Minnesota GOP lawmaker Robbins challenges Walz over billions in fraud

A Republican state lawmaker hoping to dethrone Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in next year’s gubernatorial election claims Minnesotans have had “billions of our tax dollars stolen by criminal individuals” under the Democratic governor’s watch.

State Representative Kristin Robbins argued in an interview with Fox News Digital that Walz “absolutely failed” to combat fraud during his two terms as governor.

Walz has faced a lot of political pressure in recent weeks from state and national Republicans, including President Donald Trump, as authorities investigate a series of multimillion-dollar fraud allegations, including the governor’s handling of a massive aid program that federal prosecutors described as “the largest pandemic fraud in the United States.”

Robbins, chairman of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and Oversight Committee, has made the issue a top priority of the GOP gubernatorial campaign. He is one of a handful of leading candidates among a crowded field of Republicans hoping to face Walz next November as the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee bids for a third term as governor.

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“I have chaired the fraud committee since last January, and that has been my primary focus throughout the last year of the legislature,” he said. “And even though we’re out of session, I’ve continued to have the fraud committee be in session every month, because this problem is so big that we still don’t have arms around it. So we continue to investigate.”

The first federal charges against the alleged fraudsters in the case were filed three years ago. Fast forward to today, there are more than 75 defendants in the $250 million scheme.

The case centers around a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future, which partnered with the Minnesota Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to distribute meals to children.

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Prosecutors alleged that Feeding Our Future and affiliated food delivery sites generated millions of dollars in revenue by submitting fake meal counts and invoices to deceive state and federal officials during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most of the people accused are of Somali origin. Minnesota has the largest Somali population among the states in the country.

The US Treasury said it is investigating whether tax revenues from Minnesota’s public assistance programs went to Al-Shabab, the Somalia-based affiliate of Al Qaeda, which the US has designated a foreign terrorist organization.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will be in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. He accepted applause from the House chamber before delivering his State of the State address before a joint session of the Legislature at the State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn. (Jeff Wheeler/Star Tribune via AP)

And the Republican-controlled U.S. House, through its Oversight Committee, has launched an investigation into Walz’s handling of the aid program.

Robbins argued that under Walz’s watch, “billions of our tax dollars have been stolen by criminals, and Minnesotans are not getting the services they need, and Minnesotans are working hard for their money to see all that money sent overseas.”

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“Minnesotans now have a resort in Kenya. They have an apartment in Nairobi. They have a cooking school in Ohio,” he said. “The things that our money is being wasted on are ridiculous, and that’s why I’m grateful to our federal partners who are prosecuting these cases, but we need a new governor who will have a culture of fraud and no excuses.”

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Walz promised to “fix the fraud problem that defrauds the people of Minnesota and the state of Minnesota. We know now that these programs have been paused. We have an outside, independent auditor. We’ve given new authority to stop payments and make sure we have a snapshot of what’s going on out there. People who do this are going to jail.”

“My goal is to make sure that those moving forward have much better tools and much more assurance about the programs,” the governor added.

But Robbins suggested that Walz and his administration “were too late on this issue.” They’ve taken action recently, but with what they’ve done, they already had the power to withhold payment when there were credible allegations of fraud. “They already had the authority to conduct prepayment reviews and shut down some of these programs.”

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“They weren’t doing this until we actually held their feet to the fire and exposed all the fraud,” he emphasized.

Trump has repeatedly blamed the fraud on Minnesota’s Somali people. On Tuesday, he called immigrants from Somalia “trash” and claimed they were “destroying Minnesota.”

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters after speaking to troops via video at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

Last month, the president announced that he was ending temporary deportation protections for Somali immigrants in Minnesota and claimed that “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of this great state.”

On Thursday, Walz called Trump’s comments “vile racist racist lies” and a “slander to our fellow Minnesotans.”

Asked about the president’s comments, Robbins said: “The bulk of the fraud we’ve uncovered so far is in the Somali community. And one of the reasons the fraud continued, based on the tipsters that reached out to me, was because they were afraid to say it out loud because they were afraid of political retribution or being called a racist.”

“So we have to say it. Say it out loud. Most of the fraud happens in the Somali community,” he added.

But Robbins also emphasized: “A lot of the best whistleblowers are also in the Somali community. Both things are true. So that’s definitely where the bulk of the fraud is. But there’s also a lot of people in the Somali community who want to clean it up.”

Rep. Kristin Robbins, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, highlights anti-fraud efforts at her campaign news conference. (Kristin Robbins’ campaign)

Robbins told Fox News Digital that his efforts targeting fraud could boost his bid for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

“I know exactly where all the problems are and how this massive fraud scandal was allowed to fester under Tim Walz,” he said. “I think I can speak directly to this issue and take it directly into discussion and detail. I think I’m the most qualified person.”

Robbins added: “I’m the most qualified person to solve this problem when I become governor. So I’ve already outlined my fraud plan on how we’re going to standardize internal controls, how we’re going to have an Office of Inspector General, how we’re going to hold employees in the state accountable. So I think I’m going to be the person who can solve the problem for Minnesota.”

Robbins, who was first elected to the Minnesota House in 2018, represents a purple district in the Minneapolis suburbs. He argued that in the crowded field of GOP gubernatorial candidates, he was “the only conservative Republican with a proven winner in the suburbs.”

Robbins served as the Minnesota state chairman for former U.S. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s 2024 Republican presidential campaign.

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And on Thursday, Haley praised Robbins in a fundraising email to her supporters.

“We must stop Tim Walz and elect a leader who will fight to end this corruption!” Haley wrote. ““Kristin Robbins has spent her career fighting fraud and will do the same as governor.”