A Congressional committee has subpoenaed documents from Governor Tim Walz’s administration related to the Feeding Our Future case, turning the $250 million fraud scandal into a campaign issue two months before the presidential election.
Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, has until September 18 to hand over what will likely be thousands of pages of documents to the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The House is narrowly controlled by Republicans.
How did things get to this point? Sahan Journal takes a look at how Feeding Our Future unfolded, what oversight is required of a Minnesota governor and what Walz has said about the fraud.
In a September 4 letter to Walz, U.S. House Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, wrote that her committee had already been seeking information from the Walz administration about the fraud, and had been “unable to obtain substantive responsive materials in the many voluntary requests made in this matter.”
“You are well aware of the multi-million-dollar fraud that has occurred under your tenure as Governor,” Foxx wrote. “The Committee must now compel the production of responsive documents that will show the extent of the actions taken by you and your administration relating to [the Minnesota Department of Education’s] administration of the [Federal Child Nutrition Programs] and the extent of your responsibilities and actions addressing the massive fraud that resulted in the abuse of taxpayer dollars intended for hungry children.”
Walz, through a spokesperson in the governor’s office, called the fraud “an appalling abuse of a federal COVID-era program.”
“The state department of education worked diligently to stop the fraud and we’re grateful to the FBI for working with the department of education to arrest and charge the individuals involved,” Walz spokesperson Claire Lancaster said in a prepared statement.
Lancaster added that Walz has “taken dozens of actions to prevent and investigate fraud,” and that the administration is cooperating with the U.S. House Education Committee in its investigation.
What is the Feeding Our Future fraud case?
The case involved the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) distributing federal funds to sponsor organizations like Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit that has since closed. The sponsor organizations then dispersed those funds to food vendors and food sites, which were supposed to provide ready-to-eat meals to local children.
Several of these organizations reported serving thousands more meals than they actually did — or simply never served any meals at all — in order to receive more federal funds, federal prosecutors say. Recipients allegedly spent the money on cars, property, vacations and other items.
The fraud began in the spring of 2020. At the time, several businesses and schools were shutting down to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and the federal government relaxed some of its regulatory practices in order to get money out to programs that served vulnerable populations.
Federal prosecutors estimate that at least $250 million was stolen in Minnesota, and have called the case the largest coordinated COVID-related fraud in the nation. They charged 70 defendants in the case with crimes ranging from wire fraud to money laundering.
What is Walz’s involvement with the Minnesota Department of Education?
As governor, Walz is in charge of the department and all other state agencies. He appoints the commissioners that directly oversee and lead all state agencies, including the department of education.
How much responsibility does Walz bear for the fraud?
This depends on your personal political philosophy, said David Schultz, a political science professor at Hamline University.
“If you take the old Harry Truman adage, ‘The buck stops here,’” Schultz said, “you can say [Walz] is the governor, he oversees the department of education, and he’s ultimately responsible for the actions of his agency, his commissioners and so forth.”
Another interpretation, Schultz said, is that the governor is mainly tasked with appointing commissioners, and that the commissioners and their employees are responsible for their agencies’ day-to-day performance. In that scenario, Schultz said, Walz and the state government are victims of a crime.
“The fact that individuals are indicted, he can say, ‘We were defrauded, too,’” Schultz said. “‘To the best of our ability, we take this money and disburse it, and we were swindled. We are cooperating with federal authorities to get to the root of this.’”
Some state Senate Republicans say Walz is ultimately responsible for the fraud.
“Obviously, you’re not responsible for every operational failure,” said former state Senator Roger Chamberlain. “But you’re responsible overall for how the ship is running.”
Chamberlain chaired the education committee that held hearings in 2022 examining how the department of education handled the fraud. He and other Republicans grilled department employees for not physically monitoring the food sites during the fraud. MDE is tasked with randomly monitoring some food sites in the federal program, but the requirement was waived by the federal government during the pandemic in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus.
