House Republicans grill Walz, Ellison in heated hearing: 3 takeaways by Max Rego - 03/04/26 7:47 PM ET by Max Rego - 03/04/26 7:47 PM ET Share ✕ LinkedIn LinkedIn Email Email NOW PLAYING Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday tore into Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and state Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) over their handling of a fraud scandal within Minnesota’s social services programs. President Trump has made the scam, and the fact that many of those convicted were of Somali descent, central to his immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. And in his State of the Union address last month, he announced a broader “war on fraud.” Republicans on the panel sharply criticized the two Minnesota Democrats throughout a lengthy hearing for ignoring warning signs of fraud. Democrats, meanwhile, acknowledged that tackling fraud in social service programs is important but said the Trump administration overstepped its bounds and use fraud as a pretext to surge immigration enforcement to blue states. Here are three takeaways from a combative hearing. Republicans slam Minnesota officials’ handling of fraud  From his opening statement, committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) made clear his view on how Walz and Ellison handled fraud concerns.  “Today’s hearing is about a failure of leadership, plain and simple,” Comer said. “For years, Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison presided over one of the most extensive breakdowns of oversight this committee has ever examined.” To date, federal prosecutors have obtained 66 convictions of individuals, a majority of whom are of Somali descent, implicated in defrauding a host of social services programs in Minnesota that receive Medicaid funding. The initial probe centered on Feeding our Future, a nonprofit that prosecutors say stole $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program while falsely claiming to provide meals to needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Earlier Wednesday, the GOP-led committee released a 54-page interim report of its probe into the subject, in which it said Walz and Ellison “were aware of widespread fraud in federally funded social services programs for years, possessed the legal and procedural authority to stop payments, but repeatedly failed to act.” The Trump administration paused federal funding to a swath of Minnesota programs during the holiday season, after conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley detailed unfounded claims of fraud at Somali-run day care centers. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also surged federal immigration enforcement to the state in “Operation Metro Surge.” Walz, who dropped his reelection bid in January amid the mounting scrutiny, defended himself Wednesday and said Trump “targeted” Minnesota.  “Under the guise of combating fraud, the federal government has flooded Minnesota with masked, untrained and unaccountable agents who are wreaking havoc in our communities,” Walz said. But multiple Republicans on the panel, including Reps. Nancy Mace (S.C.) and Clay Higgins (La.), sharply criticized Walz and Ellison throughout the hearing.  During a brief exchange with Ellison, Higgins grew increasingly upset with the Minnesota attorney general’s answers regarding how he handled the scandal. After Ellison said, “We are following the law,” the Louisiana Republican pushed back one final time. “You are not leading, you are not leading. … The attorney general of the state of Minnesota should resign,” Higgins said. Democrats push back on immigration crackdown in Minnesota Multiple Democrats, including Reps. Dave Min (Calif.) and Melanie Stansbury (N.M.), highlighted the need to prosecute fraudsters.  But a number of lawmakers in the minority also criticized the administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Protests erupted in the North Star State earlier this year amid the federal presence, particularly after immigration officers fatally shot U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Democrats on the panel referenced those killings, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detaining 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias. The two were later released .  “We’ve taken from food assistance, we’ve taken from health care, and we super-funded terror on American streets,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee. Rev. Mariah Tollgaard, a minister at Hamlin Church United Methodist in St. Paul, Minn., who joined Walz and Ellison, said the federal government has inflicted “terror” on migrant communities and the “most vulnerable among us.” “This administration has targeted Minnesota because we live out our values of loving our neighbors,” she said.  Min, a former