali and other East African uh immigrants to our country and I think it's this sense of working together there's a reason that we rank at the top in health care we rank at the top in personal incomes we rank near the top in home ownership we rank near the top in happiness cuz this idea that we're all in it together and that we believe everybody should have a chance so I think it's an ethos and it gets into On the secular side, I believe as an elected official that I shouldn't give a sermon, but I should attempt to live one. And one of our politicians, Paul Wellstone, talked about " we all do better when we all do better." And that's what we do. And, and I know that is true to a certain degree in other states, but I see folks making the claim that, " well, you wouldn't have any fraud if you just cut all these programs, if you just zeroed them out." That is true. If we did not provide food for our children, no one would steal from that. But there would also be a lot of hungry children. And what I'm asking for and acknowledging the accountability, we need to put program integrity in. So I think it's a neighborliness, I think it's a historical point about caring for your own, and I think it's a clear understanding that if your neighbor does better, you're gonna do better.

Well, thank you, Governor. And obviously fraud matters and budgets matter. But what really matters right now in this country are values. And I really appreciate your sharing that. Uh, Attorney General Olsen, in the brief time I have, you know, I just wanna be clear about Somali Americans, cuz when I was growing up as an Indian American, anytime someone who was of Indian origin did something wrong, every Indian American was concerned, you know. And I don't think people understand that if you aren't a minority, how that makes you feel. I understand there were eighty or ninety people who were Somali Americans who were involved in this but there are a hundred thousand Somali Americans, at least in Minnesota. And statistics from all the studies I've seen, it is just factually untrue that Somali Minnesotans or Somali Americans commit more fraud than white Americans or Indian Americans or other Americans and could you just speak to this because it is so dangerous and I don't even think on the other side people are doing that on purpose but if you aren't an immigrant if you haven't lived that or a chil- child of immigrants you don't know what that makes you feel and can you talk about the Somali uh experience in Minnesota?

No, the reality is the Somali community in Minnesota has brought great things to our state. They have opened businesses. They've gotten professional degrees. They are great neighbors who volunteer and help their neighbors. They have been a benefit to our state. If you pick out a few people who've done wrong, sure you can do that, but I can guarantee you you can do that in any ethnic group at all in the state of Minnesota or anywhere in America.

Thank you. Thank you both.

All right, before I recognize Mr. Higgins, I'll recognize Mr. Walkinshaw for unanimous consent.

Uh, th- thank you, Mister Chairman, and first I just wanted to make a, a quick correction. You said Secretary Noem is before the Homeland Security Committee today. That's, that's not true. I'm a member of the committee. She was with us a couple months ago, but she's not scheduled.

OK.

Uh, with that I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record of September twenty second, twenty twenty five article from Reuters, titled " Trump Aid, Hohman Accepted Fifty Thousand Dollars in Bribery operation, which shows the Trump administration is willing to cover up blatant corruption of its official spending.

Without objection to order, chair now recognizes Mister Higgins for Louisiana.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, gentlemen, ma'am, thank you for being here today. Governor, when you, when you took office this, this fraud had already begun. Is that, is that a accurate assessment?

That's accurate uh

Yes sir.

Mister Higgins.

So So what we're trying to get our heads wrapped around here as a nation and and and we're doing our best as a committee, I'm quite certain on both sides to just sort of focus our attention on what needs to be focused on. You had massive fraud in the state of Minnesota. And when we started looking into waste, fraud, abuse and theft across the country, Minnesota surfaced as as a a a wow moment for for the entire country. So naturally, you know, we look as a citizen rated, well who's in charge there? And And my old friend Governor Walz is in charge. And the truth is, is fraud had begun before you, before you took office. So it's a reasonable question, Governor. Why, you you noted in many interviews, I'm not gonna go through them ad nauseum, you were aware of this level of fraud and investigations and and yet it seems like Nothing was done until the Trump administration uh re- re-established itself in the second term and we began broad investigations into wage fraud, abuse and theft, and Minnesota popped. So, would you, would you please, I'll just give you a minute to respond.

Yeah.

Why why didn't you do something sooner? I know some people were put in jail. I know they were invested. But there was billions and billions and billions of dollars being stolen in a, from a pretty concentrated demographic in your community. And this demographic is a significant political supporter for you and your party, good sir. So I just ask you, please explain.

Yeah. Well, thank you, Mister Higgins, and I I appreciate your question in good faith on this. Uh, first of all, the issue of billions, and I'll keep

I would say that it's it's slow. I would say it's slow, but but continue.

Well, there's nothing to support that. But look, we will pursue it and assume that that's the case. We will still make the changes we need to make. The characterization that nothing happened till the Trump administration came in is is simply not true. We worked with them in the first administration where USDA didn't take action, and I think that documented. The fact is, starting

But you didn't pause payments, Governor. And the and the criminal investigation, which I'm running out of time, I wanna jump to. The the way America sees this, Governor Walz, respectfully, sir, is that this money just continued to flow. There was a high awareness of this waste, fraud, abuse and theft, like organized crime level theft, and and it it seemed to be slow rolled. And nobody stopped the money from rolling in, and the money gone, been remitted overseas. Um, Attorney General Ellison, you stated in your opening statement that uh you you s- you sort of stated that your office only has direct jurisdiction over Medicaid fraud. Did you say that in your opening statement? OK, well you seem to indicate that that you don't have like criminal authority, but you do, don't you? under your own law, you have authority if the county district attorney asks you to get involved, or if the governor asks you to get involved, then your office can take lead on any criminal investigation, specifically if you have particular uh staffing and capabilities within your office because it's statewide to look into organized crime. Is that not correct?

Right.

Okay, so you have the authority to lead your state's effort to respond to this massive fraud at the state level from w- w- within the healthcare realm where government money's been stolen at very, very high levels, unprecedented levels in your state. Are you leading that effort for the state of Minnesota?

Yeah, I'm addressing this problem.

You're addressing it or you're leading it? Are you leading the effort?

We are leading the effort to prosecute Medicaid fraud in Minnesota.

I'm not talking about Medicaid fraud. Don't hide behind that. You have the authority to prosecute anything criminally that the governor asks you to. And this thing is big. I'm giving you an opportunity, sir. Are you leading the criminal investigative effort into this massive fraud across the board in the health care spectrum in the state of Minnesota?

We are following the law and addressing

You're not leading. You're not leading. I must say, Mister Chairman, that the Attorney General of the State of Minnesota should resign. I yield.

Thank you. Gentlemen, yields back. Uh, before I recognize Mister Frost, I wanna uh, Mister Walkichal, you were right. She's not testifying in Homeland Security. Christy Noem's testifying in Judiciary. I knew she was here somewhere today, so that was, you were right. Uh, I mis-stating the round committee. Chair now recognizes Mister Frost from Florida.

Thank you so much, Mister Chair, and I have unanimous consent, um, called Fraud Focus, Why is Trump granting clemency to convicted fraudsters?

Without objection, so ordered.

Thank you all for being here. The whole world has witnessed unprecedented and extreme immigration enforcement tactics this year in Minnesota. After the murder of Renee Nicole Goode and before the murder of Alex Pratt, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that quote, the The day of reckoning and retribution is coming. Governor Walz, the dictionary defines retribution as punishment inflicted on someone as vended vengeance for a wrong or criminal act. Based on what we've seen play out in Minneapolis, what is the problem with the president of the United States directing agents to carry out retribution?

Well, yeah, thank you, and this is certainly troubling, um, because under the guise of fraud, which we all want to tackle. Uh, we were subject to, as you saw, the largest invasion of a state, um, by the federal government, um, I don't know, in, in, uh, certainly any of our lifetimes. And that infliction, to me, we're trying to figure it out, look,

Yeah.

we'll acknowledge and we're fixing it in Minnesota, but I'm telling you, each of you are gonna go back to your state, and if some of you think you wanna be governor, you're gonna deal with this, and these folks keep moving. The problem is, Congressman, This was about retribution, this was about singling out Minnesota, and I think, I'm gonna just name it, I think it's singling out because our state works, and it provides things for people, and we care, and we mind our own business, and we respect our neighbors. And this retribution had nothing to do with getting the worst of the worst, we know that, it had nothing to do with stopping fraud, and we were subject, we being Minnesotans, for over ten weeks. And I wanna note just before, and I'll give, I'll yield back on this, Congressman, I think this is important to note.

Mm.

The gentleman from Illinois

It's bad for our communities, it makes our people less safe, it's terrorizing our streets. Um, Reverend, reverend, what has been happening in your community when individuals try to record federal agents? what has been happening in your community when individuals try to record federal agents

Thank you for your question. Uh, individuals who have tried to record federal agents have been told they cannot. They have, um, been asked for, uh, taken pictures of their license plates. They have been followed. They have, um, been subject to int- fear intimidation tactics by ICE agents.

And one of the only reasons that really the world knows about what's going on in, uh, Minnesota is because of our constitution and the right to be able to record law enforcement and federal agents. Those videos and the videotapes have been in part the reason why we know what's going on. Trump administration officials have suggested that observing or identifying federal agents is, quote, " doxing" or, quote, " assault". We know federal agents have followed observers to their homes. We know p- uh, protesters have been pepper sprayed. We know people have been violently detained who were filming them without bystanders having cameras, who know how the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Preddy by ICE agents would have been uh handled by this administration. They have already tried to lie about these murders, even with footage. After Alex Preddy was murdered, Stephen Miller said he was quote " a domestic terrorist" who tried to quote, assassinate federal law enforcement. Kristi Noem said that he committed an act of domestic terrorism and the President of the United States said that he was an agitator and perhaps an insurrectionist. Reverend, the the last thing I I wanna get to that I think is really important. I grew up in the church and I used to wear one of the what would Jesus do, uh, um, bracelets, mainly because I used to curse a little too much when I was little,

Mm-hmm.

and then I would like snap myself when I cursed. Either way, nowadays, I think less about what would Jesus do and I think more about what would happen to Jesus,

Mm.

um, in this country. And I just wanted to give you a moment to talk about what you think. what happened to refugees Mary and Joseph as they come to our border?

Hmm.

Would they be separated from their child? I mean, what what does this look like?

Such a good point, Congressman. And yes, Jesus was himself a refugee as were his parents and yes, I fear that they too would have experienced the harm and cruel treatment that Minnesotans have been experiencing at the hands of our government.

What and what do you say to the people who hide behind the Bible and wrap themselves

I think again, uh Matthew twenty five, where are we in this moment? It should be on the side of the least, the widow, the orphan, the the hungry, the homeless, and that, uh as people of faith and moral conscience, uh history will tell what side we stood on, but our actions

Thank you, I yield back.

And yields back. Before I recognize Miss Mace, Mister Grofman, I believe has a UC. Yeah, I I'd like to submit for the record uh something here called Put uh hit the button. Oh, I'm sorry. I'd like to submit for the record something called Minnesota Financial and Compliance Report on federally assisted programs for the year ending June thirtieth, twenty twenty four.

Without objection, so ordered. Chair now recognizes Miss Mace from South Carolina.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and good morning, gentlemen. Uh, Thank you for being here today. Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison, you have presided over one of the worst government fraud scandals in American history. This was money intended to feed hungry children, help kids with autism, provide food and shelter and health care to the needy, and more. You both allowed billions in these American taxpayer dollars to be pillaged and plundered by Somali pirates. You knew this was happening. You chose to do nothing about it, and in some cases you even enabled it. Attorney General Ellison, you even profited from this fraud by taking campaign donations from these Somalians after pledging to help quash the investigation into them. I find your behavior despicable. Uh, my questions this morning. Uh, may I first go to Governor Walz, uh, and I hope you learned some lessons from your last hearing with me on the oversight committee. Have you learned anything since then?

I did, that if I didn't speak up two of my people would be dead, Congresswoman,

Hmm.

and I warned you.

Um, that, OK, Miss, uh, Governor Walz, uh. What is a woman? Have you learned that lesson? Do you know what a woman is?

I'm the governor of Minnesota, Congresswoman,

Do you know what a woman is?

I'm not here to be your prop for your obsession.

OK, so if you can't define what a woman is,

I taught middle school your obsession.

you certainly can't define what fraud is. If you can't even define what a woman is, you can't define fraud. How much money was spent on autism in Minnesota in two thousand seventeen, Governor?

I don't have those numbers in front of me, Congresswoman.

OK. Did you prepare for this hearing today? Did you do any preparation for this hearing today?

I did. I I take Congress seriously. I don't know. I wasn't the governor. I wasn't the governor.

Did you not just say that you prepared for this hearing today? One million dollars, OK? A quick Google search or using your AI could tell you one million dollars was spent. How much money was spent on autism in Minnesota in two thousand twenty four?

I don't have the number in front of me. As governor, I don't.

Were you governor in two thousand twenty four?

I was, but I'm not the head of the

OK, so your excuse before that you didn't know what two thousand seventeen autism numbers were because you were not governor, and today you can't answer the numbers about two thousand twenty four as governor, um, and you still said you prepared for this hearing today. It's unbelievable. Uh, three hundred and forty-three million dollars was spent in two thousand twenty four. What percent increase is that from one million to three hundred and forty-three million? What percentage increase is that?

I'm not here to be your prop. Go ahead and tell me.

I We, are you governor of Minnesota or not?

Yes, I am. I'm not, I'm not a prop for a member of Congress.

OK, well, when I'm governor of South Carolina, you can sure as hell bet that I'm gonna know the math. The math is thirty four thousand two hundred percent increase, an increase of three hundred and forty-three times what it was in this time period. Do you know the number of children in Minnesota?

I know that Minnesota ranked as a top three state for children in the last year.

OK, what is the total population in Minnesota?

Five point seven million.

OK. Um, what is the total population of children in Minnesota?

I don't have the number in front of me right now.

Are you governor of Minnesota?

I know four hundred thousand were cut out of health care last week by the actions you made.

OK, but that's not Are you governor of se- of Minnesota?

I am.

And you don't know the number of children residing in Minnesota.

I don't have the specific number. It's five point seven million.

It's, it's, that's your total population.

What is your age? What is the age?

One point two

You're zero to five? Zero to nineteen?

One point, we have approximately one point two million children in Minnesota.

To what age?

I'm not even governor of South Carolina. Our population in South Carolina is five point five million. We have approximately one point one million children under the age of eighteen in my home state of South Carolina, OK? As governor, I expect you to know this information. Thank God you're not vice president of the United States. Do you know approximately how many children in Minnesota are autistic or on the spectrum?

No, I don't, I don't have that number.

OK. Well, if you take the CDC's roughly one in thirty-six kids are on the spectrum, we're talking about approximately thirty-three thousand kids. In South Carolina it's about thirty-one thousand or so. What is uh, do you know what this is per child, spending-wise, in the fraud for autistic autistic kids in Minnesota?

Again, I'm not here to be your prop. Go ahead and tell us.

This isn't, i- is doing Minnesota math a prop? This is math. We're talking about fraud.

