Dana Ferguson

So the issue of fraud has been well known in Minnesota for years.

There are a number of fraud schemes that came out of COVID era programs for the most part.

The biggest of those is called Feeding Our Future.

That was a program that was meant to help kids get meals during the pandemic.

And a couple years ago it came to light that there were a number of people who were defrauding this program, taking the money for themselves, spending it not for kids' meals but for things they wanted for themselves.

A number of people have been charged and convicted in connection with that.

More recently, there have been several Medicaid programs here that have come to light that they also had some fraud going on.

The state has taken steps to investigate to shut down some of those programs or put a pause on payments.

But

The federal government has really taken a look at this recently and wanted to spotlight it.

That's why they've sent in a lot of officers from not just ICE, but other agencies to come look at alleged fraud in Minnesota.

So we've seen a lot of that coming in recently.

The governor has taken a lot of heat for it.

A lot of it happened under his administration.

It's the reason he said he's stepping down.

He said he couldn't campaign and at the same time focus on getting rid of fraud.

So what feels like a million years ago but was actually just last Monday, the governor announced that he's not running for another term.

which opens up that race quite a bit.

Republicans really wanted to run against him for what would have been an unprecedented four-year, third consecutive term.

But now we're waiting for someone else to announce.