Minnesota Fraud Didn't Happen Overnight

Every large fraud case eventually ends up in a courtroom. By then, investigators have gathered evidence, prosecutors have filed charges, and the public knows the names of the people accused. That is how the justice system is supposed to work.

What gets less attention is everything that happened before the first search warrant was served.

Minnesota's own Legislative Auditor concluded that the Minnesota Department of Education failed to act on warning signs, did not effectively use its authority to hold Feeding Our Future accountable, and was ill-prepared to respond to the problems it encountered. The auditor also concluded that inadequate oversight created opportunities for fraud. Those findings should concern every Minnesotan because protecting the public is not just the responsibility of one agency. It is exactly the kind of failure that should demand the full attention of the state's chief legal officer.

The criminal cases will move through the courts, and the people responsible for stealing public money should be held accountable. That is the job of the justice system. But protecting the public requires more than prosecuting crimes after the damage is done. Government also has a responsibility to understand how a fraud of this size was able to continue after concerns had already been raised.

Those findings did not emerge in isolation. State agencies and Feeding Our Future were already involved in litigation before the federal indictments were announced. Journalists were examining the program. Federal investigators were building what became one of the largest pandemic fraud prosecutions in the country. Whistleblowers were publicly raising concerns and recent investigations have examined those claims.

Looking back, it is difficult to argue that the problem appeared without warning.

Maybe years of practicing law have made me skeptical, but when I see a program grow rapidly, when I see warning signs in the public record, and when I learn that concerns were being raised long before the headlines, I think the same thing most Minnesotans think: somebody should have stopped and asked whether something was wrong.

Public programs are not static. They grow, they change, and sometimes they expand much faster than anyone expected. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but common sense says that oversight ought to keep up. If government is responsible for spending more and more taxpayer dollars, then government also has a responsibility to make sure the safeguards protecting those dollars are keeping pace. Waiting until federal investigators uncover a major fraud is not a system that is working the way it should. By then, the damage has already been done.

I served as a military prosecutor before spending nearly two decades in the legal profession. One thing that experience teaches you is that the story does not begin when the headlines appear. If you want to understand what really happened, you go back to the beginning and look at the decisions that were made, the warnings that were overlooked, and the opportunities that were missed.

That is why I am running for Attorney General.

The Attorney General is the state's chief legal officer. When Minnesota experiences one of the largest fraud scandals in its history, the people have a right to expect aggressive leadership, relentless oversight, and an unwavering commitment to uncovering the truth. The office has not met that responsibility. Minnesotans deserve an Attorney General who will.

Minnesotans deserve accountability for the people who committed these crimes. They also deserve a clear and honest examination of the decisions and oversight failures of our own government that allowed those crimes to continue. Looking at only half the story may satisfy politics, but it does not protect the public.

If we want to prevent the next fraud scandal, we must learn from the last one. That starts by bringing the facts into the open, following them wherever they lead, and having the courage to act on what we learn.

Enforce the Law. Not a Party Line.

David Madgett is a candidate for Minnesota Attorney General. He is a former U.S. Air Force JAG Corps Captain and consumer protection attorney.