Minnesota ranks at the top.

We're talking about, we're talking about money.

Where does South Carolina rank?

We're talking about

Where do South Carolina children rank on healthiness?

This is, these are my questions for you, doesn't go the other way around, unless we're debating on the debate stage. And we're not.

If you're asking questions about being governor, it does.

But this is, I'm asking you questions about being governor of Minnesota, which you can't answer. This is basic math. And you can't even answer.

I'm not here to be your prop.

Do you even care about kids in Minnesota?

They rank near the top in every category.

You care.

My children are fed, my children are housed.

Y- You care about autistic children getting the services they need in Minnesota.

My children have health care. My children have the best schools.

So you don't, Mister, uh, Chairman, I yield back. Uh, Mr. Chairman.

Y- young lady yields back.

Mr. Chairman.

Ye- who's ri- oh, Miss Boebert? Yes.

Mr. Chairman.

Oh, Miss Mace.

Uh, may I, may I make my two motions?

Proceed.

OK, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee issue a subpoena to the honorable Pamela Jo Bondi to appear before the committee, for a deposition regarding the department's handling of the investigation to Jeffrey Epstein and his associates in compliance with the uh Epstein files, transparency act.

A motion has been made. The committee will hold this motion in advance until the end of today's hearing. The committee will now proceed with today's hearing.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee issue a subpoena to the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights for the awards and settlements paid pursuant to section four one five of the Congressional Accountability Act prior to December twelfth two thousand eighteen with only redactions allowable for the personally identifiable information of victims, alleged victims and witnesses.

Take care.

Thank you, ma'am.

A motion has been made. The committee will hold this motion in abeyance until the end of today's hearing.

Mister Chairman, I seek unanimous consent.

The commite-

Mister Oh, Mister Chairman, can I have one thing before?

Yeah, chair recognizes the record member.

Thank you. Uh, no, we'd just like to see Mrs. Mace's uh motions in writing, which would be great. Good.

Now, before I recognize Miss Lee, do you have Miss Randall?

Thank you, Mister Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record of December eleventh twenty twenty five article from The Guardian, titled, Somalis are the scapegoat, fear rises as Trump targets Minneapolis community,

With without objection.

which describes the Trump administration's xenophobic attacks.

That objection's ordered. Chair recognizes Miss Lee from Pennsylvania.

Thank you, Mister Chair. For the past uh few months, Democrats on this committee and in the Senate have been holding hearings on the unconstitutional actions of the Trump administration. So we've heard uh from in that time whistleblowers, industry experts, uh and survivors of abuses of federal agents. They spoke about warrantless searches that they have been subjected to, um, including federal agents bursting into their homes with guns. Uh, they spoke about being shot at and dragged out of their cars, um, and then, you know, being made to look like they were actually the perpetrators. They spoke about federal agents' use of masks and unmarked vehicles, um, and the efforts of these agents to hide their identity, to escape any sort of accountability. And we heard from the brother of Rene Good, who was murdered by ICE agents in uh Minis- in uh Minneapolis. That is what oversight looks like. Not two hearings on fraud in one single state, which is not even the worst instance of fraud out there,

Yeah.

though we all here agree that we should target fraud. Republicans have dragged Governor Walzin again to demonize and target his state because he is a Democratic governor and he is implementing democratic policy. Republicans took a legitimate investigation and, as per usual, has made it a circus. Now we have just a random guy lurking around child care centers, trying to get into buildings with children as the fraught vigilante. The Somali community has been vilified and made to feel unsafe. And federal benefits are being cut to Minnesota and other Democrat-led states. Trump and his administration also used this investigation as a

No, they have not. No, they have not.

Republicans have been touting uh alleged fraud in child care centers and the need to protect children, but since the immigration uh enforcement push, have kids been able to be kids? Have they felt comfortable? comfortable going uh to school or playing out in public with each other or with their friends.

They have not been safe. They've not been able to go to school, to be in playgrounds, to be in libraries and places you would normally expect to find them.

Are you worried about the long-term impact of being surrounded by violence and uncertainty, what it could have on these children?

I'm deeply concerned about that, and I know that their teachers and their parents are as well.

You were arrested earlier this year while protesting ICE agents and deportations. Why was it important for you to, and other clergy members, to speak out against Trump's administration's actions in Minnesota and elsewhere?

Thank you for your question. I, uh, was arrested along with ninety-nine other faith leaders in Minnesota, many of whom could be here today. And we were compelled to action to stand on the side of the the most vulnerable in our communities and those who have been, uh, facing enormous cruelty and uh unfair proc- unfair uh actions on the hands of ICE. And we needed to stand alongside them as have many others uh in our faith traditions in in history. We stand along with those that great cloud of witnesses.

I wanna thank you for for coming in today and for of course having the courage to stand up uh to the attacks against your community. This as we can all see, was never truly about fraud. It is a part of a greater effort by Trump and Republicans to gut social services, roll back civil rights, to villainize and make others out of people who they don't want to have and enjoy the same civil liberties and rights as others in this nation. They wanna strip away, and have been stripping away, health care and education, uh, child care funding that millions of people rely on. this investigation and these actions have only been used to harm, not to help people. And rest assured, this will not stop in Minnesota just as it didn't stop in Chicago before that or LA before that. This is a blatant attempt, a blatant authoritarian grab that the Trump administration has been persistent in. It will come to all shores if we do not all take a collective stance. But more than that, uh, urging my colleagues in the Republican, uh, caucus or conference to take up their job and their task as a co-equal branch of government. We do not serve as the lap dogs, as the cold followers of Donald Trump, of a president. When there are abuses or overreach, it is supposed to be us that takes a stand. And I would hope that at some point in the one hundred and nineteenth Congress, some Republican with a gavel will do so. I thank you all for your time and I yield back.

General Adiel's back. Chair now recognizes Mister Donalds from Florida.

Uh, thank you, Chairman. Governor Walz, when did you first receive notice of potential fraud in Minnesota's social services programs?

Social service programs in general. We knew that there was issues with the CCAP program as early as two thousand twelve and my first days in office we started taking action.

But but as governor, when were you first notified?

Before I took office.

All right, Governor Walz, former Department of Human uh Services Commissioner Tony Lurie testified that you were aware in early twenty nineteen of fraud in two department of human services administrative administered programs. Is this statement accurate?

Not that I recall. I'm not sure what he's speaking about.

You don't remember this meeting or this notification?

No, not specifically, I don't.

In March of twenty nineteen, your office of legal affairs reported five to six million in alleged child care assistance program fraud. In April twenty nineteen, it was also reported that the department of human services lacked proper integrity control. to control fraud. Were you aware of these reports?

Not specific reports, but because of that, my office, we put forward uh actions to address them, starting in twenty nineteen.

Is it correct that your administration was aware of the feeding our future fraud as early as of May of twenty twenty based upon regular discussions about program irregularities?

I believe that's correct with the agency, the the Department of Education, and then going back to USDA.

Uh, I'ma go back. Was your office notified of these of these fraud allegations?

Not me specifically, that they're handled internally in the office.

Well then who who was who was notified, Governor Walz?

It happens every day. The the agencies do their work, the commissioners, and then if someone in my office was notified, they let me know. As governor I make, you know, fifty decisions a day. I said I did this job for twelve years. I make more decisions in a in a day.

Gov- Governor Wal- Gov- Governor Walz.

So someone was maybe notified, but the agency's the ones that make the action.

May I? May I ask the next question? We have it under sworn uh testimony in the oversight committee that your

That could be correct. I'm saying I don't recall whether he did at that time or not, but we took action. So I'm assuming when we put our budgets together, based on that, we put a package together for that legislative session.

Let's talk about budgets, Governor Walz. Feeding our future went from three hundred and seven thousand dollars in twenty eighteen to a hundred and ninety nine million in twenty twenty one. Are you aware of this increase in budgetary costs from feeding our future?

Not specifically.

Yeah, housing stabilization services went from twenty seven million dollars in twenty twenty one to a hundred and five million dollars in twenty twenty four. Are you aware of this increase, Governor Walz?

Not specifically, but I know it increased.

Autism centers went from twenty four million in twenty nineteen to three hundred and forty two million in twenty twenty four. Are you aware of that?

Not specifically again, but yes, we know the budget's increased.

Integrated community supports went from four point six million in twenty twenty one to a hundred and seventy million in twenty twenty four. Are you aware of that?

Again, not specifically on the numbers, but it's the budget.

Governor Walz, you have to submit a budget to your legislature every single y- every single year like every governor has to do. If you're not aware of these increases, what was your office doing?

Everyone balanced. My budget is about seventy two billion. It involves twenty three agencies, six million people.

Florida's budget's a hundred and fifteen billion, sir, but what were you doing if you're seeing program increases like this, amid allegations of fraud in your state?

Action was being taken on these starting back in twenty nineteen. If it's CCAS and other people.

And you described the action that was taken in twenty nineteen.

Sure, and then twenty nineteen I'll go to the the things that we did on child care assistance. We uh we lowered the standards on proof of administrative fraud disqualification.

Well, well, you lowered the standards?

We increased the tr- We lowered the standards for proof of administrative fraud. The standards where we had to prove it were so high it was impossible to try and do it. So we lowered what it took to show that fraud was happening, to make

And what did you do with the results of lowering the standards to prove for- to prove fraud? What did you do?

We put seventy-nine people in prison and at

Well, Governor Walz, the fraud continued to increase.

continued prosecution.

It increased under your tenure. Do you acknowledge that?

Did the numbers increase? Yes, and I tell you when you, when you catch people and prosecute them, it shows up at the fraud increase. I would tell you, Congressman,

But if it,

just because you're not hearing about fraud doesn't mean it's not happening.

what if it increases, oh I got f- I got fifty seconds, Governor, and I don't wanna get into a fight with you, but let me move quickly to the Lieutenant Governor. Lut- uh, Peggy Flanagan's your Lieutenant Governor, is that correct?

That is correct.

Is does does the Lieutenant Governor go on the ticket with you or are they um elected by themselves on a ballot in the state of Minnesota.

It's on a ticket.

It's on a ticket. Peggy Flanagan essentially works for you.

She has an independent office. She's a constitutional officer. She's on the ticket, but she is independent as a constitutional officer in Minnesota.

You could ask for her resignation at any time. Is that correct? That's typically how it works with lieutenant governors.

Yeah, but she's a constitutional officer. I don't believe that's happened in Minnesota.

Peggy Flanagan is um, there are accusations that she was intimidating whistleblowers. There was a meeting on April of April twelfth of twenty twenty four where she went on

I'm not familiar. I'm not familiar with that.

Are you aware of any intimidation of whistleblowers in the state of Minnesota?

None. What's not familiar?

There are thirty whistleblowers who have given letters to this committee on the record saying that they have witnessed, they have been a subject to intimidation by your administration because they were trying to stop the fraud in Minnesota.

I encourage them to go to the OLA and the independent sources in Minnesota.

The OLA, you're the governor.

No, the OLA is the independent office of legislative order.

But sir, you're the governor. Why don't you take responsibility for what's going on in your state?

We do take responsibility. None of those people, I, I'm telling you, I have no knowledge of how many do

But you lost billions of dollars of t- of American taxpayer money in the process, Governor Walz.

We, we prosecuted these people, Congressman. I think Flo- Florida has fraud.

I would argue that the prosecutions have largely come from the federal uh offices,

That's, that's not how this works.

as opposed to the state offices.

You know that we refer to them with

What do you mean that's not how it works? That's exactly how it works.

They're partners. They're partners.

They partnered together at BCA.

Is the Attorney General allowed to investigate

We

fraud and prosecute fraud in the state of Minnesota? Without the Department of Justice federally? Are you allowed to do that, Attorney General Ellison?

Yes, and we do prosecute Medicaid. Yes, and we do prosecute Medicaid fraud all the time. We've prosecuted over three hundred people uh since I've been

Apparently, apparently not enough, cuz Minnesota's right with it. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Chair recognizes Miss Randall from Washington State.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Governor Walz. Attorney General Ellison and Reverend Tolgaard for being here to shed light on the impacts of the Trump administration's harmful actions in Minnesota and frankly to um be pulled into some really ridiculous question lines. The escalation in attacks from this administration on social services programs in democratically led states like Minnesota on the heels of the big ugly laws billions of dollars of Medicaid cuts last summer is clearly devastating our Do I believe Congress has a responsibility to reduce opportunities for misuse and fraud, where we have seen evidence that it exists? Sure. That's why I introduced the Federal Program Integrity and Fraud Prevention Act, a bipartisan bill that would prevent individuals who have been convicted of fraud from applying for federal contracts. Mister Chairman,

Right.

if you are serious about addressing fraud, I'd love to see this committee hold a hearing on my bill, which was developed based on feedback from nonpartisan inspectors general, who entire job is overseeing the impro- the appropriate administration of government programs. And let me remind my friends on the other side about Mississippi, a state with Republican leadership, where over seventy-seven million dollars in temporary assistance for needy families funds were misused. One of the perpetrators of that fraud? Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre, who received one point one million dollars from the government for speeches he never made. Congressional Republican's response was to invite Farr to come testify before the Ways and Means Committee about how we should strengthen oversight of federal welfare programs cuz I'm sure he had some good advice about that. Meanwhile, my Republican colleagues are villainizing entire minority populations because of the actions of a few we have a word for that. I also have a lot of Republican colleagues here who talk about being fiscally responsible. and reining in federal spending. Again, I also believe we should be fiscally responsible, but to me, fiscal responsibly responsible governing means that we invest in transformative universal health care that saves us money in the long term, child care policies that give the budget back seven dollars on the dollar spent in long term costs for the children who benefit. Policies that will actually save our country money in the long run and contribute to strong society and strong economy, not slashing social services, not defunding hospitals, not eliminating child care programs. Governor Walz, why do you think the Trump administration is so obsessed with fraud in Minnesota, when its own agencies have found other states with even Where's problems?

Well, it's a question we're all asking, Congresswoman, and and I'd like to say and thank you for this. I I just wanna make sure I go on record, Chairman Komer, condemning uh the slurs towards my Somali community that the gentlewoman from South Carolina made. Thank you. Uh, look, Congress, I I don't know. I I think it's been pretty clear the president does not like me personally. Um, I think he continues to tell lies about our electoral system, claiming that he's won all three times when he lost all three times. Um, I think he has people around him who were trying to find quotas around immigration, and they saw a perfect storm, if you will, that included some Somali folks and a whole lot, you know, if we're if we're gonna condemn folks, there's no Somali folks in the Epstein files, things like that, we know, but I, I don't know. It's an obsession and I, I come back to it again. I think it's because we are so ideologically opposed to making children go hungry, people go unhoused. we invest in education, we invest in research, and uh we believe everybody has a place. And so I think it's just personal about how we do business.

