Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is guilty of fostering a culture that allowed widespread fraud across state-administered programs, Minnesota State Sen. Mark Koran, insisted in a Newsmax interview on Wednesday.
"These people are responsible for the oversight and compliance of every one of these programs," the Republican said on Newsmax's "National Report" about the Democrat governor and his administration.
"In this case, they're either extraordinarily incompetent or they're willfully complicit, and I believe they're actually both in this case," he added.
Minnesota's issues have worsened sharply during Walz's tenure, as state agencies failed to perform basic oversight.
"Our state agencies have been so ineffective that they can't do their job," Koran said, adding that officials have been forced to halt program expansion because they cannot keep pace with compliance and enforcement.
Koran said lawmakers have been dealing with the issue for years, even as public attention has increased more recently.
"There's nothing new here from our perspective," he said, adding that while a "local video went viral and now the world is aware of it," he believes the legislature has been "battling this for over a couple of decades."
Koran placed direct blame on Walz, saying the Democrat governor and former vice-presidential nominee has overseen the relevant programs for years while failing to rein in misconduct.
"Gov. Walz has been responsible for all of these programs for the last seven years," Koran said. "You can see it in the governor's own words. And he's done nothing to stop it."
Koran also said Walz worked to silence internal critics.
"The only thing he's done is tried to stop all whistleblowers and the people within the agencies," he said, adding that "there's a lot of good people who are trying to do the right thing," but claiming fraud expanded because agencies did not perform routine checks.
Koran described the alleged fraud as expanding far beyond a single sector.
"This fraud has leapfrogged from child daycare to all other reimbursable Medicaid services," he said, calling it "explosive growth well beyond the needs" and saying it is occurring "across every single program."
Pointing to the high-profile Feeding Our Future case, Koran said the scope of losses has been massive, and accused state officials of delaying action even after concerns were identified.
Walz's administration, he added, "blocked that information from being public or doing anything about it for two years after discovery," saying only federal investigative work forced progress.
"Only based on the federal work done have they investigated them and then prosecuted those," he said.
Koran said the federal probe helped uncover additional suspected abuses, including in housing support services.
He described a program that he said "grew from a couple million to a couple hundred million dollars a year," following "the same trajectory with no projected need and no oversight in anything."
Koran added that officials "forecasted almost 100% of its fraud, a couple of hundred million dollars a year."
The breadth of the issue may prevent the state from fully addressing it on its own, he noted.
"The tentacles are far and wide," he said, adding that "there'll only be federal resources because our state agencies have done nothing about it."
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