Earlier today, Scott attended the press conference in Minneapolis hosted by Robert Kennedy Jr., Dr. Oz, U.S. Attorney Dan Rosen, and others from DOJ and the FBI. He no doubt will report on the press conference shortly. I will just add a few observations of my own.
* The assembled officials announced 15 new fraud indictments relating to various Medicaid programs. This is the fulfillment of what Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, who prosecuted the Feeding Our Future cases, told us last December 18. Thompson said that his office and the FBI had been investigating 14 programs under the Medicaid umbrella and had found a lot of fraud. How much fraud? a reporter asked. At least half–half of $18 billion–Thompson said. What we are now seeing is the result of that investigation. The frauds that now will be revealed will dwarf Feeding Our Future.
* I was told to expect indictments before Memorial Day. Sure enough, the first indictments have landed before Memorial Day.
* DOJ has provided the local U.S. Attorney’s office with ample resources to prosecute this new generation of frauds. Expect many more indictments.
* It was Joe Thompson’s December press conference that caused the national Democrats to pull a Joe Biden and yank Tim Walz out of this year’s race for governor. They knew he couldn’t be re-elected against a backdrop of constant fraud indictments.
* On various radio and television programs, I have been asked whether this round of indictments will include state government figures–maybe Tim Walz or Keith Ellison, or perhaps lower-level employees. Some will be disappointed that Walz remains at large, but I have always expressed skepticism that any such charges will be forthcoming, or should be. Tim Walz is a horrible person and one of the worst governors in U.S. history, but what is the crime? Knowing that there is a lot of fraud in a government program and continuing to administer that program, without more, is not a crime. And so far, there is no evidence of bribes. The various Somali-dominated frauds were basically an old-fashioned vote-buying scheme: corrupt, but without more, legal.
* All of that said, stay tuned. There were (from memory) something like 80 fraudsters indicated in Feeding Our Future. The current much larger frauds will likely result in several hundred indictments. Who knows? Maybe evidence will surface that justifies including government officials in that number.