Thank you so much. I could not agree more. Um, there are also reports that as many as fifty prosecutors in the US Attorney's Office from Minnesota have quit in the last twelve months. They used to have seventy prosecutors, now some reports say they have as few as seventeen. Many of those who left include the very same prosecutors who were prosecuting defeating our future's fraudsters. How has this flight impacted your efforts to fight fraud in Minnesota?

Well, it's made it very difficult, and I think for all of my friends on the Republican side, we welcomed the Republican folks, the attorneys over at the US Attorney's Office who were good at helping us as partners. We turned this over to them, they prosecuted, they put people in jail. They're not there now. There's nobody doing this, and I will remind this committee The US attorney was in front of a federal judge yesterday being threatened with jail because of what's going on in that office and from my perspective, who's prosecuting trafficking, drugs, murder, and fraud? And so we want them. If you could do anything, Chairman, call the president in time to put some US attorneys over there to prosecute fraud. I'll I'll sign on with you.

Thank you, Governor, and thank you, Mr. Trump.

Good morning, I'm back. Chair, now recognizes Chairman Burchett. From Tennessee.

Say that with disrespect in your voice, Mr. Chairman. Um Governor, you mentioned that that President Trump lost all three times. I believe that was that's an error and that's a conspiracy theorist. Um uh I I believe you spoke in error there, but

No, he lost Minnesota all three times.

Okay, okay. Well, I'm glad you corrected that, cuz

He doesn't agree with that, though, Jer-

I don't care. We're good. We're good. Have you ever used taxpayer funds directly or indirectly to take action against

I have not.

Well, almost thirty whistleblowers accused you and your administration of retaliation. Would you say that's a conspiracy then?

I can't speak to what they said. I can tell you it didn't happen.

OK. Are you aware of reports alleging state officials have engaged in retaliation against whistleblowers?

Uh, no, I'm not, not specifically, no.

You're not aware of that when thirty have come forward?

I am not.

OK.

I believe these are these are internet. We have options, the OLA. We have independent folks that they can come to, and I encourage them. It's against the law in Minnesota. I have executive orders that we want them to come.

It's against the law here, but it doesn't stop it. What actions have you taken to protect whistleblowers in your state, sir, and has anyone faced consequences for retaliation? If so, who?

Well, in Minnesota, we have nonpartisan office of legislative uh auditor. We have zero tolerance, the Minnesota Whistleblower Protection Act prohibits retaliation. I signed executive order in twenty twenty five, added protections, the law explains and clarifies protections around what reports are protected and who can report issues um they're strong. When I was here, I was an advocate for the IGs and I think that's well known in my twelve years here, that I s- that we need them.

OK, well I know a whistleblower told our office um that our supervisor at the Minnesota Department of Health and Human Services,

No, I, I can't confirm it and I don't make HR decisions, but when I'm, I, being very clear about this, there's a zero tolerance for uh whistleblower retaliation in Minnesota. Uh, well, so we'll retaliation in Minnesota. It makes it more difficult. That's why we don't allow it.

Do you think that um any um the fraudsters sent stolen funds to Somali terrorist groups?

Pardon me?

Do you think that any of the um the Somali folks that received funds sent any of that money to um any of the stolen funds to Somali terrorist groups?

I, there's been reports done and investigations done on this, and I don't believe there's any proof to support that.

OK. Mister Attorney General, um, do you recall a December twenty one, twenty twenty one meeting with individuals connected to feeding our future during which you stated, there will be cases that you know, I want you to feel free to call me directly. And then I call up and like, what's the problem? And let me tell you, just letting the inquiry from AG is sometimes enough to make people knock it off.

Congressman, yeah, I was at a meeting like that. Let me just say that I've reported on this numerous times, I've been in front of a committee in the Senate, I've been, I'm here today, I was in front of a state uh c- house committee, I was, I, this is a widely discussed matter and I've been fully transparent. But let me just be clear, uh these people were fraudsters as everyone here agrees. They were liars. They lied to me, they lied to courts, they lied to everyone and I would like you to know that I do meet with community meetings all I mean, it's a regular part of my job. Nothing unusual about me meeting with people. Nothing unusual about me telling people if you got a problem, you know, my office will try to help you. But these people were liars and fraudsters.

OK.

The the main thing is, I'd like you to know, is that we're down so many federal prosecutors that it has put our ability to put hold these people accountable definitely, uh, at a loss.

Yes, there is. Eight hour days do get long. In S- in September of twenty twenty two, you issued a press release titled for two Attorney General Ellison's office has held feeding our future accountable. Does that sound familiar?

Thank you for the question, Congressman. Let me tell you, the Department of Education

Does it sound familiar or not, sir?

The p- it certainly does, and the Department of Ed-

OK, and how how much did you receive in campaign contributions from individuals charged in the feeding our future case?

Every campaign donation I got was returned to all authorities.

OK, ev- everybody knows about the two hundred and fifty million in fraud for feeding our future case,

Because my office doesn't have jurisdiction to prosecute in those cases.

Well, you allowed them to dissolve, but no one was prosecuted. And um, PI QC is accused,

They they still may be.

sorry, PI QC is accused of three hundred million in fraud as significant assets.

Chairman Yieldsback, before I recognize Mr. Bell, Mr. Donalds, you have a UC

Yeah, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record and op-ed from the Minnesota Star Tribune,

Yes sir. Without objection, sure. Ordered. Chair recognizes Mister Bell from St. Louis.

Thank you, M- Chair, Ranking Member, and our witnesses for being here today. Our Republican colleagues have called this hearing today once again to divert the public's attention from the dangerous threats that they themselves have have created for the American people. They have chosen to turn a blind eye to the escalating

I agree.

Since then we have witnessed several deaths, including the brooding brutal killings of Rene Good on January seventh, twenty twenty six, and Alex Preddy, only if few short weeks later on January twenty fourth. News reports state that in twenty twenty six alone, there have already been eight additional deaths at the hands of federal agents. We are now living in one of the deadliest periods on record, with more deaths carried out by ICE agents in recent years than at any time since two thousand four. Under this administration's direction, masked agents have inflicted trauma that will remain in these communities, and neighborhoods. There's a lack of accountability in justice, survivor stories have been suppressed, false narratives have been told, and federal officials have refused to cooperate, even going so far as to block state investigators from access accessing evidence. A. G. Ellison, as the chief legal officer for the state of Min- Minnesota, what level of cooperation would you expect from the federal government during an in- an investigation of this magnitude?

Congressman, I would expect the kind of cooperation that we're used to experiencing. I mean, in in all of the time uh that I've even been a lawyer, which is now thirty-six years, state federal cooperation was exactly how we did business all the time. We're very proud and love working with our FBI agents, DEA agents, ATF agents. It's a regular thing. This is what's strange. and unusual.

And has the lack of cooperation and unclear communication from the federal agencies undermined the investigations into the death of Rene Good and Alex Preddy?

It certainly has. We have been denied access to critical evidence uh in this case that we would need to evaluate this matter uh based on a use of force analysis.

Which is befuddling to me because as a former prosecutor I've led serious and thorough investigations in pursuit of justice. I can say that what we have seen by DHS, DOJ and the FBI is the complete opposite of a detailed and thorough investigation into the wrongdoing of ICE officials. And let us be clear, despite what President Trump would have the public believe, those agents remain on the streets of Minnesota. These actions are not isolated incidents. We've seen similar events taking place across the nation in Illinois, North Carolina, California, to name a few. We have heard directly from survivors about the cruelty and mistreatment they endured by ICE agents and we have seen the individuals appointed under President Trump to head these operations evade justice and not be held accountable for their actions. We can't stand by and allow this to continue. Those responsible for these actions must be held accountable and survivors and their families deserve answers and justice. Which is why, Mister Chair, I move that pursuant to clause two, subsection K six of House rule eleven, the committee shall subpoena Greg Bovino to testify before the House Committee on oversight and government reform.

A motion has been made. The committee will hold this motion in advance until the end of today's hearing. The committee will now proceed with today's hearing.

I yield the remainder of my time to the ranking member.

I'd like uh just to provide us a few of that time to the our the Reverend who wanted to make uh some additional comments about something that was said earlier, uh in the hearing. You got th- you got thirty seconds.

Thank you. Thank you. Just following up on Matthew twenty five, I am so proud of the countless ways that Minnesotans, Christians and people of other faiths and moral conscience have stepped forward to show love of neighbor and to come alongside those who are suffering most, in this time. There is no greater example. of living out the teachings of Christ and caring for our, the least among us than what we've seen in Minnesota these past few months.

Amen. Thank you. I yield back.

Gentlemen, yields back. Before I recognize Mister Perry, I have a unanimous consent to uh enter into the record an article from Alpha News where US Attorney Rosen stated, and I quote, "We have more than adequate staffing to carry out the fraud. We have been reinforced in dramatic numbers by the Department of Justice and by other departments of the federal

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Governor, good to see you again.

Good to see you. Good to see you.

You're an army guy, I'm an army guy. What's, as governor, one of your primary responsibilities, keep your citizens safe, right? I think we could probably agree on that. We might not agree on much, but we could probably agree on that. And I heard you talk earlier about working with federal partners. There's a lot of been lot been discussed here about fraud of various kinds, but I wanna talk about something that seems to me quite honestly, a dereliction of duty or certainly a huge lapse in judgment. And you were governor in October of twenty twenty three, right? Just wanna make sure we're. We're on the same page here,

Correct, Constable.

and you signed the Minnesota Driver's Licensance for All Act. Is that correct?

That's correct.

That's correct, right? So, now, look, I'm not gonna hold you to knowing every single thing in these laws. There's a lot of paragraphs and wording and so on and so forth, but under your law that you signed, it prohibits the disclosure of information contained in the license or identification card application for enforcing title eight of the United States code, just to make sure are you familiar with ti- what title eight deals with.

I'm not specifically.

OK, so it deals with immigration, nationality and aliens. Particularly, the law that you signed eliminates the requirement for social security numbers or proof of lawful presence. And furthermore, it's a violation under section fourteen four of your code for anybody to research that. As a matter of fact, immigration status is dis- i- i- is classified as private under section thirteen point eighteen. So literally the federal government, your partner, as you said, we work with our federal partners, can't use that driver's license information regarding people that are here illegally. Now

I don't understand the connection between the driver's license and the immigration piece, I guess.

Well they can't because, well, let me just, let me make the connection for you. According to the secretary of transportation, one third of Minnesota's nondomiciled commercial drivers licenses were issued illegally, were issued illegally. Do we, do you have a video ready to play for me? Can you play it now? This is what happens, mister, mister governor, this is what happens when you issue driver's licenses to people illegally. I crossing over there. And thank God, I don't know how much that thing weighs, sixty, eighty thousand pounds, sixty miles an hour.

An eighteen-wheeler go-

You can, you can cut the video. He was licensed in your state under a law that you signed that precludes federal officials, your federal partners as you call them, from determining whether they're here illegally. That guy that was driving that truck couldn't pass the test. He didn't pass the test out on the road. There's another video, I'm not gonna play it, but there's another video of a guy here illegally turning a truck like that around in the middle of a highway where people lost their lives because they were decapitated when they went underneath it that's what happened. So my question for you is This should be easy.

Yep.

What are you gonna do to rectify the law that you signed that allows people here illegally to get a CDL? That tape was in Missouri, not in your state. Look,

Yep.

if you don't wanna protect the people in your state, I guess that's your business and the business of your voters. But that driver was driving in Missouri. And and if he'da hit a bunch of people, quite honestly, to me, you could have been held liable.

Yep. Well, Congressman, first of all, Minnesota ranks in the top three safest states by highway data, from your own department.

Highway data.

The data from the Department of Transportation for highway safety.

Yeah, right.

We have the third. We want everybody on our roads to be licensed and insured.

So are you saying, are you saying based on that, that you're OK with peop-

I'm not OK with that. I'm not OK with URI speeding. I'm not OK with DUIs.

But you, but you signed this law that allows for that. You signed it, and you're gonna do nothing about it?

I I can't speak to the, I can't speak to the specific on the CDL. What I can tell you is we believe that

I I I can, I just, I referenced your law.

Everybody.

It says House of Representatives state There's a lot of words here,

I don't know the specific case. I just know our roads are safer.

but I referenced exactly the the sections that allow for this to happen and preclude federal enforcement regarding immigration and the illegality of people receiving CDLs under your state's provisions.

Driver safety and immigration are two separate things. Anybody, had that been a citizen or not, it's still tragic, it's wrong, we shouldn't do it. What I'm telling you is in Minnesota, we have the third safest roads in the country because of things we do.

So you're good. So you're good with this practice.

I'm not good with that.

You're Well,

I'm good with what we do.

what are you good with, because that's what's happening under your law.

Well, I, I can't speak to the specific on if it's an outlier. We give license to people who then eventually,

That happens. Governor, I'm gonna be healed.

people get DUIs after we issue a license.

That happened last month. Let, this is March. That happened a week and a half ago.

Yeah, I don't, honest, that's wrong.

Are you familiar?

And look, I, I

But you're not gonna do anything.

Sure we're gonna do things.

What are you gonna do?

There's traffic laws against him.

What, what, what, what are we gonna do?

Was this person arrested?

I sure hope so.

Well, that's good.

And what do y- but he was licensed in your state under your law that you

Every day we give licenses and people speed. So we ticket them and try and stop that. What I'm telling you is, I don't understand the connection between licensing I can't speak to this specifics. I I can't speak because the data shows Minnesota's

Thank you. It's very ideal.

one of the safest driving states in the country. I don't know what to tell you.

Well, and other states drive in the pandemic.

I I don't know, sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Perry.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chair now recognize Mr. Min from California.

Sure.

I'm first, sir.

Oh, you're next. OK.

Is that OK, sir?

I didn't have it on the list, but

I'll show you the bathroom, yeah.

Oh, I showed the bathroom.

I'll I will yield to the rank ranking member.

Thank you, Mr. Min.

You can go ahead, I don't care.

You sure? OK.

Go ahead. You can go ahead. I I'll I'll let her go ahead.

Who's next?

I was tardy. I thank you, Mr. Min. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um,

He's good.

good afternoon and thank you witnesses for coming today. So, what I've heard so far, feeding our future, two hundred and fifty million dollars stolen. Fifty convictions secured. The prosecution was working. Then the administration froze ten billion in child care across five states. No evidence, no legal authority, no statutory process. A federal court ruled it unlawful and unconstitutional within forty-eight hours. Thank you, Attorney General Ellison and Attorney General Bonta for that work. Then the lead prosecutor His team followed. Those prosecutions are now at risk. So the record shows they froze ten billion illegally, lost in court immediately, and dismantled the prosecution, actually putting fraudsters in prison. Every single action made the fraud worse. This isn't incompetence because incompetence is random. This was targeted, legally defective, and prosecutorily catastrophic. If this committee was serious about fraud, the first witness should have been the H S H H S official who sent the letter, not the Attorney General who beat them in court. Attorney General Ellison, what are we doing here, and I want actually to ask you, what is your office doing systemically to prosecute fraud in the state?

