Tim Walz thought he could smirk his way through a congressional hearing. The House Oversight Committee delivered the verdict, but it was actually a judge who found him guilty of lying about this entire mess.
The verdict (and make no mistake about it, this is a verdict that will end Walz’s political career) was released this week after intense hearings were held on The Hill.
Walz hurt himself by wisecracking his way out of it, but he only dug a deeper hole that Americans will never forgive.
The New York Times had released several pieces in the fall of 2025, but it was not until independent journalist Nick Shirley blew the case up on YouTube that Walz really came under fire.
The fraud started as one major case in a food program, then blossomed into various other aspects of HHS funding.
Then, in December 2025, another case popped up regarding autism funding, which had increased about 300x over previous years. This should have been spotted at the state level immediately, but it just continued.
Rep. French Hill (R-AR) has estimated the fraud at $9 billion, with President Trump saying he believes it is much more. My question is this: if Minnesota spending went up by at least 300 times on these programs, why didn’t someone catch it at the federal level if the state missed it or was complicit? We can come back to that.
Walz has been making light of this during the committee hearings, cracking wise when being asked questions and smirking, and it is not going over well. His back and forth with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) completely backfired on him, not to mention he just came off as a buffoon for not being prepared.
When Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) went after him, it was game over. Jordan exposed the fact that Walz has been caught lying about the fraud by a judge, who issued a statement to that effect.
Payments had been stopped due to the fraud investigations, but they had been restarted again, with Walz claiming his understanding was that the court had ordered the payments to resume.
Jordan responded, “The court… issued a statement saying you were wrong.” He then added, “So I want to know, why didn’t you tell the truth?” At this point, Walz was completely defensive, but there was no recovering from this.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced, “Testimony obtained by the Committee reveals that Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were aware of widespread fraud in social service programs, lied about their knowledge of the fraud, and retaliated against employees who dared to raise concerns.
“Instead of protecting vulnerable Americans, they handed over billions in taxpayer dollars to fraudsters and threw their own state employees under the bus.”
If Walz had any hopes of lying low and making a comeback, he can forget it, as this will follow him for the rest of his career. His only hope is an appointment in an administration that would not require congressional approval.
Sadly, this is likely a problem happening in virtually every state in the country. There are supposed to be checks and balances in place at the local, state, and federal levels to detect this type of abuse before it gets out of hand. The problem is that once the House Committee on Appropriations writes checks, nobody is watching the register. Walz is rightfully taking a hit here, but every member of government responsible for oversight at the local, state, and federal levels needs to be held accountable for this. They dropped the ball… every… single… one… of… them.
