Vance, who has been tapped to lead the Trump administration's anti-fraud efforts, cited in a letter to the Justice Department a report from the Republican-led House Oversight Committee that alleges Walz and Ellison were aware of pervasive abuse of government programs for years and let it flourish.
The Justice Department didn't immediately respond to questions Tuesday about whether it would open an investigation. It was unclear what, if any, potential violations of federal law could support a probe into the Democratic Minnesota officials, who have defended their efforts to combat fraud.
The House committee investigating the massive fraud scandal alleges that “fraud warnings were elevated to the most senior levels of the Minnesota state government" and payments continued “long after credible signs of fraud emerged.” In his referral, Vance wrote that officials in Minnesota or anywhere else in the country “must be held accountable” if they facilitated fraud, prevented officials from stopping it or retaliated against whistleblowers who tried to report it.
“Minnesota state officials are not above the law,” Vance wrote in a post on X.