Well, thank you for the question, Congresswoman. Um, we, as I said, prosecuting Medicaid fraud is a very important work that we do. We do it every single day. We've secured millions of dollars for people. We've gotten millions in restitution. We've convicted people and held them accountable. We also represent state agencies and help those agencies, uh, support the work that they do. Uh, the fact of the matter is is that You know, we, the, the w- this, this work we do to stop fraud uh is helping to protect public money. We're proud of it. Um and uh we also support federal prosecutions by providing them with information that they need to prosecute fraud which we have done, and will so of course continue to do.

Well s- well so, so sir, so tell me this, how has the ability to prosecute that fraud in social services programs been affected by this administration?

Well, it has been devastated by the actions of this administration. This administration

Why have they cut those prosecutors?

Those prosecutors actually I said cut, but they actually resigned as a matter of conscience because the administration was trying to force them to investigate the widow of Renee Goode.

Say more.

So so many of them said that they weren't they couldn't work under those circumstances cuz it violated their ethical uh their eth- personal ethical requirements. So they quit.

So they left their jobs that they had sworn to do en masse because they were conflicted with conscience.

That's right. And may I add, Congresswoman, that we have had motions for to dismiss for um the violation of a of a defendant's right to a speedy trial granted by judges in Minnesota because there's not enough federal prosecutors and you know one of those was a person who was a violent offender, uh who was being prosecuted. for uh f- felon in possession of a firearm case was dismissed because there are not enough people to perform the functions of prosecuting people who commit crimes. So this is having a devastating effect on our state. And in addition to all that, Congresswoman

Well, so let me get this straight. Help me understand. Fifty convictions secured, additional prosecutions in limbo. The administration's prosecutors have quit because the staging of how this all works, they believe, and they have said on record, is immoral. Why are we here?

Uh, uh, I've been wondering that, um, Madam, uh

Because aren't you saying that you would love for the, the prosecutions that are dangling in the wind, you would love for those folks to face justice?

Absolutely. Stealing public money is repugnant.

So the ask would be then to the administration for what? With this committee here, I think your Your colleague, our g- the governor of your great state said you want more federal prosecutors on this case.

Yes, but it also, we should go back to the Hippocratic oath of do no harm. I mean, it would, it would be good to just stop doing things that shouldn't be done, uh, such as demanding that prosecutors investigate Rene Good's widow.

Right. That's right. Well, I want to thank you all so much for coming today and, um, to the reverend, I was able to come to your state briefly and, like, one of my

Good lady yields back, chair organizer, Mister Crane from Arizona.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Uh, thank you to our uh guests for coming today. Um, I wanna start with you, Attorney General Ellison. In an interview with CNN host Laura Coats, she asked you about whether or not you did enough to stop the fraud. Do you remember that interview, Attorney General?

Uh, Congressman, I, I gotta admit that I don't remember the details of that interview.

Can we play the video, please? So, miss, to refresh Mister Ellison's memory.

Are we ready to W- it may take us a second on that, I'm sorry.

Okay, I'll, I'll just tell you.

I remember the conversation, what I remember was that I was lamenting the political politicized nature of this very serious problem. I, eh

Well, you said it's not a serious thing.

Yeah, fraud is a serious thing.

So now you're saying OK, well that's not,

Politicizing fraud is not a serious, is

that's not what you said on CNN, Mister Ellison. You said, this is a political matter, and this is a quote, this is not a serious thing. So I notice you're changing your tune now that you're before the House Oversight Committee.

I, I would have to disagree.

Do you understand, Mister Attorney General, why this adds gasoline to the fire when Americans are so frustrated with this government for their out of control spending? and the amount of money they pay in taxes and then to see nine billion dollars of it, an estimate of nine billion dollars getting stolen of their taxpayer dollars, and being used to fund cars and vacations and homes and even fund terrorism. Do you understand how statements like that throw gasoline on the fire, sir?

Congressman, I believe that you are mischaracterizing what I said, so any

No, I actually read you the quote. I'm not mischaracterizing at all.

And and declaring that video is ready if you still want it, it's up, it's up to you.

Yeah, let's play it, please.

This is that there has been hundreds of millions of dollars, but now there are some estimates that there could be nine billion dollars or more, and no one was just suggesting they took hundreds of people off the street who were involved in fraud. Are you confident your office has done enough? Of course we've done enough, we and we're doing more every single day. This is a political matter.

So, how c- how are you gonna sit here, Attorney General, saying I'm mischaracterizing? I I read word for word your quote, I then showed it to the entire dais, the entire audience here today. How are you gonna sit here and say that I mischaracterized you?

Congressman, I believe you mischaracterized me because clearly what I was referring to, by not seriously, is that the the serious issue of fraud is being politicized and converted into a political weapon. That is not a serious matter in my view. That is something that I believe all of us should take seriously, but we're not taking seriously enough. So, sir, I I would say very clearly, fraud is a is a odious, horrible, malignant thing, and that's why it should not be turned into a political weapon, but we should come together on a bipartisan basis to stop it.

The reason it's becoming political, sir, is because of statements like that when confronted with the nine billion dollars of fraud,

Yes. Yes.

This is absolutely false. These federal agents were actually brought in to the state of Minnesota for a very specific operation to remove illegal alien alien criminals. It wasn't because of the fraud. That's being handled under a completely different agency and ICE and everything else. That's the US District Attorney, OK? Did you know that?

The administration has linked all of these things together.

Well, they've linked the, they've linked the fact that you guys supported open border that let in fifteen to twenty million dollars and some of the fallout from that is fraud, like the nine billion we're talking about today. Some of it are the rapists, the gangsters, the, you know, the people that are committing fraud, they're burglarizing people, they're carjacking people, it's all kind of linked together. It's also linked to the save act, which many of you guys and my democrat colleagues don't wanna vote on vote for even though eighty-three percent of Americans support it. It's all linked together. But that's not

What I'm here to talk about is the suffering of Minnesotans at the hands of federal agents, including children and their parents, and the great devastation and harm that it has caused across our state and across our wonderful communities.

Mr. Chairman, he's he's over his time.

He's over his time. Gentleman yields back. Now, chair organizers, Mister Min from California.

Uh, thank you, Mister Chair, for convening in this hearing. Uh, let's start at the outset by just stating the obvious, waste, fraud and abuse are horrible. Uh, they're stealing from taxpayers, they're taking money and food out of the mouths of hungry kids. Uh, I have spent my career fighting against fraud. I started my career at the SEC, prosecuting corporate fraud, continued on as a law professor, teaching the next generation, uh, And as someone on the oversight committee, this is a very, very important issue to me. Uh, again, every dollar that is stolen from these programs is a dollar that's not just taken from us hard-working taxpayers, it is something that is meant for a better use. Uh, and so I appreciate the gist of this hearing, but as I pointed out in prior hearings on allegations of fraud in Minnesota, uh, the singular and exclusive focus on the Somalian community in Minnesota seems very partisan and wrong. Because we know there's massive fraud across this country, particularly in southern state, including states like Florida and Mississippi. Mississippi is still at trial right now over seventy-seven million dollars in welfare fraud. Federal prosecutors, uh, have recently arrested a Russian national accused of submitting billions of dollars in fraudulent schemes in Texas and Florida. Uh, and of course Oklahoma and Alabama consistently rank as the highest states when it comes to snap fraud. Uh, and yet we've only focused on Minnesota. Why? As a freshman member, I've been here fourteen months, but I've learned that the House Republicans are all single-issue voters with just a handful of exceptions. And that single issue, the only thing that that you all care about, is whether you're on team Trump or not. Uh, and so when Donald Trump goes a- after Minnesota and falsely claims that he won the election there three times, and that it was rigged against him, I pay close attention. When he says that he would no longer admit Somalians to this country, because they contribute quote " nothing" to this country, I listen. That's a wildly racist statement, but it's gonna reflect what Republicans are gonna do, and that is why we're holding this hearing. I care about welfare fraud and I care about the scumbags who rip off taxpayer money. But if this was about welfare fraud, we'd be also hauling in people like Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves and former NFL quarterback Brett Favre, who clearly knew about his scheme to d- uh send money to uh build a volleyball facility at the college his daughter was playing at, receive funds for six hundred thousand or more uh for work that he never did from the government again taking money from the mouths of of children that are hungry. No, this hearing is not about welfare fraud. It's about placating Donald Trump. This committee is holding this hearing for the same reasons that it's Ignoring the massive corruption we know that Donald Trump is engaged in and his family. Uh, soliciting bribes from foreign governments and private companies in exchange for regulatory favor. For the same reason that Republicans are protecting pedophiles right now, and that the DOJ is right now actively deleting Epstein files while we're at war with Iran.

Mm.

It's why they ignore their oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. It's why we're holding hearings on this rather than on ICE abuses, or the fact that Donald Trump just took us into war without even consulting. with Congress, let alone getting our authorization for military use or force or, uh, actual declaration of war in direct contravention of the Constitution of the United States. But for those of us who care about taxpayer dollars, let's focus on that. Uh, this is horrible. Uh, but of course, we have seen, instead, a different type of abuse to our taxpayer dollars. They've taken our taxpayer dollars and used them to fund abuses against our American people as a number of our witnesses have apt aptly described. And I want to just point out that until the murder of Alex not a single DHS or ICE agent accused of wrongdoing, witnessed or videotaped assaulting Americans, was suspended, faced any disciplinary action, that doesn't happen with police. When my local law enforcement are accused of misconduct, certainly if they're videotaped shooting someone, uh, they are subject to an investigation. Maybe they're justified or not, but they're suspended, removed from duty, investigated. None of that has happened until the murder of Alex Preddy and the outrage around that. Now, Governor Walz, I wanna just briefly ask you, What's the economic impact the deployment of ice in Minnesota's had over the past few months?

Well, thank you, Congressman. I thank you for your characterization. I I associate myself with you on fraud is horrific, it is corrosive, it hurts those people that are there, and taxpayers should demand accountability. And I think that's what we're trying to take. Um. The issue can, again, w-

Econ- what's the economic impact? I I know business has been been shuttered.

Look, for us it's, we just had our economic numbers and I would tell people that we have to balance the budget every year. Minnesota is strongly with triple-A bonds. that shows up good. It doesn't account for what happened over the last three months. And by estimates, the city of Minneapolis estimates they lost two hundred million dollars alone. And I remind people, you saw pictures of Minneapolis. This happened across the state. Near my hometown of Mankato, Minnesota, in St. Peter, we saw a woman that was pulled over at gunpoint, a citizen. Uh, the the chilling effect it had, businesses going under, especially immigrant owned businesses, people who are here legally,

Yep.

citizens, starting businesses,

And, and. I'm just gonna reclaim my time to make one final point here. Um, I was at Minneapolis, had the chance to meet with you and others. Uh, I also met with a number of local police chiefs, and one of the things they told me, first, this is not the first time ICE has operated in Minnesota. Uh, but in the past, what is different about this time is that they did not coordinate. They did not kill anyone.

That's right.

And that resulted in a lot of nine one one calls because when you see masked men jumping out of vans pulling people out assaulting them punching them in the head, as happens all the time with ICE agents. Uh, and by the way, that's not a matter of training. It's a matter of peak. picking people who are predisposed to violence, uh, that costs costs our local police quite a lot of money. It's one of the reasons I'm gonna be introducing the recoup act so that local jurisdictions are repaid for the funds that they expend due to ICE misconduct. With that, I yield back.

Thank you.

Gentlemen, before I recognize Miss Boebert, uh, Mister Gill, I understand you have a UC.

Yep. Thank you, Mister Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from the America First Policy Institute dated March third, twenty twenty six, which details uh, why

Thank you, Mister Chairman, I'm going to summarize some of the things that have already been said here today, rather than ask uh uh these questions directly. Um the federal prosecutors uh that we have have now charged nearly

How many?

one hundred individuals across multiple um Minnesota fraud schemes, including Feeding Our Future and related Medicaid, Day Care and autism programs with Eighty-five of those charged being of Somali descent. Governor Walz, your administration's Department of Education and Department of Human Services have failed to act on multiple early fraud warnings about feeding our future, allowing the theft of at least two hundred and fifty million dollars in federal child nutrition uh funds that were supposed to feed hungry kids during the COVID-19 pandemic. Governor Walz, I'd like to turn to the demographics and policy choice.

I couldn't speak to why people moved to Minnesota, other than it's a great place to live.

It could be a sanctuary. policy and refugee programs and temporary protected statuses. Uh, according to the Center for Immigration Studies analysis of uh census data, eighty-one percent of Minnesota households headed by Somali immigrants receive one or more forms of public assistance, compared to just twenty-one percent of native-born Minnesotan households. Why is that disparity so extreme under your watch, sir?

I can't speak specifically, Congressman, but I would uh anticipate that new generation immigrants, whether they be Norwegian or whether they be uh Hmong or whether they be Somali, probably on the front-end as they're establishing home ownership education.

I think we should be bringing folks to our country that are going to contribute and not just siphon off of the tax dollars on American citizens.

They are contributing.

Uh, Mister uh Governor Walz, yes or no, would stricter vetting of immigrants and refugees have um prevented many of these fraudsters from

I wouldn't have any way to know that.

Do you agree with stricter vetting processes for those who are coming to our country?

I don't care where you're coming from. If you commit fraud, you're going to jail in Minnesota. That's what I care about and that's what I'm here for.

Yes or no, should Somali immigrants or any other immigrants uh who defraud American taxpayers uh and steal funds intended for hungry children be deported immediately?

That's a decision for the federal government. You're responsible for immigration.

Governor Walts, do you know who Victoria Eileen Harwell is?

I do not believe I do.

What about American Mafalda Tyer?

I don't believe I do.

There. Uh, these are Minnesota women who were brutally killed by illegal aliens in your state. You don't know who they are, so I would also assume that you did not attend uh their vigils or speak out to their families when they were brutally killed by illegal aliens in your state.

I'm not familiar with both of these, no, Congresswoman.

No, just just the hard hitting CNN ones. Uh, yes or no, would you support ending's Minis- end- ending Minnesota's sanctuary policies to stop these fraudsters and murderers, uh, from using your state as a safe haven?

Well, as I said on June twelfth, we don't have sanctuary policies and Tom Holman reiterated that here in the past few weeks that we do not either and that we are cooperating

Will you direct,

as required.

gov- thank you, Governor, will you direct local law enforcement to fully cooperate with ICE and federal agents um and follow federal immig- immigration laws that are currently on the books?

They do. If they wanna do more, they can, but we have a floor that they have to. And that's been proven time and time again in Minnesota over this. That's why they're not, they're leaving, because we had cooperated.

OK. Final question for you, Governor. There are multiple documented reports of Somali immigrants entering sham marriages, including siblings uh and close family members solely for immigration purposes. Are you aware of these reports and what, if anything, has your administration done to stop this kind of immigration fraud happening in your state?