“There’s only one person at the top of the chain that’s responsible for every one of those agencies to ensure that they are operating at the highest level,” said state Senator Mark Koran, a Republican from North Branch.
Koran serves as vice chair of the Legislative Audit Commission, which conducted a hearing of the special audit of MDE on Feeding Our Future fraud earlier this year.
How often must the governor check in on state agencies?
State rules and regulations don’t set rules for how often the governor has to check on state agencies. Each governor and their chief of staff determines how often they meet with cabinet heads, and how often and to what extent they’re briefed on an agency’s developments and performance.
“It’s a personal style issue,” Schultz said.
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Former Governor Arne Carlson, a Republican who served two terms in the 1990s, had a reputation for being a hands-on micromanager of state agencies. Jesse Ventura, an independent who succeeded Carlson, had the opposite reputation.
“From what I’m hearing, Walz is probably closer to the Ventura model than the Carlson model,” Schultz said.
What has Walz said about the scandal?
Walz has seldom spoken publicly about the scandal. Shortly after the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed the first indictments in the case in September 2022, Walz spoke about the matter at an unrelated news conference, saying that his administration did due diligence to report the fraud early.
“Our administration, very early in the previous presidential administration, noted the irregularities with this,” Walz said at the time. “We alerted folks as quickly as we could. We took that forward. We took the step of stopping payments.”
Walz also referenced a 2020 court case where Feeding Our Future challenged MDE after the state agency delayed applications from nonprofits that wanted to participate in the food-aid program.
MDE eventually paused payments to Feeding Our Future in early 2021, finding the nonprofit “seriously deficient.” Walz said that Ramsey County Judge John Guthmann, who presided over the case, “threatened” then-MDE Commissioner Heather Mueller in 2021 “with jail” by contempt of court if she didn’t resume the payments.
Guthmann said in court that MDE had prematurely stopped payments to MDE without providing enough evidence for the change. MDE resumed making payments to Feeding Our Future.
“We accepted that ruling,” Walz said. “We went back to the new administration once again and went to the FBI, who took this seriously.”
Walz’s comments prompted Guthmann to release his own statement denying that he ever made a ruling forcing MDE to resume payments.
The U.S. House committee requested communications within the Walz administration that refer to Guthmann.
What did the Minnesota Department of Education do to stop the alleged fraud?
MDE first alerted the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Feeding Our Future about suspicious activity in the summer of 2020, a few months after the alleged fraud began.
During the first Feeding Our Future trial earlier this year, MDE’s director of nutrition program services testified that the USDA helped MDE determine that Feeding Our Future and other nonprofits in the food-aid program were “seriously deficient.”
The department also contacted the FBI about the matter in April 2021.
The FBI raided several properties by January 2022 as part of its investigation, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office unsealed search warrants of the raid, making the scandal public. As a result, the state cut off federal funding to Feeding Our Future for good, citing the FBI investigation.
What hasn’t Walz said about the scandal?
It’s unclear when and how Walz was first briefed about the Feeding Our Future case. He hasn’t publicly addressed the question, and a Walz spokesperson contacted for this story declined to speak about the issue.
Minnesota law requires higher-ups in each state agency to report suspected fraud to the state Office of the Legislative auditor. Some Senate Republicans have said that didn’t happen in the Feeding Our Future case.
State law does not address whether and when the governor must be briefed on suspected fraud.
What authority does Congress have to investigate the scandal?
Congress has broad legal authority to compel production of these documents and, if they choose, to bring Walz and others forward to testify at a hearing.
While the subpoena may be politically motivated, it is also a legitimate issue for Congress to investigate, because they appropriated all of the money that was allegedly stolen in the Feeding Our Future case, Schultz said.
“It would be perfectly legitimate to say, ‘We feds gave you a quarter of a billion dollars that we appropriated. A bunch of money has been misspent. How the heck did your department of education not figure this out? Is there somebody in your department of education that’s on the take?’” Schultz said.
Congress also has broad subpoena power, and can hold people who are subjected to a subpoena in contempt of Congress and pursue criminal charges against them if they don’t comply.
