Vice President JD Vance said that a fraud report related to Tim Walz's tenure as Minnesota governor has been referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for "a full criminal investigation."

A new report released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform recommends that federal authorities review whether charges are warranted in connection with Minnesota's handling of widespread fraud in federally funded social-service programs during the administration of Walz.

"Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison clearly did not protect taxpayer dollars, but it is still an open question as to whether this was incompetence, willful blindness, or worse. The Department of Justice and all relevant law enforcement and regulatory agencies should conduct a thorough review of Minnesota’s social services program reimbursements and enrollment verification processes and procedures from 2019 to the present," the report's conclusion says in part.

The 205-page majority staff report alleges that senior state officials, including Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, were aware of significant fraud concerns for years but failed to take timely action to stop suspicious payments.

Newsweek reached out to Walz's office via email on Monday night for comment.

What To Know

While speaking with Fox News' Jesse Watters on Monday, Vance was asked about the report and whether Walz's administration was involved in any criminal activity.

"Well, I'm going to let the law determine what's a crime and what's not," Vance said. "We're certainly going to investigate this Jesse, and I guess now I can make a bit of breaking news because I left the White House to come here. To do this interview with you. And before I did, we actually referred this particular case to the Department of Justice for full criminal investigation."

Vance continued, "We're not going to do what the Biden administration did and make judgments of the law before all the facts are in. But here's what's particularly troubling about this to me is, Jesse, you had people within Governor Walz's office who were saying, you know what, this looks like fraud. It looks like these Somalian illegal immigrants are doing something that's very shady."

The vice president added, "And then you had people who shut them down, who shut these whistleblowers down and said, you know, you're a racist or you're xenophobe for asking questions about where taxpayer money is going. What that means to me, Jesse, is that clearly people weren't taking fraud seriously. Whether it rises to the level of a criminal violation, we're going to investigate it. And of course, if it does rise to that level, we are going to prosecute it. We have to."

According to the committee's findings, Minnesota agencies possessed the authority to suspend or halt payments to providers suspected of fraud but often chose not to do so. The report pointed to Feeding Our Future as an example.

The report estimates that roughly $300 million in child-nutrition funds and potentially billions more in Medicaid-related spending were lost or placed at risk because of what it describes as "systemic oversight failures." It also alleges that whistleblowers who raised concerns faced retaliation and intimidation rather than support from agency leadership.

The report does not itself bring criminal charges, but it calls on the DOJ, President Trump's Anti-Fraud Task Force and other federal agencies to conduct further investigations into Minnesota's administration of federal funds dating to 2019.

In a statement to Newsweek in December, in part, Walz had defended himself, saying that he has "worked for years to crack down on fraud."

Whether the DOJ will pursue additional action remains unclear, but the committee's report is likely to intensify political and legal scrutiny of Minnesota's handling of some of the nation's largest public-benefit fraud cases.