States are not responsible for immigration screening and I'm not familiar with what you're what you're referencing.

You're not responsible for any vetting whatsoever?

Federal government.

OK, well this is happening under your watch and there's immigration fraud, so we will do everything that we can. Um, and hopefully you allow your uh local law enforcement officers to coordinate with federal agents when we are going after these immigration fraudsters.

As we do.

Thank you, Governor.

Thank you, Madam. Uh, Chair now recognizes Mr. Walkinshaw from Virginia.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, um, Governor, would you agree that fraud is not a victimless crime?

I would agree with that. It i- it is not a victimless crime.

Thank you. And it's my understanding that in Minnesota, you as governor, you do not have the unilateral power to pardon those convicted of state crimes. But you and Mister Ellison and I think one other person sit on a panel that can issue pardons. Is that correct?

Yes, with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Thank you. In your time on that panel, can you recall ever pardoning an individual convicted of fraud?

I I can't recall. I can't state either way.

OK. Mister Ellison, any recollection of that?

I- it's it's it's possible. I don't recall it though.

OK. I'm not sure if it's true in Minnesota, but at the federal level, if a convicted fraudster is pardoned, that pardon can wipe out their obligation to pay restitution to the victims. Are any of our witnesses uh familiar with this individual? I know you're far away. His name is Jason Galanis. Sound familiar?

I am not, Congressman.

Jason Galanis, according to the federal judge who sentenced him to fifteen years in prison is a serial fraudster and a con man who defrauded a pension fund in a Native American tribe of eighty million dollars, I'll put it in simpler terms, he stole money from retirees. Do any of our witnesses know what federal prison Mister Galanis is being held in?

I do not, Congressman.

He's not, because President Trump, our fraudster-in-chief, the namesake of the fraudulent Trump university, the fraudulent Trump foundation, the fraudulent Trump organization, pardoned him and relieved him of the requirement to pay restitution to his victims. A member of this committee, Mister Jordan, recommended to President Trump that he be pardoned. Any of our witnesses familiar with this individual? His name is Jeremy Hutchison, Hutchinson.

I am not, Congressman.

Mister Hutchinson is a former state senator, Republican, convicted of a multimillion dollar public corruption scheme embezzlement, bribes, illegal campaign contributions, conspiracy to commit bribery. Mister Homan might know something about that. For passing legislation that benefited an orthodontist who was paying him off. President Trump's Department of Justice in his first term prosecuted him. a judge sentenced him to eight years in prison and ordered him to pay three hundred fifty-five thousand dollars in restitution to his victims. Any of our witnesses know where Mister Hutchinson is serving that sentence today?

I have a guess.

I have a guess too.

He's not serving a sentence. Because President Trump pardoned him, relieving him of his restitution obligation. A corrupt politician prosecuted by Trump's Justice Department in the first term, pardoned by Trump in this term. Trump has pardoned fraudster after fraudster, denying victims, we talked about victims, taxpayers, senior citizens, children, the restitution they deserve, one point three billion dollars. That's the total that Trump's pardoned fraudsters have been relieved of paying their victims. The chairman called this hearing because he's concerned about fraud, about accountability. I share those concerns. But where is the hearing on the one point three billion dollars Trump has relieved his pardoned fraudsters from paying their victims? Did those victims get a voice in this Congress? There's a lot of outrage today. Raised voices on both sides. Will we raise our voices on behalf of those who have been victimized by President Trump's pardoned fraudsters? Uh, Governor Walz, what signal would it send if you and Attorney General Ellison and the judge who sit on this panel were to pardon some of the fraudsters who have committed this fraud in Minnesota? What signal would would that send? What impact could that have?

Congressman, I believe it would send a signal that we don't take it seriously, because

And just hypothetically here, if you were to pardon one of those individuals, how would you explain it to the victims of that fraud, the taxpayers across the country, those individuals who didn't get access to the social services they need because the money was stolen, how would you explain it to them? I don't think you could either.

May I, may I share, uh, Congressman, that

Please.

Generally when people get any kind of a pardon in Minnesota, they've done all their sentence. And Governor Walz is very careful to say, have you paid every penny you owe people?

Yep.

So that that's kind of how we do pardons in Minnesota.

Well, these folks have not paid their pennies, one point three billion dollars worth of pennies.

I would, would the gentleman yield a question?

My time's expired, Mr. Chairman, so it's your time.

I'll I'll give you more time. If you want.

Sure.

I mean, you you mentioned Jason Galanis and that piqued my interest, and I'm sure it did Mr. Biggs as well. And I think, and you are correct. He did the fraud in Indian uh uh or a Native American pension fund. Do you know who his partner was?

I I I know all the background of it. The point is he stole money from people.

Who, well, would you state who his partner was?

You

Is Hunter Biden. And Jason Jason Galanis served in prison for how long, mister Biggs?

Two two years.

No, that's incorrect.

No, he served in prison years.

That's false.

He served for

Many years.

ahead. And they were equal partners and Galanis blew the whistle

Yeah.

And he was raped. He was raped in prison right after that. So I I I need

What, what's correct?

Will will the victims of his fraud get their money back? Why did President Trump

I don't know, let's maybe ask Hunter Biden,

Why why did why why ask President Trump?

you've all defended, but you weren't here. You weren't here in your defense.

Ask President Trump.

You weren't here during the Biden investigation.

Ask President Trump to get the victims their money back.

You've been here about three months, but you know more than anybody about everything. So chairman,

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

uh, uh, chair recognizes Mister Biggs from Arizona.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, uh, and I'm glad, glad you brought it up because of the ten partners in, in that fraud that you mentioned, nine of them went to prison. Do you know who the one partner was that didn't go? Your buddy,

My god.

Hunter Biden, that's, that's right, Hunter Biden didn't go. And, and by the way, you didn't, you must not have been here. I don't think you were here when I introduced all these, all these uh documents earlier before I had to leave to go to judiciary. talking about of the fifteen hundred criminals uh pardoned by uh Joe Biden in one week, two dozen of them were fraudsters that had hundreds of millions of dollars of restitution forgiven by Joe Joe Joe Biden.

Will will the gentleman yield?

But now I'm gonna go now to Mr. Ellison.

Will the gentleman yield?

No, I'm I'm no, I've had enough of you. Let's talk to to Mr. Ellison. Uh, Mr. Ellison, isn't it true that when you were a member of Congress, you sponsored the Money Remittances Improvement Act of twenty fourteen? It was H R forty three eighty six, do you remember that?

Congressman, I think that it's accurate.

Yeah, I I mean I'm li- I get you, we we we we all introduced lots of bills, but that bill's purpose was to give more authority to states to investigate remittance payments. Do you remember that?

Congressman, I believe that the purpose of that bill was to facilitate

You'd you'd

financial transactions for Minnesotans who needed them.

Well, i- in in reality you you shifted remittance payment investigations to the States and that was supported by the Somali American Remittances Association. You may not remember that, but that's that was.

Congressman, could you remind me, did that bill ever pass?

Uh, H R forty three eighty six. So, it was supported by Somali American Resistance Association and it was so important to you uh you said, quote, " This is a great day for diaspora communities around the country, including the Somali and Hmong communities." Um, and that that's something you said And, um, and we know that the Somali population in, in Minnesota's suppo- in Minnesota supported that bill. Uh, that bill was passed, I believe, in twenty fourteen. Minnesota started identifying large numbers of remittances payments going overseas. And isn't it true that within four years of the bill passing, more than one hundred million dollars had been flown out of the Minneapolis airport by Somalians? Do you know that?

I don't have the information on that, so

And then, l- over the last two years, The TSA has identified over seven hundred million dollars being flown out and linked to Somali travel. Are you familiar with that?

No, sir, I don't have the data on that.

Um, y- under your ten years of AG, the amount of remittance payments going to Somalia, which by the way, some estimates as high as forty percent of all uh Somalia's uh GDP comes from those, uh, remittance payments and roughly forty, same number of forty percent of families in Somalia receive some benefit, uh,

That name is not familiar to me, sir.

Uh, Ikran Mohammed?

No.

Uh, Abshir Omar.

No.

OK, so, um, in twenty twenty one, you met with a group of Somali, of Somali's uh business people. Those three people were there, Safari Restaurant, partners in quality care, also known as parties in nutrition, uh, some of their name partners, and feeding our future representatives, including Abshir Omar, who said they were having difficulties because they were being investigated, um, and that conduct is very racist, xenophobic, and Islamophobic. Uh, do you remember that meeting?

Yes, I do, uh, and I, and I'll tell you that these are people who were fraudsters, They lied to me, they lied to the judge,

Yep.

they lied to state agencies,

And well let's sp-

and and and that's why we contributed to them being convicted.

Well let's let's go on from that because you you may not remember, uh, some of the things you said to them, uh, specifically, uh, and and maybe we should play this video. I don't know if we, do we have the video queued up? If we have the video queued up well that's fine. Let's do it.

Call them and say this is not in the right format, not you're out. You're done, you're contract.

Mm-hmm.

And so this has my attention. I'm extremely frustrated by it. But we are in the middle of a battle with the agencies now.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And I I can tell you this. Um Walz agrees with me that this piddly, stupid stuff, running small people out of business is terrible.

Yeah, because what you what you what you thought was terrible there

This is not

was that these people were being investigated for fraud. The and you later took ten thousand dollars in campaign donations from the same individuals do you remember that

I would disagree with that characterization entirely sir

I'm sure you would because it's sur- surely uncomfortable for you but you took ten

No what I was

thousand dollars from those same people that were ostensibly supposed to be investigated yeah

No that No that that's actually inaccurate sir

yeah No it's not inaccurate well well

it it is first of all

you you you you're entitled to say it's inaccurate but the facts are the facts and my time has expired Mister Chairman but I do have some I do have some

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Minnesota AG who took ten thousand dollars from convicted scammers dismisses fraud scandal as political theater.

Without objection.

Amy Bach alleges Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, knew of Minnesota fraud.

Without objection.

Walz and Omar using ICE operations to distract from fraud scandal.

Objection.

Tim Walz accused of stonewalling key probe as Somali fraud sweeps his state.

Without objection.

Conservatives blast DIMMS, waltz for likening ICE agents to Nazi police force.

Without objection.

Tim Walz urges Minnesotans to resist federal occupation.

Without objection.

Tim Walz was a COVID-nineteen tyrant.

Without objection.

Anti-ICE agitators set up blockade on Minneapolis street to check drivers' license plates.

Without objection to order.

Minnesota Attorney General's legal opinion could threaten some county agreements with ICE.

Without objection to order.

ICE restricted from Minneapolis owned parking areas. under Mayor Fry orders. Minnesota mom jailed over COVID accuses Wallace of tyranny. Minnesota grandma jailed for defying Wallace's COVID lockdown order warns you do not want tyranny at this level. And mother ponders um and that's all it is.

Without objection to order, chair now recognize Miss Presley from Massachusetts.

I've been in Congress now for uh almost eight years and one of the most meaningful moments uh that I experienced here um was in the committee on um oversight and reform. uh, under the great, uh, Chairman Elijah Cummings.

Mm.

Uh, it was the first, uh, hearing to take place, um, that I introduced, uh, in the House of Representatives on the epidemic that is childhood trauma. Though I represent the Massachusetts Seventh, um, one through-line has remained, uh, true in my travels and conversations from Massachusetts to Minnesota to Illinois, to Texas. And it is the devastating impacts of Trump's terror campaign on our nation's children. This administration's policies, including but certainly not limited to Operation Metro-surge, um, in my opinion I would characterize as child abuse, uh, child neglect, and inflicting childhood trauma. Uh, we are experiencing in real time the compounded adultifying of our children, where increasingly so, a childhood is a privilege instead of a right. Reminded of a conversation I had recently at the airport, uh, where a dad approached me to talk about his six year old son who returned home from school uh pleading and begging for his parents to give safe haven uh to his classmate, his best friend, uh for fear that if they did not do that, that he would be deported. No child should have those concerns or carry that heavy burden, but this is the reality for our nation's children. uh, under Donald Trump's America. Uh, Frederick Douglass said it is, uh, easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. We are certainly not building strong children. In my district, the Massachusetts seventh, Elainey was only two weeks old when her father was, uh, wrongfully taken by ICE, a trauma that she will carry for the rest of her life. Again, so far I'm speaking about the pleas of a six year old, and um the policy uh rather the family separation of a two week old. In Minnesota, Liam Ramos was uh only uh with the age of five years old, was detained by ICE and sent to Texas, and he'll carry that trauma for the rest of his life. There are the children that are directly impacted, uh then there is that secondary trauma for those who have bore witness. While in Minnesota, I met with parents who have had to establish parental patrols, armed with whistles and orange vests and their cameras to try to keep their children safe. Uh, Green Street Elementary, it was just across the street from one of the murders that occurred in broad daylight uh, under Operation Metro surge. Around the country, the children of Renee Goode, Keith Porter, Geraldo Campos, and dozens of other children whose parents were killed by ICE agents, will carry that trauma the rest of their lives. Trauma in their bodies, their classrooms, their sleep. It shows up in the ways they cling to their parents at school drop-off, in the silence of a child who used to speak freely, in nightmares that no children, no child should be visited by. Governor Walz is a former educator and coach. You work closely with young people experiencing traumatic events. What effect does this have on them, their classmates and community, and have you heard from um mental health uh professionals or pediatric providers about how this is showing up in your state.

No, well, thank you for the question, Congresswoman. First of all, I would say when I talk about Minnesota being one of the best states, if we're not first, it's usually because Massachusetts is. And I note that it is true because you care about this. And you mentioned it correctly. This is generational trauma that's been inflicted, whether it's learning loss that's happened or the trauma we've seen amongst our our children. Um, I say that as an educator, as governor of the deep concern, but as a parent of seeing this, what's happened to our children. We know that mental health issues will start to show up. We know that we'll see educational loss. And those have generational impacts on our economy and everything else. But I will note, um, your colleague mentioned me being a tyrant during COVID. We had some of the lowest deaths due to COVID. Tyrant looks like children being drugged from their parents, old people being drug out of their house without warrants, two dead on the streets. And your point, the world saw a piece of it on TV, I can tell you, none of us are going to be the same, Congresswoman. We are going to deal with this, and we are going to put money into social service programs to address it, while we tighten up fraud protections, because the idea is, is you have all these generous programs, yes, and our people are healthier. Our people are more educated.

Thank you, go ahead.

Our economy's stronger. So thank you.

Thank you. I I ask you, Dan, if I can center it into the record, a February twenty twenty-six article from Hechinger Report, titled " Parental Stress, Raids and Isolation",

Mm. W- without a p-

how immigration enforcement traumatizes even the youngest children.

Yes.

Without objection to order.

