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jd vance
Minnesota AG Ellison: Vance Referred Him, Walz to DOJ Over Fraud Cases as 'Political Stunt'
"It is deeply troubling to see official powers and public resources diverted away from serving the people and instead aimed at pursuing political adversaries," said Keith Ellison.
Jun 09, 2026
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison forcefully pushed back against Vice President JD Vance's Monday night announcement on Fox News and social media that he had referred the state AG and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to the US Department of Justice following allegations in a GOP congressional report that the pair was aware of fraud involving federal funds and failed to stop it.
"The allegations in the House Republican report are unfounded, and Vice President Vance's referral is a political stunt from an administration that uses the machinery of government to target its perceived opponents while extending leniency to those aligned with its interests," Ellison told CNN, highlighting how his office has investigated and prosecuted allegations of fraud involving public programs.
"It is deeply troubling to see official powers and public resources diverted away from serving the people and instead aimed at pursuing political adversaries," added Ellison, who is seeking another term in November. "That is not what government is for, and it diminishes public trust in our institutions."
Dozens of people were charged in Minnesota as a result of a federal probe into abuse of taxpayer funds during the Covid-19 pandemic that began under former President Joe Biden and related investigations that have continued since President Donald Trump returned to office last year. Trump has repeatedly used the cases to attack Somali Americans with racist rants, as well as to target Democratic politicians.
The new referral is not the first time the Trump administration has targeted Ellison and Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate who dropped his bid for another term as governor early this year. The DOJ subpoenaed the pair and other top Minnesota officials in January as part of its investigation into an alleged conspiracy to impede Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers sent to the Twin Cities by the president—a probe the governor denounced as part of a broader trend of the administration "weaponizing the justice system."
As the White House faced intense national backlash for the deadly operation in Minnesota, Trump appointed Vance as "fraud czar" in February, and the vice president swiftly announced that the administration would pause some Medicaid funding for the state over fraud concerns. Walz said at the time that "this has nothing to do with fraud" and "is a campaign of retribution. Trump is weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota."
In March, Walz and Ellison testified before the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about the fraud cases, clashing with GOP lawmakers. At the time, the panel released an interim version of the report that was published on Monday. The Minnesota Star Tribune noted that the March edition "prompted House Democrats on the Oversight Committee to publish a competing report accusing Republicans of singling out Minnesota for political purposes."
Even before Vance's referral, spokespeople for Walz and Ellison were deeply critical of the final report, which claims that they "were aware of widespread fraud in federally funded social services programs for years, possessed the legal and procedural authority to stop payments and ban fraudulent providers from participating in these programs, but repeatedly failed to act."
As MPR News reported:
"This committee has proven time and time again to be nothing more than a joke. They continue to rehash Covid-era fraud to distract from endless wars, gas prices, ICE, and the president’s insider trading," [said] Teddy Tschann, a spokesperson for Walz. "Gov. Walz is glad to see fraudsters are going to prison. If the committee is concerned about corruption, they should investigate why President Trump continues to let fraudsters out of prison."
Walz’s office noted that several changes have been made over the last few years to address fraud, including new legislation creating an Office of the Inspector General, which will have independent power to investigate fraud.
Brian Evans, a spokesperson for Attorney General Keith Ellison, said, "Republicans in Congress issued a report riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations in an effort to politicize the issue of fraud, instead of actually helping Minnesota protect tax dollars and go after fraudsters."
In addition to releasing the updated report, the Oversight Committee's chair, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) sent a letter to Vance about it. The vice president then announced his referral on Jesse Watters' show, and posted his letter to the DOJ on social media.
While Oversight Committee Republicans celebrated Vance's post on social media, journalist Marcy Wheeler responded, "This fraud effort has ALWAYS been an attempt to distract from far bigger right-wing crimes, especially by Trump."
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California Officials Accuse Trump Admin of 'Political Retribution' as Vance Suspends Medicaid Payments
"Withholding reimbursements only further hurts patients, strains providers, and drives up costs," said one Democratic congresswoman. "We will fight this with everything we’ve got."
May 14, 2026
"Political retribution, plain and simple," was how US Sen. Alex Padilla described an announcement by Vice President JD Vance late Wednesday regarding the White House's decision to withhold $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursement payments to California.
Vance and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, claimed the state's Medicaid records have generated "red flags" and demanded officials clarify $630 million in billing, $500 million that's been spent on home health services, and $200 million in what Oz called "questionable expenditures," which he claimed had been used to provide coverage for undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible for Medicaid.
The announcement came a month after Vance's federal anti-fraud task force suspended the licenses of nearly 450 hospice care facilities and 23 home health agencies in the Los Angeles area, accusing them of fraud.
Vance also warned that all 50 states could soon see federal funding for their Medicaid Fraud Control Units frozen if they fail to "aggressively prosecute Medicaid fraud."
"We can turn off other resources within their state Medicaid programs as well," said the vice president.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has frequently sparred with the Trump administration, said Vance and Oz were "attacking programs that keep seniors and people with disabilities OUT of nursing homes," which are far more expensive to run than home healthcare agencies.
Newsom said the growth of the state's In-Home Supportive Services program has saved taxpayers "$107,000 per person" by reducing reliance on nursing homes.
"MAGA hates in-home support programs—which help people stay out of costly institutional settings like nursing homes and get the care they deserve, typically from loved ones," said Newsom.
