Comer says Walz 'retaliated' against whistleblowers who warned of Minnesota fraud for years
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison of retaliating against whistleblowers who repeatedly warned state leadership about widespread fraud.
Comer said Wednesday that state officials ignored years of internal warnings and punished employees who tried to expose misconduct.
"These state legislators are well respected. They took an oath. They went under oath. If they lied, then they commit perjury. No one is accusing them of lying in Minnesota," he said on "Hannity."
"They said also that whistleblowers have been coming forward for years, not weeks, not months, but years, trying to warn Tim Walz and the attorney general, Keith Ellison, that this fraud was happening."
COMER VOWS MINNESOTA FRAUD PROBE WILL EXPAND TO OTHER STATES AMID MOUNTING SCRUTINY
"Apparently, they were catching the fraud in Minnesota, but every time they would report it, Tim Walz would bite their head off and threaten their jobs, threaten their tenure, and it would just go away until this video went viral, and here we are," he added.
Minnesota Republican state lawmakers testified about the handling of the alleged fraud during a recent House Oversight Committee hearing.
State Rep. Marion Rarick said Walz "has done nothing other than appoint commissioners that suppressed fraud and retaliated against their own employees."
State Rep. Walter Hudson accused Democrats of overlooking fraud because it was politically beneficial.
"The Somali community is a huge constituency group," he said at the hearing.
According to Comer, investigators have charged 98 defendants in the ongoing fraud scandal, 85 of whom are of Somali descent.
Federal accountability efforts are already underway. The Department of Justice has deployed investigators, and dozens of arrests have been made in connection with the probe.
The largest case, known as the "Feeding Our Future" scandal, centers on a nonprofit accused of exploiting federal child nutrition programs. More than 70 defendants have been charged in that case alone.
Comer said the Minnesota investigation could be the tip of the iceberg.
"Since we launched this investigation, we've had whistleblowers from other states come forward, and it looks like this is a pattern with many Somali groups in several blue states in America. And we're gonna expand this investigation."
Fox News Digital's Leo Briceno contributed to this report.