You know, as I close, I've always taken issue with the myth that children are resilient and something that people say because I guess it brings them comfort, the false notion that if you hurt kids they will automatically heal. It allows policymakers to inflict harm and then to look away.

Pain.

But children are not collateral for reckless and godless policies. And they should not be ignored. Rather, we should center children to understand the impacts of all these policies. And um, Governor Walz, uh, with these remaining sections.

Ma- ma- I'm sorry, ma'am, uh, time.

OK, will I yield?

Thank you.

All right, thank you. Chair now recognizes Mister Sessions from Texas.

Mister Chairman, thank you very much to my two former colleagues. I would welcome you back and I know that this is something that uh is not as easily done. And I recognize that. I wanna thank our Methodist preacher for being here. I wanna put in some context uh what you've heard today, and that is probably to both you, not a lot has changed up here. We're still trying to play the gotcha game. We're still trying to, people are trying to do their job. That's what we are trying to do here. We come back and talk about children, yet we forget that that President Biden, President Obama had tens of thousands, eight hundred thousand children that were by them that President Trump is still trying to find. We talk about not trusting ICE, which is a federal component, and yet the Boston bombers caused chaos. I can't imagine why we wouldn't wanna form up a relationship instead of saying ICE is no good we don't want you. It is the federal component. So, with all that said, In fairness to each of you, you've heard what we've said today, so I would ask you, Governor, uh, and then I I will say right up front, I was kind of hoping that you might show up or both of you might show up because your Methodist uh and Methodist preachers here and say we didn't do everything right. We think there were a lot of things done wrong. We think we wanna learn. We come and ask that you understand that this is something that happened in our midst. My Methodist preacher, uh, I'm a global Methodist. My Methodist preacher meets with me pretty often and makes sure that, uh, he knows and I know, I look for balance, I look for fairness, I look for objectivity, and I know you've not been placed in a very good position now, but I got three minutes left. Governor, what did we do wrong here? What, what, how do you wanna set that record star- straight. Because otherwise it's gonna be he's shit, he said against you guys. Yeah. And I want you to tell me where did we get it wrong on this side?

Well, Congressman, I appreciate that, and I do say,

And you and I are friends.

uh, and I've s- We are, and I've said it publicly before. We disagreed on some issues, but we had a lot of conversations on the floor. Look, I, I think I agree with you. As governor, I've taken accountability for this. I'm not gonna run again. I need to spend the time fixing this. This does undermine trust in government. Do I wish there were things that could have happened earlier? Yes. But it in this job, Wish didn't do it, I'm looking into where I see it, I can tell you this Congressman, that the safeguards we're putting in place are going to make a difference, I think other states can use them, I think one of the things is, I asked, helping in the partnership piece of this, understanding that this happens in all states, I'm certainly not proud this happened, I certainly understand it happened on my watch, whether it predated me or not, I'm here. I think some of the things is there's some legal changes we need around Medicaid eligibility issues that you're talking about that actually might get at this,

Is there still a problem? Is there still a problem? And we'll say in Minnesota, I kn- I know we're not gonna let

Okay. Mm. It's the pre-screening. What you don't wanna hear from us is, and I don't wanna hear, that we're arresting people after they did it. We need to stop it before it happened, and I think

I agree with some of that.

we're moving upstream.

We do need to arrest them, however.

We do. We do, but if we're just continuously chasing our tails, it's like I said, if you s- if you arrest from a car

Well, I'd like to keep working with you because we gotta stop this. And so if you put,

I would welcome that.

if you put together a list that we can send to other governors and say, here's what we did.

That's, that's fantastic.

General?

Congressman Sessions, let me just say thank you for your question. I absolutely think there is more that all of us can do to protect the public dollar and get the money where it was intended to go. There are all kind of ways to make sure that

Yes, but we're talking about the lessons learned. Are you gonna show up today and and take as the governor did and say,

Right.

we made a mistake, I owe an apology to people, we believe that what you've tried to do today to defend, I'm not trying to put you in a corner, General.

I'm gonna answer.

I'm trying to get you, because

I can assure you, Congressman, that I am here to work to improve this system, and there are improvements that can be made. And your offer to work on a bipartisan basis to solve this fraud crisis, I am all in. And uh if we could get to, if we can get out of fixing the blame and get to fixing the problem, that would be an enormous thing for me and I and I thank you for asking.

Well, it's my hope that you will know that being here today, we're doing our job, other people doing their job, but we've gotta get to where we can then say, and here is the problem, and we'll take, so Governor did accept responsibility and let's get on to fixing this because tomorrow is a new day. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time.

Yes, sir.

I give it back my time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chair recognizes my friend, Miss Tlaib.

He says that, but then he cuts me off. Um, thank you all, all, uh, for coming here. I think it's really important. And, you know, Reverend, you, uh, I can tell that you care deeply about your community and, uh, it takes courage to come before this committee. Uh, especially when you hear so much, um, to me, just misinformation. Um, also embedded in racist tropes, uh, about your community. Um, and so I wanted to ask you, you know, I think a lot of Americans when you think about it, what compelled you uh to speak out and join hundreds of other faith leaders at the Minis- um the St. Paul Airport to protest against the violent ice occupation of your community?

Thank you uh for the question. I Yes, I am here uh just as I was that day at at the airport because I am representative of so many Minnesotans who are actively engaged in the work of neighboring and I'm also here, as I was. because there are so many Minnesotans for whom it is not safe to speak out today.

And I'll tell you, uh, you know, we're learning a lot. I think the country, the whole country is learning a lot, um, from all of you and your neighboring and showing love and showing up for your community. And I know it took a lot of courage for even some of the elected officials to stand up and say, uh, you know, not on our watch. Um, you know, we talk about the fearlessness that is needed sometimes to fight for our rights. And some people will continue continue to gaslight folks and cause domestic terrorists to surveil us more, to try to bully us and intimidate us to silence. And I just want the Minnesota people to know, I know my district sees you all, and we say continue it. Uh, you are freeing all of us when you continue to speak up, and you're protecting all of us as well. Um, in response to, of course, the powerful local resistance, you know, one of the things, um, they keep saying is, " It's ended, it's done." Um, you heard my colleague from Boston, uh, Congressman

Hmm. Unfortunately, it's not over. As we heard, there are still six hundred and fifty ICE agents in Minnesota. That means there is still fear and trauma for our children and for our immigrant and refugee neighbors and,

Yeah. So I wanna talk about intention. What's the intent of this hearing? What's the intent of all of it?

Mm.

Think intention is important.

Mm.

Because, you know, for the r- Chairman, if I can submit um for the record uh article titled " Fraud Focus? Why is Trump granting

Without objection to order.

Because I see this. And even though you're here, you have nothing to hide, these folks are not here. I don't get to question them. I don't get to say to the guy that committed two hundred million dollar Medicare fraud who just got pardoned by Trump. I don't get to ask Jared Kushner, you know, why is your dad go from literally in France, the title of the article is uh prison to Paris. Literally from committing fraud, he pardons uh his son-in-law's father. And now he's an ambassador. You see all that happening, it's like, well what's the intention here? They're creating uh a world's largest uh paramilitary under the direct control of the president, who has made it clear that he intends to crush dissent, to crush dissent, target entire cities, and rig elections. He literally is telling us he's going to send ICE agents. out on election day to intimidate and target our community. He's not lying. He's going to do it. And I think we need to be very, very much prepared. At the same time, intention. Governor, I seen him uh in this administration freeze, funding freeze, and blaming all of these people. Like, I hope people don't blame my community for everything Trump's doing. Do you know what I mean? Like, I mean, can you imagine Right now, the impact that is happening. What - what - I mean, can you - what impact is it gonna really have right now? I mean, you're talking about today, this is cut off, and he's refusing to let go of the money that, again, Minnesota - Minnesota actually, uh, is supposed to rightfully get appropriated.

Four hundred thousand children lose health care, pregnant women, and elderly and rural hospitals will be severely impacted and potentially close.

It's hard because I wonder if they would do that in Kentucky, where they have fraud. in Tennessee where they have fraud.

Their own numbers show that our error rate is two point one percent. The national average is six percent.

Oh, I know. You guys testified about it. Uh, Attorney General, um, even though, you know, you gave everybody else thirty seconds. I need to ask you, I mean, you're here today.

Shoot.

What could you be doing right now? You're Attorney General, you're doing what - what - today, if you were at work, instead of here, to be honest, I mean, can you explain what - what - what's back home that you have work to do at home? Like, what can you be doing instead?

Well, well, well, no, things are simple. One thing I have

Macrophone, please.

One thing I have is a Medicaid fraud bill that I'm trying to get passed to increase the

The legislature is in session.

The legislature is in session and I'm supposed to meet with House caucus leaders tonight, hoping to make that uh so that we can do more uh to stop fraud.

Yeah.

So that that's one thing I could be doing among twenty others.

Well, I'll tell you, you know, I'm always reminded, and please bear with me, Chairman Carmar, our amazing uh You know, former chair, um, Elijah Cummings, first hearing I ever had as a freshman, was on the high cost of prescription drugs. It was incredible, it was powerful, it was real. And the intent there was, let's make sure people that get sick are taken care of. I'm just so tired of these hearings that are just politicized in a way that is not consistent, cuz if he's doing this, why are you targeting innocent people? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Leib. I gave you an extra minute and fifteen minutes.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you, uh, to the witnesses for taking the time to be here. Uh, Governor Walters, are you familiar with the early intensive developmental and behavioral intervention benefit?

I am, Congressman.

Got it. It's, uh, provides services, uh, for autism patients. Is that right?

That is correct.

Got it. And and when were you, when did you become governor?

Yeah.

Uh, in January of twenty nineteen.

In twenty nineteen, okay. So using twenty eighteen as a baseline, do you know what that program paid, uh, in Medicaid claims?

I do not, Congressman.

It's about six hundred seventy-one thousand dollars. Do you know what that program paid in Medicaid claims in twenty twenty four?

I don't have the number in front of me.

Uh, three three hundred forty-two million dollars. That's about a five hundred X increase over six Were there, was there five hundred times the number of autism patients uh in in that time period?

I couldn't specif- speak specifically to it, but I will say, Congressman, that

That that doesn't sound reasonable, right? You don't think there was a five hundred X increase

Right, that

in the number of autism patients in six years,

No, I think

right?

Correct, and that's why we ordered on-site visits starting back in twenty twenty four.

We, so we, so we agree that that that doesn't sound reasonable. Uh, would you also agree that a single taxpayer dollar wasted on fraud is a dollar too much to tolerate?

Yes.

Yep, and and would you agree that as governor ultimately you're responsible if tax dollars are defrauded?

Yes, I would agree.

Yep, w- would you also agree that calling somebody racist is a serious accusation?

If they are racist, I think it's probably accurate.

I I'm asking you if, is that a serious accusation to make dis- uh about somebody? I I I think

I I think it's just an observation of reality.

I Alright, well let's go there. Is it racist for for a government official to identify fraud?

No.

No. Is is it Islamophobic?

To identify fraud?

To identify fraud?

I, no, I don't believe it. It would be.

How how come multiple whistleblowers have said that your administration told them not to say anything about widespread fraud across multiple agencies because doing so would be considered racist or Islamophobic?

I can't speak to it because it's not anything I would say.

Well, that that's what your administration has said and has told whistleblowers and, as you just

I I uh yes, I'm familiar with the name.

She's a Democrat, isn't she?

I wouldn't know that.

She she's stated publicly that she's a Democrat. She's only voted Democrat in in her life. Um, she's also stated publicly um, that she was retaliated against and called racist, and that her work responsibilities were diminished whenever she was highlighting fraud within your administration. Are you familiar with that?

I couldn't speak to specific allegation.

Why do you think she would, why do you think she would say that?

I can't speak for what you think.

You, you have no idea?

I, I do not.

You, you would, you would agree that the tone in your administration comes from, from you ultimately, right?

The tone is that, in

The, the tone of, of how you might deal with whistleblowers.

Right, and we protect them.

Wait, it doesn't sound like you're, you're protecting them. We heard from Representative Kristen Robbins, quote, " we have dozens of credible whistleblower reports saying the exact same thing that people were told not to say anything because they'd be called racist or Islamophobic or it would hurt the state. You think it's racist or Islamophobic to highlight and try to stop fraud?

It is not, and I certainly wouldn't know.

It it's not, but that was the message your administration was sending to multiple whistleblowers.

I can't speak to that.

You can't speak to that. You n- no, you don't wanna speak to that, I think.

I have,

Um, should should whistleblowers be retaliated against?

I have over forty thousand employees, Don Richmond. Pardon me?

Do you do you think whistleblowers should be retaliated against?

Absolutely not.

Well, but that that's not what we're hearing from whistleblowers. Fey Bernstein, who again has stated that she is a Democrat, she's the only ever voted Democrat, says that she was subjected to quote a smear campaign for

That doesn't matter whether she's Democrat or Republican.

trying to make leadership aware of illegal contracting practices. Why do you think that happened?

I can't speak to that, Congressman, because we don't do it,

Y- you just don't, you don't know anything?

and it's I do know that it, that we don't,

You you

we have strong whistleblower protections and I can't speak to this.

That that's not what the whistleblower According to another report, quote, there's just a continuous effort to stifle you, to shut you up, and it's impossible to overcome. Your administration's response to whistleblowers has also been described as, quote, nearly unbearable retaliation. We've heard claims that, quote, they've been denied vacations, promotions, and that it's hurt people's careers to speak out against fraud. Do you think that that had something to do with with the prevalence of fraud in your administration?

I I can't speak to it, but it doesn't happen.

Are you gonna take responsibility for this?

I certainly, I supervise forty thousand employees. State agencies have their own income.

Y- you supervise a lot of a lot of employees and and as you have said, the buck stops with you, and your administration has treated whistleblowers like absolute dirt, and that's a big reason why we've seen so much of our hard-earned tax dollars defrauded.

There's, look, Congressman, I told you we have strong protections, we have the an office of office of legislative auditor,

This committee has spoken to nearly thirty whistleblowers.

we And they came to the

Most of which are current employees in your administration, who have intimate knowledge of what what's been going on, who have all stated that they've faced retaliation for calling out fraud.

I can't speak to them what they felt. And time is up. I yield back.

Recognizer Smithson, sorry.

Mister Chairman, it's outrageous that this is what we're choosing to spend our time on on the oversight committee. At the first one

Fraud.

Fraud.

And we're done.

