Tom Emmer’s demand for potential criminal charges against Governor Tim Walz
and Attorney General Keith Ellison marks a rare moment when a sprawling
bureaucratic scandal becomes a personal, high-stakes reckoning.
The allegations go far beyond sloppy oversight: whistleblowers claim senior
officials were warned about massive fraud in child nutrition, childcare assistance,
housing stabilization, autism services, and other safety-net programs, yet failed to act decisively.
With estimates of up to $9 billion in combined federal and state losses, the numbers alone are staggering.
The Feeding Our Future case, with at least $250 million allegedly stolen and dozens
already convicted or pleading guilty, now looks like the opening chapter rather than the whole story.
Investigators are probing 14 state-run programs, with prosecutors suggesting that as much as
half of $18 billion spent since 2018 could be fraudulent.
Emmer’s praise for an independent journalist who uncovered dormant,
publicly funded childcare centers underscores his core accusation:
that outsiders found in days what government either missed for years.