Collin said the reaction inside the state has been intense as federal scrutiny grows. “Yeah, wow, what a whirlwind it has been, Minnesota making national news yet again, Jack, just as you said, basically for days at this point for all the wrong reasons, I should say as well.”
She noted that even the New York Times has now acknowledged the massive scope of fraud. “You have originally the New York Times finally acknowledging this rampant extent of fraud in Minnesota over the weekend. Again, we're talking multi-billions of dollars in fraud through multiple social programs in the state at this point.”
According to Collin, one of the biggest developments came from inside the Minnesota Department of Human Services: “We also, interestingly enough, have had this X account that's been public for years now, but it consists of hundreds of state employees. And this weekend, they solely placed the blame on Governor Tim Walz, very publicly doing so.”
She described how DHS employees say they tried to alert the governor long ago. “These Department of Human Services employees, it's about 400 of them that make up this X account, [wrote] that they went to Governor Walz years ago, hoping for some sort of partnership in stopping this fraud that they were seeing. A lot of these people are actually writing the checks and doing the checks and balances or trying to do so.”
“They saw so many problems, brought this forward. And it sounds like their concerns were ignored according to what they're posting on this X account.”
Collin said the account briefly disappeared after calling out Walz. “Then you have this account deactivated for several hours Monday after calling out the Governor specifically, that post being seen tens of millions of times.” She added that the story is now pulling in national political figures.
“And then, yeah, of course, you have President Trump weighing in with some choice words about the governor over the weekend, Elon Musk weighing in on things here in Minnesota.”
Minnesotans, Collin said, are looking for real action. “I think that you kind of see a bit of a sense of relief. I guess we're going to see if something is actually done. I think that many Minnesota taxpayers are just thankful that some more people here are willing to actually take a look at this.”
“Our reporting does date back years. In fact, we have an entire page dedicated to fraud over at alphanews.org. You'll see stories there. They've been stacking up for years.”
For now, she said residents are waiting to see whether federal involvement will finally force accountability. “But finally, is someone willing to listen? Will something be done? That is the question many Minnesota taxpayers, I think, have at this point.”
