Walz bows to race swindlers in $250 million fraud scandal

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her vice presidential candidate who will “unite this country.”

But Walz’s history of turning a blind eye to the depredations of politically favored crooks suggests he will instead bow to pressure from Democratic interests.

Last week, Walz sneered that Republicans “don’t know anything about family values. Family values ​​means … feeding your kids.”

But do politicians deserve applause for the government food programs that feed nobody?

It would be the largest COVID-19 fraud case in the country: Minnesota’s $250 million “Feeding the Future” scandal.

The Minneapolis nonprofit has received millions of dollars from the U.S. Department of Agriculture over nearly two years under relaxed rules put in place due to the pandemic to quickly get food to those in need.

However, only a small portion of the money was spent as intended, prosecutors say.

The ghost program was exposed in a series of Justice Department indictments in late 2022, after Walz and his administration pandered to politically connected nonprofits while ignoring fraud warnings from local whistleblowers — and never checking the charity’s inflated numbers and demonstrably fake filings.

All but one of the fraudsters were members of Minnesota’s large Somali population, a key voting bloc for Walz’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

After the 2020 election, the state’s Somalis — many represented in Congress by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — were described as “the most engaged voters in the country” and credited with keeping former President Donald Trump from winning the North Star State.

The Justice Department has charged 72 politically connected Minnesotans with stealing $250 million from federal child nutrition programs during the pandemic.

A jury convicted five people and 18 pleaded guilty.

And they didn’t just pocket some of the money up front.

“Almost none of that money went to feeding the children,” said FBI agent Travis Wilmer.

“Instead, participants misappropriated the money and used it to purchase real estate, cars and other luxury goods.”

Some of the looted money ended up in the coffers of Omar, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other Democratic Party politicians.

Walz’s appointees at the state Education Department “created opportunities for fraud” with “deficient oversight” and ignored “red flags” about the Feeding Our Future program even before the pandemic, a Minnesota legislative audit found.

The Walz administration fell victim to a fraud that even the village idiot could have detected.

Tax money was stolen using fake recipient names generated by the website listofrandomnames.com.

Children allegedly named “Unique Problem,” “Serious Problem” and “Friday Donations” were listed as clients.

One restaurant claimed to serve more children than are enrolled in all of Minneapolis’ city schools — but Walz’s wizards never bothered to stop by and check out the location.

FBI analyst Pauline Roase testified that some conspirators set up limited liability companies “to hide the fact that they were not actually purchasing food.”

As early as November 2020, government officials recognised the problem and took action to end government funding for Feeding Our Future.

The nonprofit organization responded with a lawsuit, claiming that state officials discriminated against it because it worked with racial minorities.

Protesters picketed outside the Minnesota Department of Education headquarters, waving signs that read, “FOF Feeds Our Kids, MDE Doesn’t” — and the deception continued.

According to Bill Glahn, an analyst at the Minnesota-based Center for the American Experiment, Walz “absolutely feared the race card.”

In July 2021, Walz presented the Outstanding Refugee Award to Ayan Abukar, who was later charged with bribery, money laundering, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to commit telecommunications fraud related to Feeding Our Future.

His administration largely ignored the scandal until early 2022, when the FBI raids became national headlines.

Still, some defendants still believed they had legal immunity: In June, during the federal trial of the first group of defendants, their allies tried to bribe a juror with a Hallmark gift bag containing $120,000 in cash.

Five people were arrested in connection with the corruption case and one pleaded guilty.

But Walz, at least in his opinion, is not to blame.

“I am angry and I can’t stand it because these people are criminals who did this,” he said in September 2022, acquitting himself of any guilt.

After the initial convictions, Walz denied that any public official had committed any wrongdoing: “There is not a single public official who has been involved in any illegal activity.”

“We can always do better,” he said, shrugging at the scandal.

But the Feeding Our Future Act disaster may be the prototype for a Harris-Walz administration that embraces identity politics and is willing to grant Hunter Biden-style immunity to criminals associated with that politics.

James Bovard’s latest book is titled “The Last Laws: The Death of American Freedom.”