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A Republican state lawmaker who’s hoping to dethrone Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in subsequent yr’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 latest weeks has been dealing with loads of political stress from state and nationwide Republicans, together with President Donald Trump, as authorities examine a collection of multimillion-dollar alleged fraud schemes, together with the governor’s dealing with of a large reduction 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 one in all 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 important focus over the past yr of the legislature,” she stated. “And although we’re out of session, I’ve continued to maintain the fraud committee having hearings month-to-month, as a result of this difficulty is so huge, we nonetheless haven’t got our arms round it. So we’re persevering with to dig in.”
The primary federal expenses in opposition to alleged fraudsters within the case have been filed three years in the past. Quick-forward to as we speak and there are actually 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 Schooling and U.S. Division of Agriculture to distribute meals to kids.
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 faux meal counts and invoices to trick state and federal officers in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lots of the individuals 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 strategy to Al-Shabab, a Somali-based affiliate of al Qaeda which the U.S. has designated a international terrorist group.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz acknowledges the applause of the Home chamber earlier than he delivers his State of the State handle 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, by way of the Oversight Committee, has opened a probe into Walz’s dealing with of the reduction program.
Robbins argued that beneath Walz’s watch, “we have had billions of our tax {dollars} stolen by people who find themselves criminals, and Minnesotans haven’t got the providers 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 college 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 instances, 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 “sort out the problem of fraud, of individuals defrauding the individuals of Minnesota and the state of Minnesota. We all know now that these packages have been paused. We’ve an impartial auditor from the surface. We have enacted new powers that we now have to cease funds and to have the ability to make it possible for that snapshot of what is there’s. The individuals who did it should go to jail.”
“My purpose is to make it possible for these going ahead have a lot 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 lately, however the issues that they’ve achieved, they already had the authority to cease cost when there have been credible allegations of fraud. They already had authority to do prepayment evaluations 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 ft 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 Photograph)
Final month, the president introduced he was ending momentary deportation protections for Somali immigrants in Minnesota, and claimed that “Somali gangs are terrorizing the individuals 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 up to now is within the Somali group. And one of many causes the fraud has perpetuated primarily based on whistleblowers who attain out to me is that they have been afraid to say that out loud, as a result of they have been afraid of getting political retribution or being known as racist.”
“So we do must say that. Say it out loud. Many of the fraud is within the Somali group,” she added.
However Robbins additionally emphasised that “many of the finest whistleblowers are additionally within the Somali group. Each issues are true. So definitely, that is the place many of the fraud is. But additionally there’s lots of people within the Somali group 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 advised Fox Information Digital that her efforts taking intention on the fraud might enhance her bid for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.
“I definitely know the place all the issues are and the way this huge fraud scandal has been allowed to flourish beneath Tim Walz,” she stated. “I feel I can communicate on to it and take him on, instantly on the controversy and on the small print. I feel I am most certified.”
And Robbins added, “I am additionally most certified to resolve it after I’m governor. So I’ve already rolled up my fraud plan of how we have been going to standardize inside controls, how we will have an Workplace of Inspector Common, how we’re going to maintain staff within the state accountable. So I feel 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 combating fraud and she or he’ll do the identical as governor.”
