Hans Heyoh

We are overwhelmed by the interest the nation has shown in the fraud occurring in Minnesota. Population wise, we are small but health and human services fraud in our state exceeds that of much larger states like California, New York, Texas & others. While Tim Walz makes all manner of incorrect statements about Minnesota leading in one way or other, what we really lead in is failed governance. Tim Walz has turned Minnesota into a failed state with deteriorating infrastructure, education and economic metrics, and worst of all, we are failing our most vulnerable citizens by letting cripple state services. For many years, we reached out to every source available to us to get attention on and help stop fraud. We were lucky to get the Office of the Legislative Auditor, Fraud Committee, certain news outlets and many fine politicians to help shed light on the matter. Unfortunately, only one DFL member showed interest in fraud - John Hoffman. Contrary to popular belief, we aren’t a political group. But we’ve been continually disappointed in the response we got by the DFL, or lack there of. We hoped for partnership with all political parties but instead, the DFL discredited our reports and pleas. Is protecting your political party or clinging onto power really worth destroying your state? Many thanks to those who’ve supported us over the years. It’s been an uphill battle that has been uncertain, isolating but one that we aren’t giving up on. We hope that Minnesota will be freed from fraud, good governance is restored and trust in government is rebuilt. The next step now is to bring in external auditors and new leadership. Tim Walz has failed Minnesota.

Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports. Instead of partnership, we got the full weight of retaliation by Tim Walz, certain DFL members and an indifferent mainstream media. It’s scary, isolating and left us wondering who we can turn to. In addition to retaliating against whistleblower, Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance. Media and politicians supporting Tim Walz or the DFL-agenda attacked whistleblowers who were trying to raise red flags on fraudulent activities. This is a cascade of systemic failures leading up to Tim Walz. Agency leaders appointed by Tim Walz willfully disregarded rules and laws to keep fraud reports quiet - even to the extent of threatening families of whistleblowers. These same leaders are not qualified for their jobs, instead getting leadership jobs via Tim Walz’s friendship so state government were left floundering. DFL lawmakers refused to acknowledge fraud and deflected any serious conversation to stop fraud. Biased mainstream media such as WCCO and MPR showed absolutely no interest in covering fraud happening in our own state. Programs, especially in behavioral health and disability services were built without any guardrails against fraud, all in an attempt to extract more funding from legislature and the federal government. As staff, we firsthand witnessed and observed fraud happening yet we were shutdown, reassigned and told to keep quiet. Sometimes more. Leadership did not want to appear to discriminate against certain communities and were unwilling to take action, such as stopping fraud, that would have an adverse impact on their image. To date, no single agency leader has been held responsible for their role in fraud whether it’s Shireen Gandhi, Jess Geil, Jodi Harpstead, Natasha Merz, Eric Grumdahl or others. It is a structure created and maintained by Tim Walz who has created an environment of inter-related agencies and institutions including the media - that help foster fraud through retaliation and turning a blind eye in exchange for political gain in the form of high power agency leadership jobs or other perks. Fundamentally, Tim Walz is dishonest, lacks ethics and integrity, has poor leadership abilities, and has never taken any accountability for his role in fraud. Instead, Tim Walz deflects by blaming national politics for his own failings and distracts the public with inveterate lying. These lies include his reference of a budget surplus under his tenure. Fact is, Minnesota never had a surplus, we had been given federal ARPA funds that were conflated as surplus money otherwise, we’d be in a deficit. And those ARPA funds, which were meant to be temporary funds were used to create more leadership positions for Tim Walz “buddies.” As such, we can’t fight fraud in Minnesota alone hence why we’re appealing to the federal levels of government. We need all the help we can get as Tim Walz’s agency leaders have upped their brazen approach in covering up their knowledge of fraud. We are grateful to numerous solid politicians (esp the Fraud Committee) and media outlets who are trying to halt fraud. We are also grateful to other whistleblowers who are bravely stepping up. Thank You NY Times for bringing the plight of Minnesota to the national stage. @nytimes