As Republicans shift criticism on fraud to Klobuchar, allies point to her prosecutor past

As the top prosecutor in Hennepin County, Amy Klobuchar wanted to make an example out of a former judge who stole more than $300,000 from a mentally disabled woman’s estate and used it to renovate his home with marble floors, bronze statues and other luxuries.

Klobuchar persuaded a district judge in 2002 to sentence Roland Amundson to five years and nine months in prison — a year longer than recommended by sentencing guidelines.

Ten months later, Klobuchar was furious to learn state corrections officials admitted Amundson into a boot camp that would allow him to cut his sentence by more than half. She protested and pushed the corrections commissioner to reverse course, making Amundson serve his full sentence.

As the now-U.S. senator runs for Minnesota governor, campaign aides say the Amundson case offers a glimpse into her no-tolerance attitude toward fraud. Allies say Klobuchar’s experience as the former Hennepin County Attorney will help her tackle the sprawling fraud crisis in Minnesota’s social services programs if elected governor.

“[Her] emphasis was, we have to go after people who may be upper-middle class or rich who are stealing a lot of money, and who are operating out of greed,” said retired Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill, who was Klobuchar’s top deputy when she was County Attorney.

Federal prosecutors have documented hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of fraud in state-run programs in recent years. Some defendants in the fraud cases spent taxpayer money meant for the needy on real estate, luxury cars and lavish trips, authorities say. The snowballing fraud crisis dominated headlines just weeks ago, putting Democrats on the defensive and prompting DFL Gov. Tim Walz to end his re-election bid as Republicans pinned the scandal on him.

Republicans have shifted their criticism to Klobuchar since she announced her run for governor. Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a leading GOP candidate for governor, has said Klobuchar “did nothing” and stood “shoulder-to-shoulder” with Walz while state money was plundered.

A review of Klobuchar’s social media posts found few direct comments about the state’s social services fraud problem, but her aides say she quietly worked to secure more federal fraud-fighting resources for Minnesota.

Klobuchar recommended the appointments of former U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Andy Luger and former acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson. Luger’s office prosecuted 70 defendants in the Feeding Our Future case. Thompson became the lead public voice on uncovering fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs before he resigned from the office last month.

Luger said in an interview that Klobuchar was instrumental in securing more personnel for his office. When he told the senator he was seeking more resources from the U.S. Department of Justice to fight fraud, he said “she went behind the scenes, made calls to make sure it happened.”

As a result, Luger said, the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office got the largest personnel increase of any office in the country.

“I don’t think any other senator did that for their U.S. Attorney’s Office,” he said.

Klobuchar has been pointing back to her time as a prosecutor in the early days of her campaign for governor.

“I ran the biggest prosecutor’s office in our state,” she said in an interview. “I made fraud and other white-collar crimes, as they were called then, one of my major priorities. I just don’t like fraud or waste in government.”

As County Attorney, Klobuchar also prosecuted several airline pilots who evaded paying Minnesota income tax by claiming residency in states without income taxes.

When a judge reduced one pilot’s five felony counts of tax evasion to gross misdemeanors, Klobuchar objected and said prosecutors would appeal.

“He should have been sentenced as a felon,” Klobuchar said, according to a 2002 Star Tribune article. “People have received felony sentences for street crimes that involve a lot less money than this. This was a white-collar case and he stole $50,000 from the people of Minnesota.”

“That means in-person site visits, audits and using sort of modern tools of government,” Klobuchar said. “It’s modernizing our government so we can catch it before it starts.”

Cahill thinks Klobuchar will focus closely on fraud if elected governor, saying he expects her to “get back to her prosecutor roots,” ordering more audits and working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office on prosecutions.

In the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, Cahill said Klobuchar was intensely focused on details and accountability.

“As one of 100 senators, I think she gets frustrated at times because she likes to get things done,” Cahill said. “As governor, she can get a lot more done.”

Republicans who’ve made fraud the centerpiece of their 2026 campaigns still see an opening to criticize Klobuchar, saying the cases that have unfolded in recent years are a symptom of DFL leadership more broadly.

“I was disappointed that Sen. Klobuchar didn’t come to today’s hearing,” said Robbins, who testified at the congressional hearing about fraud in Minnesota. “She’s a member of the full committee, other members of the full committee were here, and it’s frustrating that she didn’t show up.”

A spokesperson for Klobuchar said “she is not a member of that subcommittee” and pointed a Star Tribune reporter to her campaign announcement video, in which she vowed to fight fraud.

Klobuchar could also face skepticism from the left in the coming months, not over fraud but about her time as a prosecutor. She came under heavy scrutiny during her 2020 run for president over how she handled a years-old murder case and for declining to charge police officers involved in more than two dozen fatal encounters with civilians.

But former federal prosecutor Mark Osler, who teaches law at the University of St. Thomas, said he doesn’t think that criticism will be as intense as it was in 2020. The political landscape has changed, he said, and most people will agree it’s important to fight fraud.

“Her record as a prosecutor is going to be a very strong asset,” Osler said. “There will be some people that will have a problem with that, but largely that’s going to come from a subset of people who are prison abolitionists, who want to abolish the police and things like that, which is really a fringe position.”