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<\/a>hustling scammers<\/a><\/h1>\nby James Bovard<\/p>\n
Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday heralded Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz<\/a> as the running mate who will \u201cunify this country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But Walz\u2019s history of turning a blind eye to the plunder of politically favored racketeers\u00a0suggests he\u2019ll instead bow to Democrats\u2019 special interests.<\/p>\n Last week, Walz sneered that Republicans \u201cdon\u2019t know anything about family values. Family values means . . . feeding children<\/a>.\u201d But do politicians deserve applause for government food programs that feed no one? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n That would be the nation\u2019s largest single piece of COVID fraud, Minnesota\u2019s $250 million \u201cFeeding the Future\u201d scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Minneapolis nonprofit received millions from the US Department of Agriculture over nearly two years under relaxed pandemic-era rules to quickly bring food to the needy. But only a small amount was spent as intended, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n The ghost program was outed in a series of Justice Department indictments in late 2022, after Walz and his administration kowtowed to politically connected nonprofit groups while ignoring fraud warnings from local whistleblowers \u2014 and never checking on the charity\u2019s inflated numbers and blatantly fake filings.<\/p>\n All but one of the fraudsters were members of Minnesota\u2019s large Somali population, a key voting bloc for Walz\u2019s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.<\/p>\n After the 2020 election, the state\u2019s Somalis \u2014 many represented in Congress by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)\u00a0\u2014 were labeled \u201camong the country\u2019s most engaged voters\u201d and credited with keeping former President Donald Trump from winning the North Star State.<\/p>\n The Justice Department has charged 72 politically connected Minnesotans with pilfering $250 million from federal child-nutrition programs during the pandemic. Five have been convicted by a jury, and 18 have pled guilty<\/a> so far.<\/p>\n And they didn\u2019t just skim some cash off the top. \u201cAlmost none of this money was<\/a> used to feed children,\u201d FBI agent Travis Wilmer said. \u201cInstead, the participants in the scheme misappropriated the money and used it to purchase real estate, cars and other luxury items.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the plundered cash ended up in the coffers of Omar, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other Democratic politicians.<\/p>\n Walz\u2019s appointees at the state Department of Education \u201ccreated opportunities for fraud\u201d thanks to their totally \u201cinadequate oversight\u201d and ignored \u201cwarning signs\u201d about Feeding Our Future even before the pandemic, a Minnesota legislative audit revealed.<\/p>\n Walz\u2019s administration was swindled by a scheme that even a village idiot could have detected. Tax dollars were pilfered using the names of phony recipients generated by the website listofrandomnames.com. Children supposedly named\u00a0\u201cUnique Problem,\u201d<\/a> \u201cSerious Problem\u201d and \u201cFriday Donations\u201d were listed as clients.<\/strong><\/p>\n One restaurant claimed to be serving meals to more children than were enrolled in all the city schools in Minneapolis \u2014 but Walz\u2019s wizards never bothered to stop by and check the location.<\/strong><\/p>\n FBI analyst Pauline Roase testified that some conspirators created limited-liability companies \u201cto hide the fact<\/a> that they were not actually buying food.\u201d<\/p>\n As early as November 2020<\/a>, state officials recognized trouble and sought to end government funding for Feeding Our Future. The nonprofit retaliated with a lawsuit claiming that the state government was discriminating against it for working with racial minorities<\/a>. Members picketed the Minnesota Department of Education headquarters, waving signs that<\/a> said \u201cF.O.F. Feeds Our Kids, MDE won\u2019t\u201d \u2014 and the scam continued. Walz \u201cwas absolutely afraid of the race card,\u201d according to Bill Glahn, an analyst with the Minnesota-based Center for the American Experiment.<\/p>\n In July 2021, Walz presented the Outstanding Refugee Awar<\/strong>d<\/a> to Ayan Abukar, who was later indicted<\/a> for bribery, money laundering, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud tied to Feeding Our Future.<\/p>\n His administration largely ignored the scandal until FBI raids in early 2022 made national headlines.<\/p>\n Yet some of the accused continued to feel entitled to legal impunity: In June, during the federal trial of the first batch of defendants, allies attempted to bribe a juror with a Hallmark gift bag stuffed with $120,000 in cash<\/a>. Five people have been arrested in the bribery scheme, and one has pled guilty.<\/p>\n But Walz is blameless, at least according to himself. \u201cWhat I\u2019m angry about and can\u2019t stand is these people are criminals [who] did this,\u201d he said in September 2022<\/a>, absolving himself of any fault.<\/p>\n After the first guilty verdicts were handed down, Walz denied wrongdoing by any state official: \u201cThere\u2019s not a single state employee that was implicated in doing<\/a> anything that was illegal.\u201d \u201cWe can always do better,\u201d he said, shrugging off the scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the Feeding Our Future debacle could well be a prototype for a Harris-Walz administration beholden to identity politics \u2014 and ready to grant Hunter Biden-style “get out of jail free cards” to favored offenders.<\/p>\n James Bovard\u2019s latest book is \u201cLast Rights: The Death of American Liberty.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New York Post, August 8, 2024 In Minnesota\u2019s $250M fraud scandal, Walz bowed to race-hustling scammers by James Bovard Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday heralded Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the running mate who will \u201cunify this country.\u201d But Walz\u2019s history of turning a blind eye to the plunder of politically favored racketeers\u00a0suggests he\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2238,83,2349,3333,881,2470,4279,4278],"class_list":["post-20292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bribery","tag-corruption","tag-covid","tag-feeding-our-future","tag-impunity","tag-minnesota","tag-somalis","tag-walz"],"yoast_head":"\n