Minnesota Republican state lawmakers will descend on Washington on Jan. 7 to testify before the House Oversight Committee’s first round of hearings on fraud in Minnesota.
Republican state Reps. Kristin Robbins, a gubernatorial candidate who chairs the Legislature’s fraud prevention committee, Walter Hudson and Marion Rarick are set to attend the Capitol Hill hearing. Rep. Tom Emmer, the No. 3 Republican in the U.S. House and a vocal critic of fraud in Minnesota, is also expected to attend the hearing, Fox News reports.
Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison have been called to testify when the committee holds its second round of hearings Feb. 10.
The hearings come on the heels of Walz’s announcement Monday that he will not seek re-election amid a mounting fraud crisis in the state’s Medicaid program. The issue has been elevated by big name Republicans in the Trump administration, including President Donald Trump himself.
“The U.S. Department of Justice is actively investigating, prosecuting, and charging fraudsters who have stolen billions from taxpayers, and Congress has a duty to conduct rigorous oversight of this heist and enact stronger safeguards to prevent fraud in taxpayer-funded programs, as well as strong sanctions to hold offenders accountable,” the committee’s Republican chair, Rep. James Comer, said in a statement ahead of the hearing.
The crisis has prompted calls from Republicans in and outside of Minnesota for thorough investigations into fraud in the state’s social services programs.
But the governor’s office has maintained that the hearings are “a coordinated political attack to try to silence one of the President’s most effective critics.”
In announcing his decision to step aside, Walz said he would spend the remainder of his time in office tackling fraud, which federal prosecutors have estimated could total billions of dollars.
