Ex-Minnesota state trooper reveals how state tried to cover up fraud allegations then Walz shut down his department

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 daycares 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 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.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 infa...