Tim Walz Is Acting Guilty

When federal prosecutors drop a bombshell estimate suggesting up to $9 billion in Medicaid fraud occurred in Minnesota since 2018, a competent governor would express shock and vow to cooperate fully with investigators. Instead, Walz immediately blamed President Trump and accused critics of "weaponizing" the issue with "sensationalized" numbers.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson delivered the stunning figure Thursday while announcing new indictments in the case. Thompson, who has served as a federal prosecutor since 2009, explained that providers in 14 "high-risk" Medicaid programs have billed $18 billion since 2018, and that “half or more” of that amount may be fraudulent.

Thompson was clear about the scope of the problem. "The fraud is not small. It isn't isolated. The magnitude cannot be overstated," he said.

Thompson has been leading the Feeding Our Future fraud case for years, and when investigators dug deeper, they discovered defendants holding multiple state contracts across various programs. He's now investigating a state autism program and the Housing Stabilization Services program, which the Department of Human Services shut down in August after citing "credible allegations of fraud."

Rather than work with federal authorities to get to the bottom of this mess, Walz is going on the defensive. He dismissed the $9 billion estimate as politically motivated and tied it directly to the Trump administration, claiming the president has attacked him "on multiple fronts in recent weeks." Walz insisted that critics are generating numbers without supporting evidence. "You're seeing a weaponization. We'll continue to fix (the fraud). They're going to continue to come up with numbers that don't have it there, and it's sensationalized. I don't expect anything different from this administration," Walz said. He then claimed the real goal behind what he called "sensationalism" was to dismantle government safety net programs that serve vulnerable people.

Here's the problem with Walz's defensive posture. Back in July, he agreed with Thompson that fraud in Minnesota's programs could exceed $1 billion. That's billion with a B. Now that the estimate has climbed even higher, suddenly it's all Trump's fault, and the numbers can't be trusted?

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Walz did offer some token accountability, saying the fraud occurred on his watch. "This is on my watch. I am accountable for this. And more importantly, I am the one that will fix it," Walz said. He emphasized that he's working to prevent fraud "on the front end" of state programs going forward.

But words are cheap when you're facing scrutiny for overseeing what could be one of the largest state-level fraud scandals in American history. Walz has been in office while billions disappeared from programs meant to help people. Yet his first instinct when confronted with mounting evidence wasn’t outrage, a pledge of cooperation, or transparency. No, he’s blaming Trump for numbers generated by career federal prosecutors, and that looks like a page straight out of the Democrat playbook when facing scandal. Claiming the federal government is out to destroy safety net programs rings hollow when the real threat to those programs comes from the fraudsters Walz's administration failed to stop.

Remember, employees at the Minnesota Department of Human Services said that Tim Walz “is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota,” alleging they warned him early, but “got the opposite response.” Now Walz is essentially denying the full extent of the fraud. Why? He’s not denying the fraud so much as trying to protect himself.

And why is he protecting himself? Because $9 billion in fraud doesn’t just happen on your watch without you knowing about it.