Vice President J.D. Vance announced Monday that he will refer Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison (both Democrats) to the Department of Justice to investigate criminal fraud involving social welfare programs.
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“Minnesota officials are not above the law. If they encouraged fraud, lied under oath about what they knew, or harassed or threatened whistleblowers, they must face justice,” Vance wrote of X, adding that his introduction was prompted by a letter and report from the Republican-led House Oversight Committee.
The commission’s report, released Monday, alleged that Minnesota officials, including Mr. Walz and Mr. Ellison, had been “long aware of widespread taxpayer fraud in federally funded social programs” and failed to take steps to stop it.
Walz and Ellison’s offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the criminal charges Monday night, but spokespeople for both offices denied the Republican report in statements to other news outlets.
The committee also issued a letter Sunday asking Vance, in his role as head of the White House Task Force to Combat Fraud, to review Minnesota’s social welfare programs.
Vance was appointed to lead the task force in February after President Donald Trump announced his “war on fraud” in his State of the Union address. Shortly after the announcement, Vance and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz announced they would suspend federal Medicaid reimbursement to Minnesota.
Walz said at the time that the move had “nothing to do with fraud” and called it a “retaliation campaign.”
“Trump is weaponizing the entire federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota,” Walz told X on February 25.
Early in the Trump administration’s second term, Minnesota came under intense federal scrutiny over allegations of child care fraud. In January, the state announced that the child care facility at the center of the allegations was not operating improperly.
In April, federal law enforcement conducted a series of raids to investigate alleged welfare fraud based on what the Department of Homeland Security said at the time were search warrants “related to rampant fraud on American taxpayers.”
Trump and his allies claim the fraud was committed by the state’s Somali community, a frequent target of Trump.
Walz appeared to praise the raid, saying it was conducted in conjunction with Minnesota state authorities and happened “because state authorities caught and reported unusual activity.”
“That’s the way this system is supposed to work, and as long as there are fraudsters around to incarcerate, our agency will continue to do so,” Walz wrote to X, adding that those who commit fraud in Minnesota will be caught.
This is not the first time the Trump administration’s Justice Department has launched an investigation into Walz, who was former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
The Justice Department opened an investigation in January alleging that Walz and Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey conspired to obstruct federal immigration enforcement through public statements. The investigation comes in the wake of a stampede of immigration agents in Minneapolis, which led to protests and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Preti by federal agents. Walz claimed the investigation was politically motivated.
