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A Republican state lawmaker who’s hoping to dethrone Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in subsequent 12 months’s gubernatorial election expenses that on the Democratic governor’s watch, Minnesotans have “had billions of our tax {dollars} stolen by people who find themselves criminals.”
And state Rep. Kristin Robbins, in an interview with Fox Information Digital, argued that Walz “has been an absolute failure” in combating fraud throughout his two phrases as governor.
Walz in current weeks has been going through loads of political stress from state and nationwide Republicans, together with President Donald Trump, as authorities examine a sequence of multimillion-dollar alleged fraud schemes, together with the governor’s dealing with of an enormous aid program that federal prosecutors say devolved into the “largest pandemic fraud in the US.”
Robbins, the chair of the Minnesota Home’s Fraud Prevention and Oversight Committee, has made the problem a high precedence of her GOP marketing campaign for governor. She’s certainly one of a handful of main contenders in a crowded discipline of Republicans hoping to face off with Walz subsequent November because the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee bids for a 3rd time period as governor.
WALZ BEARS ‘FULL RESPONSIBILITY’ FOR $1B FRAUD SCANDAL, GOP CHALLENGER DEMUTH DECLARES
State Rep. Kristen Robbins is operating for Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial nomination. (Kristin Robbins marketing campaign)
“I have been chair of the fraud committee since final January, and this has actually been my principal focus during the last 12 months of the legislature,” she stated. “And though we’re out of session, I’ve continued to maintain the fraud committee having hearings month-to-month, as a result of this concern is so monumental, we nonetheless haven’t got our arms round it. So we’re persevering with to dig in.”
The primary federal expenses towards alleged fraudsters within the case had been filed three years in the past. Quick-forward to at present and there at the moment are upwards of 75 defendants within the $250 million scheme.
The case revolves round a nonprofit named Feeding our Future, which partnered with the Minnesota Division of Training and U.S. Division of Agriculture to distribute meals to youngsters.
OMAR ALLIES TIED TO MASSIVE MINNESOTA COVID MEAL FRAUD SCHEME INVOLVING SOMALI COMMUNITY
Prosecutors charged that Feeding our Future and affiliated meals distribution websites raked in tens of millions of {dollars} by submitting pretend meal counts and invoices to trick state and federal officers through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lots of the folks charged are of Somali descent. Minnesota has the most important Somali inhabitants of any state within the nation.
The U.S. Treasury says its investigating whether or not tax {dollars} from Minnesota’s public help packages made their option to Al-Shabab, a Somali-based affiliate of al Qaeda which the U.S. has designated a overseas terrorist group.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz acknowledges the applause of the Home chamber earlier than he delivers his State of the State tackle earlier than a joint session of the Legislature on the state Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (Jeff Wheeler/Star Tribune by way of AP)
And the Republican-controlled U.S. Home, via the Oversight Committee, has opened a probe into Walz’s dealing with of the aid program.
Robbins argued that underneath Walz’s watch, “we have had billions of our tax {dollars} stolen by people who find themselves criminals, and Minnesotans haven’t got the companies they want, and Minnesotans work exhausting for his or her cash and to see all this cash being shipped abroad.”
EMMER SLAMS WALZ, DEMANDS ACCOUNTABILITY OVER ALLEGED RETALIATION TIED TO MINNESOTA FRAUD
“Minnesotans now personal a resort in Kenya. They personal an condominium in Nairobi. They personal a culinary faculty in Ohio,” she stated. “It is ridiculous, the issues our cash has been wasted on, and so I am grateful to our federal companions who’re prosecuting these circumstances, however we now have to have a brand new governor who’s going to have a no fraud, no excuses tradition.”
Walz, chatting with reporters on Thursday, pledged to “deal with the problem of fraud, of individuals defrauding the folks of Minnesota and the state of Minnesota. We all know now that these packages have been paused. We’ve an impartial auditor from the skin. We have enacted new powers that we now have to cease funds and to have the ability to be sure that that snapshot of what is there’s. The individuals who did it should go to jail.”
“My objective is to be sure that these going ahead have significantly better instruments, far more safeguards round packages,” the governor added.
However Robbins charged that Walz and his administration “are very late to this. They’ve stepped up not too long ago, however the issues that they’ve carried out, they already had the authority to cease cost when there have been credible allegations of fraud. They already had authority to do prepayment critiques and shut down a few of these packages.”
ILHAN OMAR GIVES BLISTERING RESPONSE TO TRUMP AFTER HE CALLS HER AND OTHER SOMALI MIGRANTS ‘GARBAGE’
“They have not been doing it till we actually have been holding their toes to the hearth and exposing all of the fraud,” she emphasised.
Trump has repeatedly blamed Minnesota’s Somali inhabitants for the fraud. On Tuesday, he known as immigrants from Somalia “rubbish” and claimed they “destroyed Minnesota.”
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after chatting with troops by way of video from his Mar-a-Lago property on Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025, in Palm Seaside, Florida. (Alex Brandon/AP Picture)
Final month, the president introduced he was ending non permanent deportation protections for Somali immigrants in Minnesota, and claimed that “Somali gangs are terrorizing the folks of that nice State.”
Walz on Thursday known as Trump’s feedback “vile racial racist lies” and “slander in the direction of our fellow Minnesotans.”
Requested in regards to the president’s feedback, Robbins stated “the majority of the fraud that we have uncovered to this point is within the Somali neighborhood. And one of many causes the fraud has perpetuated based mostly on whistleblowers who attain out to me is that they had been afraid to say that out loud, as a result of they had been afraid of getting political retribution or being known as racist.”
“So we do need to say that. Say it out loud. A lot of the fraud is within the Somali neighborhood,” she added.
However Robbins additionally emphasised that “a lot of the finest whistleblowers are additionally within the Somali neighborhood. Each issues are true. So actually, that is the place a lot of the fraud is. But additionally there’s lots of people within the Somali neighborhood who wish to clear it up.”
Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota state Rep. Kristin Robbins spotlights her anti-fraud efforts throughout a marketing campaign information convention. (Kristin Robbins marketing campaign)
Robbins instructed Fox Information Digital that her efforts taking goal on the fraud could enhance her bid for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.
“I actually know the place all the issues are and the way this huge fraud scandal has been allowed to flourish underneath Tim Walz,” she stated. “I believe I can communicate on to it and take him on, straight on the controversy and on the small print. I believe I am most certified.”
And Robbins added, “I am additionally most certified to unravel it once I’m governor. So I’ve already rolled up my fraud plan of how we had been going to standardize inner controls, how we will have an Workplace of Inspector Basic, how we’re going to maintain staff within the state accountable. So I believe I would be the one who can remedy the issue for Minnesota.”
Robbins, who was first elected to the Minnesota Home in 2018, represents a purple district within the Minneapolis suburbs. She has touted that within the crowded discipline of GOP gubernatorial contenders, she’s the “solely conservative Republican who’s a confirmed winner within the suburbs.
Robbins served as Minnesota state chair of former U.S. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s 2024 Republican presidential marketing campaign.
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And on Thursday, Haley praised Robbins in a fundraising electronic mail to supporters.
“We’ve to cease Tim Walz and elect a frontrunner who will struggle to finish this corruption!” Haley wrote. “Kristin Robbins has spent her profession preventing fraud and he or she’ll do the identical as governor.”
