The U.S. Treasury Department is investigating whether Minnesota tax and welfare dollars were diverted to al Shabaab, the Somalia-based al Qaeda affiliate designated as a foreign terrorist organization, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer has also launched a congressional inquiry into widespread fraud allegations tied to Minnesota public assistance programs.
Bessent posted on X that the Treasury is “investigating allegations that under the feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz, hardworking Minnesotans’ tax dollars may have been diverted to the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab.” He shared a Nov. 19 City Journal report that cited law enforcement sources alleging millions from Minnesota welfare programs “ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab.” Several Minnesota Republicans, including Rep. Tom Emmer, had urged federal prosecutors to examine those claims.
Governor Tim Walz’s office told CBS News the governor welcomes an investigation into where stolen welfare money went and will cooperate with investigators. Comer released an excerpt of a letter to Walz saying the Oversight Committee “has serious concerns about how you as the Governor, and the Democrat-controlled administration, allowed millions of dollars to be stolen,” and requested documents and communications showing what the administration knew about the fraud and whether it acted to limit or halt investigations.
Minnesota has been the focus of multiple large-scale fraud probes. Dozens of people have been charged in a roughly $250 million scheme tied to the nonprofit Feeding Our Future and partner organizations; federal prosecutors allege the group stole federal nutrition aid by falsely claiming to distribute meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Authorities have also brought fraud charges connected to housing aid and autism-related programs.
Many defendants in these cases are members of Minnesota’s sizable Somali community. A Somali American former investigator in the Minnesota attorney general’s office wrote in an opinion piece last year that community members often appear as both victims and participants in fraud. The allegations have drawn national attention and heated political rhetoric: former President Trump has repeatedly criticized Somali immigrants in Minnesota, called the state a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity,” announced plans to end temporary deportation protections for Somali residents, and asserted without evidence that “hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country.”
Walz and other Minnesota Democrats have defended the Somali community. Responding to the al Shabaab claims, the governor urged people not to “paint an entire group of people with that same brush, demonizing them, putting them at risk, when there is no proof of that.”
Claims that state funds could be reaching al Shabaab and other terrorist groups have circulated in Minnesota for years. A 2019 report from the state Office of the Legislative Auditor said it was “unable to substantiate” allegations that Child Care Assistance Program funding was going to terrorist groups, while noting it could not rule out the possibility that funds sent overseas might eventually reach illicit actors.
Andy Lugar, a former U.S. attorney for Minnesota who served under the Obama and Biden administrations, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that people charged in the Feeding Our Future case “were looking to get rich, not fund overseas terrorism.” The Treasury and congressional probes aim to determine whether illicit payments from Minnesota assistance programs reached terrorist organizations or were limited to domestic fraud and profiteering.