Newsom also said the Trump administration had informed state officials that the deadline to review California's Medicaid records "before deciding whether to defer funding" would be later in the month.
Democratic members of Congress warned that their constituents rely heavily on Medicaid, with seven out of 10 of the congressional districts with the highest Medicaid enrollment located in California.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said that 56% of her constituents rely on "this lifesaving program," and many have already been harmed by the Republican Party's slashing of Medicaid funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.
"Withholding reimbursements only further hurts patients, strains providers, and drives up costs," said Kamlager-Dove. "We will fight this with everything we’ve got."
Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) said more than 120,000 people in his district depend on the federal healthcare program for low-income households and people with disabilities.
"This administration needs to stop playing politics with people’s health and lives," said Panetta. "When people commit fraud, they should be punished accordingly. However, this administration continues to punish California for political purposes, including penalizing innocent people by taking their healthcare away."
State Attorney General Rob Bonta noted that California has "not hesitated to challenge unlawful actions by the Trump administration," and suggested the state could file a legal challenge against the withholding of Medicaid funds.
He also accused the administration of targeting the heavily Democratic state "for political reasons."
The anti-fraud task force led by Vance has so far exclusively focused on rooting out alleged fraud in federal programs in blue states. The White House suspended $259 million in federal payments to Minnesota earlier this year after a scandal regarding the state's social services system.
"The Trump administration is attacking California over claims that they can't back up," said Padilla. "Let's be real, this isn't about fraud—it's about punishing a state that didn't vote for" President Donald Trump.
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Violence Is the USA's True God and Pete Hegseth Is High Priest
How can it be that the hell of war is so fully a part of the American identity, preparation for which consumes half the national budget every year?
Apr 30, 2026
Perhaps theologian Walter Wink can help us understand Pete Hegseth, America’s self-declared “secretary of war” and spokesman, for God’s sake... for God. At a recent prayer service at the Department of Defense, for instance, Hegseth, after calling the Iranians “barbaric savages” who deserve no mercy, called on the citizens of his country to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Love thy neighbor, folks! Earlier he had boasted that the American bombing campaign had “unleashed twice the firepower in its first five days as the initial ‘shock and awe’ bombing phase of the Iraq War in 2003.” You might recall, of course, that this campaign included the devastation of a school in Minab, which killed—murdered—around 170 people, including over 100 children. God bless America.
Wink, in his book The Powers That Be, discusses what he calls “the myth of redemptive violence”—the belief that violence saves us. Indeed, “It doesn’t seem to be mythic in the least,” he writes. “Violence simply appears to be in the nature of things. It’s what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god.”
And when we use it, that’s God with an uppercase G. Just ask Hegseth. All of which leaves me emotionally shredded, as I think about the country, the world, the future. How can it be that the hell of war is so fully a part of the American identity, preparation for which consumes half the national budget every year? How can it be that the waging of war—the consequences of war—so easily morphs into an abstraction, at least over here where the bombs aren’t falling, and most discussions of it (not counting the fervor of the anti-war protesters) focus on strategic and political rather than moral issues? Just check out the media.
Unlike dead schoolchildren, harm to Vance’s political future can’t be written off as collateral damage, apparently.
Here, for instance, are some fragments of a recent article in The Atlantic, which, while it was hardly gung ho about the Iran war, oozed, you might say, an abstract neutrality about it—and about all the wars we have to be ready to wage in the future. Worry NO. 1 the article addressed concerned how many American weapons were being used up:
Vice President Vance “has also expressed his concerns about the availability of certain missile systems in discussions with President Trump, several people familiar with the situation told us. The consequences of a dramatic drawdown in munitions reserves are potentially dire: US forces would need to draw from these same stockpiles to defend Taiwan against China, South Korea against North Korea, and Europe against Russia.”
The unquestioned assumption is that war is inevitable—ho hum. No larger questioning occurs, no mention of the looming environmental disaster these coming wars will inflict on the planet. Just an academic shrug. A few paragraphs later:
Pentagon leaders’ positive portrayals present an incomplete picture at best, people familiar with intelligence assessments told us. According to those internal estimates, Iran retains two-thirds of its air force, the bulk of its missile-launching capability, and most of its small, fast boats, which can lay mines and harass traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. At least in terms of resuming stalled maritime commerce, "those are the real threat," one person told us.
The world being presented to the reader seems like a video game. At least that’s the case in this article, which detaches war from any mention of blood and destruction, any mention of schoolchildren lying dead beneath collapsed infrastructure as loved ones dig for their bodies. I’m not saying strategic data doesn’t belong in war reporting, just that if it’s not part of the larger context of the moral realities of war, it turns hell into nothing more than an abstraction. This is the role the mainstream media has long claimed for itself.
But some people are affected by the war, we learn:
The vice president was skeptical about the merits of attacking Iran before the war started; Trump has acknowledged that Vance was "maybe less enthusiastic" about a conflict that has proved deeply unpopular among American voters. But the vice president has multiple factors to balance: his desire to work smoothly with other senior officials, his track record of opposing "forever wars," and his prospects should he mount a presidential run in 2028.
Vance and Hegseth both have a major stake in the war’s outcome... Several people close to Trump believe Vance now sees his political future as tied to what happens in Iran.
Unlike dead schoolchildren, harm to Vance’s political future can’t be written off as collateral damage, apparently.
And the myth of redemptive violence marches on.
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