Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was on the hook again today for catastrophic mismanagement charges against a state agency that allowed a food “charity” to defraud $250 million in federal COVID-19 grant money.
The House Education and Labor Committee issued subpoenas after alleging that Walz and Minnesota Education Secretary Willie Jett have not provided documents it requested explaining how the scammers stole the money.
New facts about Walz have been coming to light ever since Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris made the rash decision to choose the far-left governor as her running mate.
There have been 23 convictions to date.
For the man nicknamed “Tampon Tim” – who signed a law to put menstrual products in boys' bathrooms at schools – the trouble began when the US Department of Justice indicted 47 people in what it called “the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme ever.”
The group behind this scam was called “Food for Our Future” and was supposed to be providing free food to children during the Deep State engineered Covid panic. Federal funds were distributed by the Minnesota Department of Education.
But Food for Our Future has been a predatory operation, taking $200 million in 2021 compared to the $3.4 million it received in 2019.
“The organization recruited individuals and organizations to open Federal Child Nutrition Program sites throughout Minnesota,” the Justice Department said in its indictment of 47 fraudsters in September 2022.
These sites, created and operated by Defendants and others, fraudulently claimed to be providing meals to thousands of children daily just days or weeks after their creation. Defendants created dozens of shell companies to register as Federal Child Nutrition Program sites in the program. Defendants also created shell companies to receive and launder the proceeds of the fraudulent schemes.
To carry out the scheme, the defendants also created and submitted false documentation. The defendants submitted fraudulent meal count sheets that purportedly recorded the number of children at each facility and the number of meals served. The defendants also submitted false invoices that purportedly recorded the purchase of food provided to children at the facilities. The defendants also submitted false attendance lists that purportedly listed the names and ages of children receiving meals each day at the facilities. These lists were fabricated and created using false names. For example, one list was created using names from the website “www.listofrandomnames.com.” Because the program only provided reimbursement for meals served to children, the other defendants used an Excel formula to insert random ages between 7 and 17 years old into the age column of the lists.
Five defendants were convicted in June in the scheme, bringing the number of people convicted to 23.
Time of subpoena
So now a House committee wants to know what Walz and Jett were doing while Food for Our Future was siphoning taxpayer money. Apparently there are no answers.
In a letter accompanying the subpoena, North Carolina Republican Party Chair Virginia Foxx reminded Walz that he is responsible for the state's Department of Education and its activities.
“As Minnesota's chief executive and highest ranking official, you are responsible for the management of MDE and the (federal child nutrition program),” she wrote.
Fox also reminded Walz that the Minnesota Department of Education received letters requesting he turn over documents about the theft in November 2023 and June 2024. But “the documents we have received to date indicate that the actions you and other executives have taken have been insufficient to address the massive fraud,” she wrote.
In fact, she continued, “press statements by you and your representatives indicate that you and other executives were involved in or knew about MDE's management of FCNP and its responsibilities and actions regarding the massive fraud.”
Jett received a similar letter. Fox wrote that documents Jett's agency submitted to the committee did not explain how the agency or the USDA condoned the fraud.
Waltz's Lie
Waltz may think he doesn't have to come clean because he's the running mate, and the committee has no guarantee he'll turn over relevant documents, which may be “lost” to the committee's knowledge.
After all, Waltz has a long history of lying about his past.
Waltz lied about his military record, claiming to have retired as a master sergeant in the Minnesota National Guard when in fact he did.
During a tirade on gun control, Walz also told the audience he had been to war, before later denying he'd said anything – he did in fact retire from the military to avoid serving in Iraq.
He lied about a 1995 DUI arrest and falsely claimed he and his wife had fathered a child through IVF.
Perhaps this record explains Walz's indifference to the $250 million fraud scheme.
Incidentally, the COVID-19 panic gave Waltz the opportunity to ruin two bar owners who refused to comply with his COVID-19 lockdown orders and close their doors. “The state government took away my five-year liquor license in my state, which was later revoked, and I lost two restaurants because of that. I lost two different restaurants because of that, and I got fined over $300,000,” Lisa Zara told Fox News.
He ruined the moment by allowing the Floyd rioters to set Minneapolis ablaze. Bill Hupp's bar was set ablaze.
“He could have called (security) but he didn't,” Hupp told the New York Post. “I didn't get a drop of water in my house. Not a drop of water for three and a half days! It's crazy. It's a total failure of leadership.”