At the first one, yes, fraud, because let's talk about fraud, at the first one of these ridiculous series of hearings on Minnesota, I brought up the dozens of horrific ongoing corruption scandals in the Trump administration, but I know we're very scared of Donald Trump, so we won't be talking about those. But those are the things that we should be investigating on the oversight committee. Now we have another one, the Department of Justice was caught red-handed withholding explosive and credible FBI witness interviews of a woman Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor. Shouldn't we hold a hearing on that? Shouldn't Pam Bondi be here, forced to testify why she is violating the law that Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act nearly unanimously, along with this committee's subpoena? But since the Republican majority instead wants to have a conversation about Minnesota then let's do that. The Trump-Epstein regime's deployment of thousands of ICE agents Donald Trump's personal secret police force is a fascist disgrace. These untrained agents terrorized the people of Minnesota, violated their rights, and even shot them dead in the streets. I wanna remind us all about what happened to Alex Preti, an intensive care nurse murdered by CBP agents while trying to protect a woman that the officers were assaulting. After his murder, Stephen Miller said Alex was, quote, a domestic terrorist who tried to assassinate federal law enforcement, a would-be assassin and an assassin. Christy Noem said Alex was quote "committing an act of domestic terrorism." She said, " I don't know any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign." She accused Alex Prettie of brandishing a weapon despite video evidence showing the gun never left its holster. Greg Bovino said, quote, " This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement." And Donald Trump said Alex was, quote, " a gunman whose weapon was loaded with two additional full magazines and ready to go." He said Alex was an agitator and perhaps an insurrectionist, o- obviously projecting about himself. Dictators in other countries would literally be impressed at how brazen these lies and propaganda spread by the Trump regime and Christy Noem are. So, Governor Walz, I wanna thank you and Attorney General Ellison for putting up with all of the lying and hypocrisy from the Republican majority. Governor, is the Trump administration attempting to block Minnesota state and local police from investigating the murders of Alex Pratty and Renee Nicole Renee Nicole Good?

I believe we're not getting any cooperation and we were told we would not be.

Yes, Congresswoman. Uh, we have been told that we would not have access to, uh, investigative file which would include, uh, evidence that would be relevant to the investigation in both cases. And even there's one ca- shooting incident that, uh, does, where, that was non-fatal. And that one has also been, we've been frozen out on that wa- as well.

So two follow-up questions.

We've had to go to court to get the evidence preserved.

OK,

Yeah.

and two follow-up questions on whichever one of you wants to answer. Why do you think that might be the case and is this out of the ordinary?

It is wildly out of the ordinary. Uh, I can tell you that our local FBI ATF, even before Operation Metro surge, you didn't, you d- you know, you you heard about ICE matters but you didn't hear about it nearly as much as we do now. This is an extraordinary departure from what we know. And we routinely work with federal partners, and we've haven't never had problems until now, like this.

I would just speculate that they need to take accountability for it, and I think they understood what the world saw, that this is improper and it needs to have justice for these families, and it doesn't appear. I hope those questions are being asked of uh Secretary Noem today.

And Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison, are you committed to getting to the truth about the murders of Alex Prudy and Renee Goode?

Absolutely, yes.

Yes, I pledge to their families we do that.

Thank you. We need to hold this administration accountable for these murders, starting by impeaching Christine Noem for gross misconduct, lying to Congress and failure to uphold the laws and the Constitution. I yield back.

Chair recognizes Mister Grothman from Wisconsin.

Thank you. We'll go for Governor Walz again. Um, a major focus of today's hearing's been the misuse of federal funds distributed through the child This program is supposed to be helping working families afford child care, and I think the taxpayers expect these programs to be protected from waste and fraud. Most programs op- most states operate these programs responsibly. The national improper payment average is about four percent. Um, as you know, I kind of watch what's going on in Minnesota because it's a state adjacent to Wisconsin. Uh. And it's amazing if you're a congressman the number of people who get Minnesota and Wisconsin confused. Uh, but when that number climbs above the national average of four percent, it should be a warning sign that oversight has failed. Minnesota's improper payment rate got up to eleven percent. That's not a small administrative mistake over almost three times the national average. That is a system that's clearly not being monitored the way it should be. When Wisconsin had a similar program several years ago, when I was in the state. In twenty ten, we uncovered fraud in our child care assistance program. Wisconsin did not look away. We took responsibility, implemented serious reforms, and those reforms included expanding background checks for providers, creating a dedicated fraud investigated u- investigation unit, strengthening eligibility requirements, and instituting a comprehensive audit system. Uh, that would have been Scott Walker, who was governor. Because of th- of these reforms, Wisconsin now has an improper payment of under one percent. So in other words, he almost totally wiped out the problem. Didn't happen by accident, it happened because Governor Walker took responsibility and acted quickly. He thought fraud was a problem. Uh, Governor Walts, Minnesota had similar warning signs, investigators, auditors, even internal officials kept raising concerns about fraud in social service systems. And it didn't just cost taxpayers money, these programs are meant to help

Well, thank you, Congressman. Thank you, Congressman. This this dates back to about two thousand and twelve, The this dates back to about two thousand and twelve. um, Um, that the action has been being taken. that the action has been being taken, And as I stated earlier, and as I stated earlier, on our first days in office, on our first days in office, we started we started taking action. I would ask if I could on this. Anything that Governor Walker did, I would appreciate if you'd show us what those actions were. We're we're more than happy to implement them, and that's what we've started over the last seven years.

Reports indicate that some providers continued receiving payments even after the fraud concerns were raised. Was that a decision made by your administration? And who specifically you feel did not?

I I can't speak specifically to which those were. Decisions are made at the department level, but I can't I can't speak to what those allegations were.

We're told it was still eleven percent uh under your uh administration. When fraud indicators appear in a program funded by federal taxpayers, do you believe the responsibility, the responsible action is to pause payments until those concerns are investigated?

Uh, I don't think it's that simple, as I said these programs provide a a really important service and child care is a critical one that the issue is trying to make sure the legitimate payments are made, and that you're stopping fraud. So I I don't think

OK, I just in general I'll say when the fraud when the fraud uh percentage

Mm-hmm.

beats eleven percent in Minnesota and we got it down under one percent in Wisconsin, um, I think it's it's a cause for concern. I'll give you another question because a little bit of this hearing wandered a a little bit uh to what happened uh in your streets out there. When um any agency comes to Wisconsin, any federal agency, I've talked to several of our Uh, could be ICE, could be Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, could be FBI, could be Secret Service. Our sheriffs always try to coordinate with the federal agencies, ask them what they need, you need us to set up a perimeter, can we help you by transporting people to the local jail, do you just want some squad cars parked around, uh, to m- to make, to presumably keep troublemakers at ba- at bay. Uh, that was not done in Minnesota. like it's routinely done in certainly all the world.

I don't think that's correct characterization. I think Tom Holman indicated that those things do happen

Um,

and have been happening.

uh, during the time in which you had the serious riots or whatever you wanna call them in Minnesota, um, I I believe that you did not reach out for your state law enforcement to help out uh federal law enforcement, in part because you're a sanctuary state and uh

That is incorrect. Tom Holman indicated we are not. I don't know what to tell you, Congressman.

You're You're

We we did. We we wanna cooperate. That's not what you saw on the streets.

Right, right. We we did not see cooperation.

You saw ICE agents shooting people in the head. You saw little children being drug out.

Uh

You saw ICE agents indiscriminately throwing smoke grenades. And I think what the world saw was peaceful resistance and a defense of their neighbors. So I,

Um

yeah, this is not about immigration reform, this was about an untrained force that came in, not with the intention of immigration.

Um, I, I, I would say that you did not have the, uh, the interaction between local law enforcement and federal agencies that is routinely seen around the country. Thank you.

Gentleman Yield's back. Chair Gosselin, Ms. Brown.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thirteen months. Thirteen months. to the Trump's administration and this committee has failed to hold one hearing or one open investigation to hold this president accountable. It makes you wonder, are we the oversight committee or the overlook committee? Because there is no shortage of matters that demand our attention, I can share a few that come to mind. This is a president who has turned the White House into an ATM, and in Trump's Washington, the fastest path to a pardon or a is to donate to Trump's ballroom or inauguration. Last year, the Trump family added billions to its net worth through pay-for-play schemes and corrupt deals. Last month, the president surged ice into Minneapolis in an abusive operation that led to American deaths and repeated violations of constitutional rights under the first, fourth, and fifth amendments. Also last month, the administration struck shady oil deals after the administration invaded Venezuela. Two weeks ago, the president blocked a Michigan bridge from opening after he reportedly lobbied he was reportedly lobbied by a wealthy businessman who owns a competing bridge. Last week, the president launched a war on Iran without the consent of Congress, without an imminent threat to our safety, and without any plan presented to the American people. And right now, this administration is engaging in an active and egregious cover-up of the Epstein files. Yes. Yet today, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are once again showing they are more interested in partisan politics than good governance. If you are serious about fraud, you investigate it, you prosecute it, you strengthen safeguards to prevent it. What you don't do is weaponize it. You don't denigrate entire communities with racist smears. You don't unleash abusive enforcement actions that undermine trust and due process, you don't illegally cut off all Medicaid funding, which will lead to innocent and sick Americans dying. Dying. And you don't fire inspector generals and push out career prosecutors actively working to defeat that fraud. So, A. G. Ellison, um, the the U. S. Attorney's office in Minnesota has at least six prosecutors resigned.

Thank you, Congresswoman. And in fact, it's a g- a great deal more than six than six prosecutors, it's many more than that. In fact, uh, one of the prosecutors who resigned in protest was one of the ones who helped to lead the the the prosecution of the Feeding Our Future defendants uh and it's uh, they've fifty-seven have been convicted. So the loss of those people is dramatically harming our effort to prosecute fraud, because in Minnesota we have eighty-seven county attorneys, the AG does Medicaid fraud, and the federal government prosecutes fraud that is germane in its jurisdiction. It operates as a web together. Mm-hmm. So it's not like the F- the Feds are doing it and nobody else is. They're doing the ones they're supposed to do. We're doing the ones we're supposed to do, and the counties are doing the ones they supposed to do. If you take the feds out, that leaves an enormous gap. And it and it means, and criminals are shrewd. I mean the the reality is that fraudsters are pretty smart and some of them are clever, and know that if there's nobody going, if there's no federal uh the prosecutor's numbers are depleted, you're going to see worse behavior, and I do fear that, which is one of the reasons why we need to pass stronger legislation in Minnesota to help my office prosecute Medicaid fraud.

Thank you. And there's deeper hypocrisy here. Donald Trump was found guilty by a jury of his peers on thirty-four felony counts of fraud. He has pardoned a businessman convicted of defrauding a Native American tribe to the tune of sixty million dollars. He has pardoned a Florida CEO convicted of running one point three billion dollars Medicare and Medicaid fraud sch- scheme. He has pardoned a nursing home executive who pleaded guilty to a thirty eight million dollar tax scheme. I could go on and on. In fact, over half of the president's pardons have been for wire fraud, securities fraud, tax fraud, bank fraud, and health care fraud. And several of these pardons have come after massive political contributions to the president. In many cases, these pardons meant victims will never see a dime of restitution. House Judiciary Committee Democrats estimate the pardons for fraud-related crimes could deprive victims of more than one billion dollars owed to them and American taxpayers. So this president is pardoning his wealthy donors and taking money out of the pockets of hard-working Americans. He is handing out get-out-of-jail-free cards to fraudsters while shamelessly using fraud as a pretext to go after perceived political enemies. What I believe is simple. Whether you are a president, a billionaire, or a regular American who has committed you should be held accountable. And with that, I yield back.

Good lady yields back. Chair organizer, Mr. Palmer from Alabama.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, uh, for holding this hearing, I appreciate the witnesses being here. I I do wanna respond to something that was said earlier by one of my uh, colleagues across the aisle about fraud in Alabama and and the diff- and he actually raised the question, why isn't the governor of Alabama here? It's very simple. Alabama actually did something about the fraud and SNAP benefits. Uh, we acted on that immediately. Uh, I would argue that if the state of Minnesota had done done that, this hearing wouldn't be necessary. So, um, I wanna ask you, uh, Governor Walts, is it true that your Department of Education was sued by feeding our future for racial discrimination and approving food sites?

I don't know exactly what they were sued for, but I know there was a suit.

Uh, didn't the Department of Education have serious concerns about fraud though and feeding our future and their sights as far back as twenty twenty?

That's correct, Congressman. They brought it to the attention of the USDA.

And didn't your Department of Education determine there was fraud occurring because of incredibly large and plausible reimbursement request?

Well, I think at the time during the COVID pandemic, there was how these d- meals were being delivered and what safeguards, because as you know, the USDA changed the rules on these to make it easier for food to get out.

Yeah, but one of the, one of the fraudsters, fraudster sites, Safari Restaurant, claimed that they served the same number of meals in one month as the entire St. Paul school district. Uh, in their transcribed interview, your Commissioner of Education said that this would be impossible. Uh, Governor Walts, you're an educator. Is it plausible for a single restaurant whose owner has

I think that's why he went to prison, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah. But the question would be why didn't the state of Minnesota, that was, wasn't that a federal conviction?

It was turned over by the state. It was the state that found it. It was the folks at the Department of Education turned it over with our federal partners. They prosecuted him.

Well, when we had the hearing with the state legislators, I mean, without exception, They all testified that um that they were bringing this to the attention of the state and the state wasn't doing anything about it.

That those legislators run the committee, oversight committee, they never held a single hearing until just very recently. And the chairwoman of that committee is running for governor. So I can't speak to why, but I can tell you that we certainly tried to address

But you can't politicize this something that was reported years ago. I mean, you c- you you could argue that she anticipated that you would resign or retire or however you wanna characterize it, but I doubt that was the case. I think I I wanna be as respectful as I can be and and you know we serve together, I'm not one of these guys that's trying to score political points. I try to solve problems. But I I don't think we can we can have a transference here of intention uh for um one legislator that that you say is running for governor when when these issues were raised years ago.

And prosecuted years ago.

Well, not all of them. Uh, because the fraud continued and it it's run into the billions of dollars now. I mean, the two guys, the two people that were convicted in federal court, that was two hundred and fifty million dollars. But we now know that that this has gone into the billions and and the question and I I again

Congressman, can you tell me where where the evidence is on the nine billion? Cuz we're looking for, we're doing what we can. I mean, all the local press and all the folks in Minnesota

I'm not, I didn't say nine billion. I said that I think it's run into the billions. And that's not just in Minnesota. I'm, again, uh, we've ha- during COVID, it, the fraud was We've had, during COVID, it, the fraud was massive throughout the country,

Yes.

particularly in the payroll protection plan and the enhanced unemployment. The, uh, I think it begs the question, Mister Chairman, of why, uh, we haven't been more aggressive in going after this all over the country. Uh, the fraud that was mentioned by my colleague was, was SNAP benefits and that's in California, his own state. It's a hundred and eighty million dollars, but to California's credit, they're doing something about it. Uh, so that's the issue here.

Yeah.

Uh, I I'm not interested in scoring political points, I'm trying to stop the fraud.

I appreciate that, Congressman.

I'm trying to to get to a place where the public at the state and federal uh in terms of state and federal spending has confidence uh that we're properly managing the money and and wherever fraud occurs that we're aggressively pursuing it. I think that's the question that has been raised about how your administration handled this. Uh, Mister Chairman, I yield back.

