Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz previously said a court required the state to continue paying one of the charities at the center of a massive fraud scandal. But the state court denies making such an order.
Asked on Capitol Hill Wednesday who is lying, Walz said, “I can’t tell you.” He blamed it on a misinterpretation by lawyers.
Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison testified Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the fraud scandal in the state.
The Justice Department, which has indicted almost 100 people for fraud schemes in Minnesota, has estimated the scale of fraud to have potentially exceeded $9 billion since 2018.
About $250 million reportedly went to the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, primarily during the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal law enforcement alleges the money did not go to feed hungry children but instead funded lavish lifestyles.
In 2021, the state’s Education Department stopped, then restarted payments to Feeding Our Future.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the court found the state’s Education Department “didn’t have the authority to stop payments and ordered the department to resume payments.” Walz later made that claim as well.
However, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, noted the state court took the unusual step of issuing a news release to fact-check the governor and the media.
In its September 2022 news release, the court had said it never ordered the Education Department to resume food reimbursement payments to Feeding Our Future and that the agency “voluntarily resumed payments.”
Jordan read from the release, stating, “On September 22, 2022, Governor Tim Walz told the media that the Minnesota Department of Education attempted to end payments to FOF [Feeding Our Future] because of fraud, but that Judge Guthmann ordered payments to continue in April 2021. That is also false.”
The release was referring to Ramsey County Senior Judge John H. Guthmann.
Walz said in response, “The attorneys for the Department of Education interpreted that differently.”
Jordan argued there was little ambiguity in the release to misinterpret.
“This is not some anonymous source talking to The New York Times,” Jordan said, adding, “This is the court speaking.”
“That’s pretty straightforward,” Jordan said. “So, the court is lying or you’re lying?”
“I can’t tell you, congressman,” Walz said. “I just simply know what the attorneys at the department believe, which is that it was a misinterpretation.”
Jordan asked, “Could it be you were trying to hide behind the court, governor, and that’s why the court did something they’ve never done before and issued a press statement?”
“You know how courts work, congressman,” Walz said. “You can appeal those decisions.”