The four Republican House members from Minnesota, Tom Emmer, Pete Stauber, Michelle Fischbach and Brad Finstad, have called on Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison to resign in the wake of the House Oversight Committee’s scathing report on fraud in Minnesota, which was released on Monday and cited work by American Experiment eight times. Emmer issued a press release that says in part:
Today, Congressman Tom Emmer (MN-06) joined Congressman Pete Stauber (MN-08), Congresswoman Michelle Fischbach (MN-07), and Congressman Brad Finstad (MN-01) in calling on Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison to resign from office following the recent report issued by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, highlighting their systematic failure to safeguard taxpayer dollars.
“If these allegations are true, Tim Walz and Keith Ellison should leave office in handcuffs. At the very least, they should resign from office in disgrace. Public officials need to be held accountable for allowing billions of taxpayer dollars to be stolen from Minnesotan and American taxpayers. We’ve had enough,” said Congressman Tom Emmer.
Earlier today, the four Representatives also sent a letter to Walz and Ellison demanding their resignations:
The Committee’s investigation concluded that both of you were aware for years of significant fraud concerning federally funded programs, including Feeding Our Future, the Child Care Assistance Program, Medicaid-related services, and other high-risk programs. According to the report, your offices possessed the authority to suspend payments, remove providers, and implement stronger oversight measures, yet repeatedly failed to take meaningful action.
The report further alleges that warnings from employees and whistleblowers were ignored, dismissed, or met with retaliation. Individuals who attempted to raise concerns reportedly faced intimidation and efforts to discourage them from coming forward.
As a result, billions of taxpayer dollars were diverted to fraudulent actors.
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The Committee’s report and subsequent actions reflect a profound loss of confidence in your administration’s ability to responsibly oversee public funds and protect taxpayers.Federal agencies have already begun responding. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has temporarily withheld approximately $259 million in quarterly Medicaid funding to the State of Minnesota6. Minnesota taxpayers are now paying the price for years of inadequate oversight and an unwillingness to implement the reforms necessary to protect public resources.
Minnesotans have endured your failures for far too long. As elected officials entrusted with the stewardship of taxpayer dollars, you bear a responsibility to uphold fiscal discipline, ensure program integrity, and maintain the public’s trust. Those responsibilities have not been met.
As members of the Minnesota Republican delegation, we believe the confidence necessary to effectively govern has been irreparably damaged. We therefore urge you to resign from office immediately. Minnesota deserves leadership that will restore accountability, rebuild public trust, and ensure that taxpayer dollars are protected from waste, fraud, and abuse.
Whether the DOJ’s investigation will result in criminal charges is doubtful. But Walz’s career is over, and Ellison will almost certainly lose his campaign for a third term in November. He is facing a strong and adequately-funded candidate in Ron Schutz, and has never been particularly popular. I think the tape that American Experiment obtained and publicized of Ellison meeting with Feeding Our Future figures and promising to help them fight off investigations into what Ellison called “stupid, piddly stuff”–fraud–will send Ellison into retirement.
