Senior Minnesota state officials allegedly hired outside investigators to slap proverbial duct tape over the mouths of whistleblowers in order to cover up widespread state social services fraud, according to a House committee report that was released on June 8, 2026. A staff report was released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that was 200 pages in length.
The document revealed that Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s state administration intimidated and retaliated against state employees who raised concerns about fraud by soliciting private investigators to dig up personal information about them. The report, “The Cost of Doing Nothing: How Tim Walz and Keith Ellison Fueled Minnesota’s Fraud Explosion,” said that senior state officials, as high as Walz, were well aware of the fraud for years and did nothing to address it.
An official with the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) who contacted the FBI concerning the matter, said that she was pressured “at every turn” by her superiors to stop raising concerns about fraud and was “hand slapped” when she kept pushing to find answers. The MDE official also said that she was issued a warning by state administrators to “stop digging into things” for fear it might look like she was “targeting certain groups.”
According to a report from The Daily Caller, dozens of other whistleblowers revealed that they were told to keep quiet about fraud concerns by the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) because they feared being labeled “racist” or “Islamophobic.” DHS allegedly told state workers that bringing up fraud concerns would be harmful for the state.
Whistleblowers also reported that DHS did several “arbitrary investigations” and took pictures of their cars and houses, monitored their phones and computers, and even asked employees where their children attended school. Then-Temporary Commissioner Shireen Ghandi at DHS confirmed in testimony that was copied in the report that the state department utilized outside investigators to conduct investigations of employees, but would not confirm if independent law firms were also used.
Ghandi also confirmed in her testimony that DHS management would regularly “check-in” on employees who reported having concerns about fraud. She continued to do these check-ins on whistleblower Faye Bernstein “a year or two” after her investigatory leave. Bernstein said that Ghandi “shamed” her during a meeting after she brought up concerns about fraud and then “excluded her from further meetings on the topic.”
Whistleblowers also came out and alleged that former state Commissioner Jodi Harpstead oversaw a division-wide meeting and told those in attendance that “employees would be punished if they reported concerns about fraud in the DHS program.” Emmanuel Nwala told some of his colleagues that he “did intelligence research in the Army” and threatened to provide IP addresses to former colleagues in order to find out whistleblowers’ locations and email addresses.
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Unsurprisingly, Walz testified that he was not aware of the email, but conceded that such an act fits the description of intimidation. MDE told the Daily Caller, “We care deeply about protecting Medicaid services for people who need them and stopping criminals stealing taxpayer dollars. Minnesota has taken concrete, aggressive action to tighten oversight of Medicaid — changing practices and policies that were in place for decades.”
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the chairman for the Republican Oversight Committee, officially started a congressional investigation into alleged fraud in Minnesota in December 2025. Comer then spoke with Vice President JD Vance and said the committee estimates that $300 million of Minnesota’s federal nutrition fund and $9 billion of Medicaid-related funds were “lost or at serious risk.”
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