Minnesota’s Tim Walz has said he won’t run for reelection amid an alleged multi-billion fraud scheme involving the state’s daycare centers
US President Donald Trump has said that the “corrupt” Minnesota governor Tim Walz could leave office before the end of his term because he was caught “red-handed” in an alleged fraud scheme involving the state’s daycare centers. The Democrat had earlier announced his intention to not seek reelection.
Most of the establishments at the center of the federal investigation were allegedly run by members of Minnesota’s Somali community, the state’s largest immigrant group.
On Monday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Governor Walz has destroyed the State of Minnesota.”
Walz “will not be running again because he was caught, REDHANDED, along with Ilhan Omar, and others of his Somali friends, stealing Tens of Billions of Taxpayer Dollars,” he claimed. Trump expressed confidence that the “facts will come out, and they will reveal a seriously unscrupulous, and rich, group of ‘SLIMEBALLS’.”
Earlier in the day, Walz said he had “decided to step out of the race” and abandon his plans to “run for a historic third term as Minnesota’s Governor.” He went on to accuse Trump and “his allies” of “seeking to take advantage of the crisis” as well as “demonizing our Somali neighbors and wrongly confiscating childcare funding that Minnesotans rely on.”
In late December, Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill said that the federal government had “frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota.” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem stated that the agency was launching a “massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud” in Minnesota.
FBI Director Kash Patel said that resources had been “surged” to the state, adding that naturalized perpetrators of Somali descent could potentially face “denaturalization and deportation.”
Federal prosecutors have estimated that up to $9 billion may have been stolen in the alleged fraud scheme.
The federal scrutiny followed an expose posted last month by YouTuber Nick Shirley. The independent reporter visited several Minnesota childcare and healthcare centers allegedly run by locals of Somali background that appeared to be non-operational fronts. He alleged that these centers had received more than $110 million in state funds for non-existent services.
