Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison faced a barrage of tough questions from Republicans during a Wednesday House hearing on the massive fraud scandal in the state, with most of the questions focused on one key theme: What did they know, and when did they know it?
Walz and Ellison were asked multiple times for specifics regarding when they were first made aware of the fraud problems and faced sharp rebukes from Republican members, including Rep. Virginia Foxx.
“You did not do your job, you did not do your job,” Foxx told Walz. “You did not protect taxpayer dollars. You allowed massive fraud. You and Mr. Ellison allowed massive fraud to go on in the state of Minnesota. It is unfortunate, as somebody said, that you can’t be held personally responsible at this stage in the game.”
An exchange between GOP Rep. Jim Jordan and Walz sparked immediate pushback from conservatives on social media.
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“Why didn’t you tell the truth about why you restarted the payments?” Jordan asked during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Minnesota fraud on Wednesday.
The exchange centered on Walz’s past public statements that a judge ordered the Minnesota Department of Education to continue reimbursements in April 2021 after the agency had halted payments over fraud concerns.
Jordan pointed to a 2022 court-authorized news release from then-Ramsey County District Court Judge John H. Guthmann that disputed the governor’s characterization of the events.
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“So either you’re lying or the court’s lying. And I’m just asking you which one is it?” Jordan said.
One of the most contentious exchanges came during questioning from GOP Rep. Nancy Mace when she pressed Walz for specific numbers on how many children are in his state, the massive increase in autism care spending and why that occurred without getting specific numbers back from Walz.
“Ok, so your excuse before — that you didn’t know what the 2017 autism numbers were — because you were not governor, and today you can’t answer the numbers about 2024 as governor, and you still said you prepared for this hearing today. It’s unbelievable.”
Walz shot back that he wouldn’t be a “prop” for Mace, and she eventually said, “I expect you to know this information. Thank God you’re not vice president of the United States.”
GOP Rep. Clay Higgins confronted Ellison in another heated moment asking him to say he was “leading” the fight against rooting out corruption without getting the specific answer he was looking for, prompting him to call for Ellison’s resignation.
“I’m not talking about Medicaid fraud, don’t hide behind that,” Higgins said, interrupting Ellison. “You have the authority to prosecute anything criminally that the governor asks you to, and this thing is big. I’m giving you an opportunity sir, are you leading the criminal investigative effort into this massive fraud across the board…or not?” Higgins pressed.
“We are following the law,” Ellison said before Higgins cut him off again.
“You are not leading, I’m going to say, Mr. Chairman, that the attorney general of the state of Minnesota should resign,” Higgins said.
At the close of the hearing, things became tense again when GOP Rep. Nick Langworthy suggested that Walz, who is still serving as governor despite dropping out of his re-election bid due to the fraud scandal, should be impeached for “malfeasance,” citing Minnesota’s own state Constitution.
Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.
