Minnesota State Trooper: State ‘Tried to Cover Up Fraud Allegations’ — Then Walz Shut Down His Department
Wait, it gets better.
Now Walz is trying to take credit for the fraud investigations he had nothing to do with (except to take part in the fraud.)
Ex-Minnesota state trooper reveals how state ‘tried to cover up fraud allegations’ — then Walz shut down his department
By Chris Nesi and Steven Vago, NY Post, April 30, 2026:
A former Minnesota state trooper alleged this week that his bosses at the state Department of Human Services tried to bully him into quashing his findings of fraud in the state’s child care funding program.
Jay Swanson, a former criminal investigator for the DHS, also revealed that it was well known among Somali refugees in East Africa that Minnesota was the best place to go in the US to pull off child care fraud schemes.
And then Gov. Tim Walz came into office — and Swanson’s entire department investigating waste, fraud and abuse was eliminated, according to Republican lawmakers.
The allegations, which came out Tuesday at a hearing for the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, contradict Walz’s new “tough on fraud” stance after the FBI raided multiple day cares in the state.
The failed Democratic vice presidential candidate claimed that the federal investigations were the result of the state reporting fraud — an assertion that Trump administration officials said was laughable.
On the same day as the raid, Swanson delivered bombshell testimony at the state capitol, alleging that he was once ordered by his bosses to delete some of his findings of fraud in response to an inquiry from the Minnesota Legislature.
The request, he said, was a violation of law.
Swanson’s duties included interviewing owners and employees of the child care centers under investigation, and he said he learned that it was common knowledge among Somali refugees in camps in Kenya that Minnesota was the best place to operate a scam.
“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,” he said.
Law enforcement agents leaving the Quality Learning Center in Minneapolis.
Not long after that 2017 investigation, the feds started looking into another child care center where they found “a high amount of billing fraud” — Salama Child Care Center, which was located at 1411 Nicolett Ave. in Minneapolis, the same address as the infamous “Quality Learing Center.”
That misspelled day care center was raided by the FBI this week — and now appears to be shut down.
The owner of Salama Child Care Center was indicted that same year, and in 2018 pleaded guilty in federal court and was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay $1.4 million in restitution.
As Swanson’s state investigation picked up steam, the Minnesota Legislature directed the Office of the Legislative Auditor — which is tasked with looking into state programs — to conduct a “special review” of the Child Care Assistance Program, he said.
In August of 2018, as Swanson was responding to questions posed to him by the legislative investigators, he said a DHS official instructed him to submit his answers directly to them instead of the auditing agency.
After he sent his answers to his bosses for approval, a state DHS official barged into his office “angry, red-faced, and almost yelling” and told him to retract much of what he had said about fraud.
“I then advised this official that I believed what they were telling me to do was illegal,” Swanson said in his bombshell testimony.
Days later, the same official returned, claiming he had just come from the commissioner’s office and that they were sending his document to the legislative investigators, but warned him “you better be ready for the s–t storm that’s coming your way.”
In the following months, Swanson testified, “members of our unit were harassed and bullied by DHS officials” in a variety of ways, as they sought to undermine their findings at every turn.
The undermining campaign included DHS forking over $90,000 to hire a consulting firm — which Swanson noted had “no experience in public benefit program integrity or financial fraud investigations” — to claim that the “fraud allegations in my email as unreliable or unable to be proven.”
The Original Childcare Center building, with a “Proud to be Parent Aware Rated!” banner and a “No Trespassing” sign on the door.
Vice President JD Vance fired back at Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim
Walz Wednesday after Walz claimed credit for a series of raids on establishments reportedly used by the state’s Somalis to scam welfare benefits.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that multiple locations — including the “Quality Learing Center” that became iconic due to a Dec. 26 video posted by independent journalist Nick Shirley — were raided Tuesday as part of a federal investigation into fraud. Walz tried to take credit for the raids in a Tuesday post to X that was widely mocked on social media.
“This is like the, the arsonist trying to claim credit for the work of the fire department because Tim Walz let this fraud happen under his watch, whether he was complicit in it directly himself or just turned a blind eye towards it, we really did not get much help at all from the governor’s office,” Vance told Fox News host Will Cain.
“Where we did actually get some help was from some state local law enforcement officers who we assigned to the federal task force because the state government wasn’t doing anything,” Vance continued. “So, all credit goes to people on the ground, the federal officers, the state officers who are working to uncover this fraud.”
AUTHOR
Pamela Geller
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