The Division of Well being and Human Providers stated Tuesday that it’s freezing all federal baby care funds to the state of Minnesota within the wake of a viral video that alleged widespread fraud at baby care services throughout the state.
In a assertion and accompanying video on X, Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill and Assistant Secretary Alex Adams stated that along with halting all funds to Minnesota they have been implementing new necessities for baby care funds nationwide.
The assertion stated that every one funds dealt with by the Administration for Kids and Households — a element of HHS — will “require a justification and a receipt or picture proof earlier than we ship cash to a state.”
“We have now turned off the cash spigot and we’re discovering the fraud,” the assertion stated.
In a follow-up publish greater than an hour after that assertion, O’Neill added that funds will probably be launched “solely when states show they’re being spent legitimately.”
A spokesperson for Gov. Tim Walz, who was the 2024 Democratic nominee for vp, responded in an announcement Tuesday saying the governor “has been combatting fraud for years.”
“Fraud is a critical difficulty. However this can be a clear try to politicize the difficulty to harm Minnesotans and defund authorities applications that assist folks,” the spokesperson stated.
Adams stated within the video assertion posted to O’Neill’s account that ACF gives Minnesota $185 million in baby care funds annually. HHS didn’t reply to an inquiry about precisely how a lot of that’s being frozen.
The announcement by HHS comes days after FBI Director Kash Patel stated on Sunday that the bureau had “surged” sources to Minnesota to research claims of widespread fraud, insisting these steps have been taken earlier than right-wing influencer Nick Shirley’s video went viral over the weekend for purporting to indicate baby care services that weren’t operational however have been receiving state and federal funds.
The FBI’s fraud investigation has largely focused Somali immigrants in Minnesota.
The Justice Division has been investigating fraud involving some members of Minnesota’s Somali neighborhood for years. Federal prosecutors in 2022 — below the Biden administration — introduced preliminary indictments in what they stated was a $250 million scheme to defraud a federally funded baby diet program.
As of November, prosecutors had charged 77 folks, and so they described Aimee Bock, who’s white, because the mastermind of the operation. A jury convicted Bock in March.
Corky Siemaszko contributed.
[/gpt3]
