The Education and Workforce Committee issued a subpoena, requiring Minnesota Governor and Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz to answer questions regarding the “Feeding Our Future” fraud scandal, which is being called the “largest COVID-19 fraud scheme in the nation.”
Feeding Our Future, which is now dissolved, was a nonprofit “child nutrition program” tasked with feeding low-income children during the pandemic. The organization has since been accused of diverting 250$ million in federal funding during the COVID-19 era, resulting in 70 individuals charged, 18 guilty pleas, and five convictions.
Following the scandal breaking in 2022, Walz (D-Minn.) has shrugged off allegations that his administration was delaying an investigation into Feeding Our Future.
“We caught this fraud. We caught it very early. We alerted the right people,” Walz stated in September of 2022. “We were taken to court. We were sued. We were threatened with going to jail. We stuck with it.”
The Minnesota Legislative Auditor has revealed that the state’s Department of Education had “failed to act on warning signs,” and “did not effectively exercise its authority to hold Feeding Our Future accountable to program requirements.”
In response, Walz retroactively installed an inspector general within the state’s department of education.
“Either Governor Walz holds his appointed commissioners and other staff accountable and we stop the waste and fraud, or this is going to continue,” stated GOP Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson.
Additionally, In 2022, Walz claimed that Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann ordered the Minnesota Department of Education to continue paying the “corrupt” nonprofit organization, an allegation that the Judge has since denied, claiming that the department voluntarily continued payments regardless of the evident “serious deficiencies.”
“After [Minnesota’s Department of Education], under Governor Walz, failed to respond to previous attempts by the Committee to garner information necessary to uncover how the Governor and the USDA allowed such fraud to occur, the Committee today is proceeding with a subpoena to compel responses,” stated House Committee representative leading the charge, Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.).
Walz has been given until September 18th to provide the committee with the appropriate documents and information requested.