Vice President JD Vance referred Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison to the Justice Department for a criminal fraud investigation, escalating the Trump administration's stated "war on fraud" against two Democratic officials in a state that has faced repeated federal scrutiny.
A 205-page report released by the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, which Vance cited in his referral, charged that both officials had long been on notice about "widespread taxpayer fraud" running through federally funded social programs and took no meaningful steps to stop it. The report further contended that employees who raised alarms about fraud faced retaliation from state leaders.
"Minnesota state officials are not above the law, and if they facilitated fraud, lied under oath about what they knew, or harassed and intimidated whistleblowers, they must face justice," Vance wrote on X $TWTR, according to NBC News.
Both officials rejected the allegations. Describing the allegations as baseless, Ellison characterized Vance's move as "a political stunt from an administration that uses the machinery of government to target its perceived opponents while extending leniency to those aligned with its interests," according to The Associated Press. Walz spokesperson Teddy Tschann said the oversight committee "has proven time and time again to be nothing more than a joke," according to NBC News.
Questions about whether the Justice Department would actually launch an investigation went unanswered, and legal observers noted it remained uncertain what federal statutes the officials could even be charged under, the AP reported. Vance directed the referral to a new Justice Department fraud division that has drawn scrutiny over its close relationship with the White House.
Federal prosecutors have pursued social services fraud cases in Minnesota across multiple administrations, with charges filed against dozens of defendants during both the Biden and Trump years, according to the AP. The largest scheme involved a Covid-era nonprofit, Feeding Our Future, in a $250 million fraud in which the orchestrator was recently sentenced to nearly 42 years in prison, according to the Guardian.
Trump appointed Vance to head the White House anti-fraud task force in February, following the president's State of the Union declaration of a "war on fraud." By targeting sitting state officials, the referral pushes the administration's anti-fraud campaign into territory that officials have long insisted would remain free of political motivation, according to the AP.