But I just say, f- that's fair enough, Congressman, I think that spirit is what we're trying to get at. I do think it's nationwide. I think we should share information. Um, I think we're being as aggressive as possible, but fair enough.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to seek recognition for a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a June seventeenth, two thousand twenty five memorandum from the House Judiciary Committee Democrats titled " House Judiciary Committee Democrats Memorandum Regarding President Trump's Pardons Cheat Victims Out of an Astounding, One Point three billion dollars in restitution and fines, allowing fraudsters, tax evaders, drug traffickers, and keep, to keep three, to keep ill-gotten gains, which estimates the prop- I'm sorry,

With that

which estimates that Trump's reckless pardons rob victims and let perpetrators walk away without paying one point three million dollars in restitution and fines.

Without objection to order,

Thank you.

chair recognizes Miss Stainsbury from New Mexico.

Good morning, good afternoon as it is. Uh, Mister Chairman, thank you for having this hearing, I know it's been a long morning for everyone here as witnesses today, and it's been a long several months for the people of Minnesota. We thank you for your service. Now let me just start by saying at the beginning of my comments here, what I said at the beginning of the last hearing that we had on this exact same subject, which is that we must unequivocally root out waste, fraud and abuse, and prosecute any crimes. wherever they happen, whether those crimes are happening in social service programs at the state level, or whether we have an out of c- control president and administration that is committing crimes, waste, fraud and abuse inside the White House and within our federal agencies, including deploying thousands of armed agents into our communities, using per diems that are costing millions of taxpayer dollars every day to terrorize our communities to violate their civil rights, to violate due process rights and that have resulted in the murder of two US citizens. And so my question is, why are we not conducting oversight over that? Two US citizens that have been murdered by the federal government. Renee Good, a Minneapolis mom, murdered. Alex Preddy, a Minneapolis VA nurse, murdered. Nirul Nirul Amin Shalalam. A partially blind refugee in Buffalo, New York, dead after being left in a parking lot by DHS without even a pair of shoes on. The kidnapping of children like Leon, Liam Ramos. And an administration that has launched an unauthorized war in the Middle East with six service members dead and over a hundred and sixty school children and their teachers dead and buried yesterday. Never in my life have I seen a greater disregard for the Constitution, for the rule of law, for the carelessness for human life and basic human dignity, and senseless cruelty than I have seen in this administration, whether that is at home or abroad, and they can't answer basic questions about why. And meanwhile, people who should be investigating these crimes are partying and drinking on taxpayer dollars. We've got the U. S. D. O. J. A. G. refusing to release the Epstein files or even acknowledge their basic human dignity. And yesterday, the secretary of DHS testifying and lying under oath in the United States Senate, refusing to acknowledge Alex Pretty and Renee Nicole Goodes' death, it's murder and the harm that she personally has caused by calling it domestic, uh, terrorism. That is what we should be investigating and the billions of taxpayer dollars that are being used to support this cruelty and out of control administration. Now I know it's been a long day and Mister Ellison, I know you have had a long day especially. I wanna say thank you for your service, Governor. You have inspired the nation by helping to organize along with the faith community, our communities in resistance, in strength. And I agree with you, Reverend, that silence is complicity, and that is why we have to speak. And so, Mister Ellison, I just wanna ask you one question. What do you think Congress should be investigating? What should we be investigating here today?

Congresswoman, I'd be very grateful if the committee really dug into the use of force policy at ICE. I think it needs greater training. I think it needs clear- clearly better guidelines. I think there needs to be a policy of cooperation between state and federal investigators in the FBI. And I think, uh, there should be a general policy that leaders not make statements about blame or guilt, uh, uh you know, im- immediately after the tragedy, and they should try to wait and figure out what actually happened before they make those kind of statements that you identified.

Thank you, A. G., and I'll just say this, I've heard a lot of political theater here today. I think it's disgraceful. Our job is the oversight committee. Our job is to oversee the administration and the agencies that it executes on, and we are failing the American people, and this administration is failing the world. Without a yield back.

To let yields back, I might add that it's my understanding the Homeland Security Committee is investigating uh the two deaths in Minnesota. Chair now recognizes Mister Fallin from Texas.

Thank you, Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Governor Walts, do you believe the seventy thousand strong Somali community as a whole has made a positive impact on your state?

I do.

So you'd be the opinion fair to say that the Somali community

Yeah, I believe they're on that path, yes.

OK. I'm just curious by what metric you'd come to that conclusion. I just looked at some hard data and do you have any idea the what percentage of the native-born Minnesotans all races live in poverty in your state right now?

I don't have specifically come.

I I I'll share with you it's eight percent. For the Somali community it's fifty-two percent. How about receiving food stamps? Same thing?

I don't have.

All right, I'll I'll run it down with you. Uh, it's seven percent and then uh uh uh and then compared to fifty-four percent in the Somali community. And then uh, don't ha- or have it, don't have at least a high school diploma for all Minisotans, it's five percent, Somali community it's thirty-nine percent. One family member at least, uh, on Medicaid, it's eighteen percent from Minnesota, seventy-three percent for the Somali community. And receiving welfare of some form, it's twenty-one percent, and that's eighty-one percent for the Somali community. And do you, uh, Governor, do you happen to know what the percentage is of all those who have currently been charged in this staggering social services fraud, uh, scheme? were native-born Minnesotans, what percentage?

I, I do not have that.

Uh, I think it was, uh, eighty-five out of ninety-eight, which comes out to thirteen percent, uh, Minnesotan and eighty-seven percent, uh, Somali-Minnesotan. So I think this is an instance perhaps of where we'll get slapped by data. Uh, Governor, there's been billions stolen over seven plus years right under your nose, and really there's only two explanations. It's either you were in on it or you weren't smart enough to, uh, to see it. It's either criminal negligence or wild incompetence. And the only way this kind of fraud can reach this scale is if there's people in power that are colluding and uh collaborating and willfully blinding themselves to the realities around them. And in oversight, when we do investigations, it's rare for us to have whistleblowers, cuz it's, they face uh retribution and punishment and resentment and uh they can be ostracized and it it's difficult and it's uncomfortable and sometimes it's even dangerous so when we have an uh uh when we're in having investigation and we have even a couple of whistleblowers it's very valuable

I do not. We have our own strong protections on the OLA, the independent.

Well, and it's thirty, I mean, I haven't seen that in five plus years in Congress. Thirty. Governor, on September sixteenth, twenty twenty five, did you uh announce your reelection bid?

Pardon me?

On September sixteenth, last year, did you announce?

I don't know the exact date, and

In September, roughly the fall. Last year, did you announce you're running for governor again?

Yeah. I I believe that's correct.

OK. And there, I think you said in uh your quote here, " We've made historic progress, but we're not done yet." And then just three and a half months later on January fifth, you dropped out. I gotta ask you why. I mean, were you tired of making historic progress?

No, Congressman, I think I've I've done the job for two terms and I said, talking with my family and I said I wanna focus on doing the job,

You just

not running for.

Didn't have anything to do with this epic, historic awful fraud.

It has everything to do with trying to do the job.

Nothing. Ack. The facts are your leadership and really your lack of leadership has lar- has been responsible for one of the largest rip-offs of the American taxpayer i- in our history and you traded, I th- I believe, uh, political, uh, expediency, the currency of political expediency, uh, for your integrity. And, you know, Mister Chairman, I, I don't know if you know this, but it's widely, it's been widely reported that in two thousand and eight when Barack Obama was choosing his vice presidential candidate, he had, uh, three He wanted to make sure he picked somebody that wasn't as smart as him and had less talent and charisma and couldn't possibly outshine him. So he picked Joe Biden. And then Joe Biden in twenty twenty used the exact same criteria. He wanted to make sure he picked somebody wasn't as smart as him, had less talent and charisma, and wouldn't outshine him. And he picked Kamala Harris. And then in twenty twenty four, Governor, I think it's very evident why Kamala Harris picked you. The talent pool,

I wouldn't know, Congressman.

Mr. Chairman, yeah, Mr. Chairman the talent pool and just shallow, brother, we have hit the shore and I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Chair recognizes Mister Superman.

Uh, thank you, Mister Chair, uh, so I I have some concerns about not just the tactics of ICE in Minnesota and everywhere. I have concerns about the fact that Rene Good and Alex Petty were killed and there has been no real investigation by uh federal law enforcement and uh federal authorities and uh so I would ask uh Attorney General Ellison do you know if if the FBI is actually investigating what happened?

Thank you for the question Congressman. To the information we have is that there was an affirmative statement by Deputy AG Deputy AG Todd Blanchett they were not investigating they're in a good matter. On the Alex Preti, we received information that that was similar uh on and that there might be an investigation but that the state would be excluded. So in the first one, they're not doing an investigation and we can't have the information. And the second one, they might be doing an investigation and the state cannot be part of it.

And I know this is asking for your opinion, but why do you think they would wanna exclude the state in the Alex Preti investigation?

Well, I, you know, I I don't wanna speculate as to what somebody's motives might be, but I can just tell you this, it is a sharp departure from the norm. Normally, we investigate these things jointly and when somebody doesn't want another investigator there, sometimes you, you might wonder if there's something that they don't want to come out.

And it's my understanding that the federal government is better positioned to do such an investigation and uh to be able to prosecute such crimes because there might be federal immunity. Uh my understanding federal agents are typically immune from state prosecution if their actions were directly tied to official duties. Uh what is your understanding of that?

So my uh understanding starts with the supr- supremacy clause in the US Constitution, and then there's a line of cases. The first one is something called " Enre Nagel" and then there's a number of cases after that. What it says is that if a uh federal agent co- uh commits a c- arguably commits a crime and is indicted or charged, that the uh that agent, the federal agent, would have a affirmative defense of saying that " I was doing my job and I was doing it in a necessary and proper way," " what I was doing was necessary and proper." If they can meet both of those criteria, a court might grant their motion to dismiss. If they cannot, the matter is going to face a jury. As a matter of fact, there was a case involving, you may remember the case involving Randy Weaver in Idaho. Uh, that case actually was cleared by the Ninth Circuit to go to trial, uh, but the local authorities decided not to pursue it.

And to prosecute Renee Goode and Alex Petty, you would need evidence, right? Has the FBI or anyone,

Yes.

uh, given you or been able to cooperate with you on any evidence in this case?

The the the, no, at this point they have precluded the state from access to the evidence, but there's a lot of other evidence out there. Uh, and we're also pursuing all options to get access to the evidence.

Do you think with what you have now, you could you could prosecute Renegade and Alex Prettie at the state level?

I think theoretically it would be, it's possible, but it, I wou- I would think it would be imprudent until you see the federal file. Because, you know, when you're a prosecutor, you should know the whole file. You should have, you should have evaluated all the evidence before you make a charging decision, or bring a matter to the uh grand jury.

Uh, because my concern here is that not only are these terrible things happening to US citizens, but there's no accountability, right? There's no mechanism. There - there's a cover-up for - for the people who are at ICE and other law enforcement who do the wrong thing and it's making everyone at those agencies look bad. It's making our country look bad on the international stage. And so, you know, we have legislation at the federal level. Uh, I'm a cosponsor of the Stop Excessive Force and Immigration Act. Uh, we're trying to do things tangibly to make things better. We need some support on the other side of the aisle, but certainly we're gonna push forward anyway. Uh, I guess I would end by saying, what would you ask Congress to do to to help get the accountability that we're looking for? And I'll ask any either one, uh, in a clear voice.

I I think that for, uh, for anyone,

Uh, Governor Walts, you have five seconds.

I would agree with the Attorney General that it's about restoring faith, that people don't trust what they're doing and we need them to be able to do

Thank you. I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. I'll now recognize Mister Burleson from Missouri and then Mister Timmins from South Carolina.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Governor Walts, um, we already know that the Minnesota Medical Assistance gives taxpayer dollars to people that are not here legally, illegal aliens, and we know that in large part, um, your sanctuary city policies or sanctuary state policies have exacerbated the fraud that we are seeing. in Minnesota. Um, we we know that just from conservative estimates alone, that when the Biden, during the Biden administration we had an estimated fifteen million people come here illegally. Within your state alone, the estimates from the Migration Institute and Pew Research is that it's at least a hundred and thirty thousand people that are here illegally. Um, and we know that two hundred and fifty million dollars was stolen for the Feeding Our Futures program. Are you familiar with the fact that those working for the the program and individuals later convicted of fraudulent crimes met with Mister Ellison in the what what has been talked about the rec- the recorded um conversation?

I believe the Attorney General just testified to that, yes.

Um, it was a fifty-four minute conversation and i- in it um the conversation was recorded in a as an audio file secured by there was a for- a request to get that information. Um, he can clearly be heard pledging his support to individuals who would soon become um, his family's campaign donors and later feeding our future criminal defendants. The ask occurs around minute forty-three, thirty. Um, specifically the request for him is in the AG's statutory role as the attorney for state agencies to intervene on behalf of the And at forty four, twenty six, uh, Mr. Ellison assures the fraudsters, quote unquote, of course, I'm here to help. And at four, at forty five minute mark, he says, quote unquote, let's go fight these people. These people meaning the agencies that were looking into the fraud. Have you listened to this audio?

Uh, today was the first time I've heard it, I'm familiar with it, and I, I don't know if I can

If if this is true, do you have concerns?

I'm not gonna speculate on uh I like I said I cannot characterize what it was.

Certainly you've heard the allegations that that um that Mister Ellison was working with individuals in a like to try to that people were trying to reach out to him to try to avoid any kind of prosecution.

I don't know if I would characterize it like that. I don't I I couldn't do that.

How would you characterize it?

I don't know, I wasn't there, I just heard the clip you had.

How much fraudulent money has been recovered?

Oh, I don't have the number in front of me, but uh

I've heard the highest number is eighty million. I mean

That, that could be, I can't verify that.

So it's reported that it's um at most it's eighty million dollars. And as we know, the amount um that has been attributed to fraud in Minnesota alone is estimated, I think on the low end, the conservative side is nine billion. I think the Trump administration says Nineteen billion.

Congressman, I don't I don't see anything to show that, but what I've acknowledged is one dollar's too much. I think the the local people and the folks who are taking account of this show it just at about two hundred and seventy-one million.

Do you think the effort to return the money has been successful?

I can't I can't speak to that. I don't I don't have any part in that.

I think that um returning eighty million out of a, let's say, assume it's just nine billion, which would be point or it would be zero or point zero eight percent, less than one percent of the money has been has been got as a retreat back.

Congressman, no one's saying the nine billion other than a potential for that. And that mean every dollar that's out there. And I I think that was characterized last week by the US Attorney's office as saying that that caused problems because there's no evidence to back that up. But I want to be clear that doesn't make it any better. I just want be clear, I hear you, on the three hundred million.

Right. But there's more work,

I think it's impor- just

would you agree there's more work to do, if you're at one percent?

There is more work to do.

or less than one percent, there's more work to do.