Republican Minnesota State Sen. Michael Holmstrom Jr. said legitimate small businesses — not the perpetrators of massive fraud — are now paying the price for what he calls years of obfuscation and indifference by Gov. Tim Walz and his administration.
Appearing on Newsmax's "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE," Holmstrom blasted the Democrat governor's handling of widespread fraud tied to Somali-run organizations, arguing that the lack of accountability has directly led to the Small Business Administration freezing more than $5 million in federal grants — money that honest entrepreneurs relied on.
"That's all that's been happening. This fraud has been perpetuated," Holmstrom said.
"The administration doesn't care. And then these programs keep getting cut.
"I hear from local providers. I hear from businesses," he said.
"Everyone is starting to feel the pain."
Holmstrom said the SBA's decision to pull funding is the inevitable result of state leadership failing to confront fraud head-on, leaving federal agencies with little choice but to shut off the money altogether.
"The actual areas that should be focused on, the state is not interested," he said. "They're obfuscating."
The Republican lawmaker accused Walz and other top officials of treating the crisis unseriously while Minnesota "is drowning."
Holmstrom criticized Walz for what he described as tone-deaf behavior as the scandal unfolded.
"Gov. Tim Walz spent the weekend posting cat memes," Holmstrom said, while Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, he added, was "throwing on a hijab and pretending to be part of the Somali community to try to gather votes for her Senate run."
"It's really despicable. This is just an unserious administration," he said.
Holmstrom also revealed what he called a shocking example of how state agencies enabled abuse of public funds.
According to the lawmaker, Minnesota's Department of Human Services had scheduled training sessions for members of the Somali community on how to access DHS funding — even as fraud investigations continued to mount.
"There was actually scheduled earlier this month or late November a training from Minnesota DHS for the Somali community on how to get access to DHS funds," Holmstrom said.
"They were doing it openly."
Holmstrom said that kind of conduct shows the state has failed to learn any lessons from previous scandals, including the Feeding Our Future case, which federal prosecutors estimate cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
The lawmaker also accused Minnesota's media of deliberately ignoring the scope of the problem.
He pointed to a year-end wrap-up published by The Minnesota Star Tribune that failed to mention the fraud scandal.
"They did not mention this fraud scandal once. That's the type of media we have here in Minnesota," Holmstrom said.
"It's not honest. It's not interested in getting to the truth.
"It's just an apparatchik of the Democratic Party," he said.
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