Can Congress uncover more than is already known publicly about the case?
Congress’ power to subpoena records and people is much higher than the state Legislature. Chamberlain said he’d like to see Congress question Mary Cathryn Ricker, the former state education department commissioner who served under Walz until Spring 2021. Ricker resigned to return to teaching.
“She was there for the bulk of [the fraud],” Chamberlain said.
Ricker did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
“Congress has more leverage, authority, power to bring some new people in, or get new information from the old witnesses,” Chamberlain said.
Chamberlain added, however, that he isn’t holding his breath for dramatic developments to come from the Congressional investigation.
“What faith do we have in Congress anymore?” he said.
What political impact will the Congressional investigation have on Walz’s run for vice president?
Vice President Kamala Harris announced Walz as her running mate for the presidency on August 6, drawing newfound attention to a governor who had mostly flown under the radar nationally as more prominent Democrats were floated as contenders.
Walz quickly earned a reputation as “coach,” Harris’ favorite nickname for him, and as a fatherly figure. But critics quickly seized on his handling of the protests that followed George Floyd’s murder in 2020, and the Feeding Our Future case as failures in his leadership.
Walz runs a risk if he’s called to testify before the U.S. House committee, Schultz said. But the same is true for Republican members of Congress. If they decide to call Walz to testify before the November 5 election, they take time away from not only Walz, but also from themselves when they could be campaigning for reelection or stumping for Donald Trump.
The Feeding Our Future scandal has historically failed as a line of attack against Walz. He handily won reelection the same year the scandal hit the headlines, earning 52 percent of the vote against Republican challenger Scott Jensen. x
Voters were more concerned that year about typical election issues like inflation, and the price of gas and groceries, Schultz said.
Walz also likely escaped scrutiny because the public could easily blame the unusually large number of defendants who were indicted in the case, he said.
“I don’t think people cared; they had other things to worry about,” Schultz said.
Fallout from the Congressional subpoena and any subsequent action could also be dulled by the fact that Walz is the running mate on the presidential ticket, and not the top candidate.
“Vice presidents don’t matter very much,” Schultz said.
What investigations have been conducted into possible state culpability in the Feeding Our Future fraud?
The Minnesota Senate Education Committee conducted hearings into the matter in 2022, questioning several MDE employees, including then-Commissioner Mueller. Republicans controlled the state Senate at the time.
In those hearings, Mueller characterized MDE’s handling of the fraud as “diligent,” emphasizing that MDE alerted higher-ups early on and was hampered in its actions by Feeding Our Future’s lawsuit.
But state Senate Republicans, led by former state Senator Roger Chamberlain, who chaired the education committee at the time, grilled Mueller and other MDE employees.
To this day, Chamberlain argues that MDE would have caught and prevented the fraud much earlier if staff had visited food sites in person to determine if they were serving the amount of food they reported. The federal government had waived site visits during the pandemic to avoid spreading COVID.
“The checks and balances were there, they just didn’t execute because they didn’t want to,” Chamberlain said.
Mueller argued during the hearings that MDE still found the fraud by reviewing financial statements from Feeding Our Future and other organizations that were involved.
The state Senate committee eventually found MDE at fault for creating an environment ripe for fraud because of its actions and inactions, including not acting on early warnings about Feeding Our Future.
The state Office of the Legislative Auditor released a more detailed audit earlier this year making similar findings, and faulted MDE for allowing the fraud to happen.
Where does the Feeding Our Future case stand now?
Federal prosecutors charged 70 defendants in the case with several crimes; 18 have pleaded guilty.
Jurors convicted five defendants and fully acquitted two others this June in the first case to go to trial. One of the defendants who was acquitted, however, is charged with attempting to bribe a juror in that trial.
No one who pleaded guilty or who was convicted at trial has been sentenced yet.
Two defendants are scheduled to plead guilty this week, and three defendants are scheduled to be jointly tried starting on November 5, the same day as the presidential election.
