Senator Amy Klobuchar speaking with supporters at a meet and greet at the Northside Cafe in Winterset, Iowa by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/48208414647/in/photostream/)
In a rare cross-party candidate debate, held at Farmfest earlier today (Wednesday) in Redwood County, the subject of fraud was always going to come up. Four candidates for governor participated and generated this headline in the Minneapolis Star Tribune,
At Minnesota’s Farmfest, Klobuchar’s bipartisan brand collides with GOP demands for change
The article goes on to use the word “bipartisan” twice more in describing Amy Klobuchar, without providing any evidence. She has been a sitting U.S. Senator representing Minnesota for the past twenty (20) years.
The article on today’s debate finally gets to the subject of fraud in its final section. The very last paragraph reads,
Klobuchar didn’t blame her fellow Democrats as a whole, but said the “people of Minnesota were ripped off” and that the fraud “should have been caught sooner.” She called for a “top to bottom” audit of state government among other proposals.
That’s it. Were people ripped off? Yes. Should it have been caught sooner? Obviosly, but who should have caught it sooner.
Is another audit a good idea? Probably.But why wait? Klobuchar is a senior senator, a member of the most powerful legislative body on planet Earth. She is currently and has been a long-time a member of the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee. If she was interested in being bipartisan, she could have joined with her Republican colleagues, like Sen. Josh Hawley (MO), who have done great work in investigating Minnesota fraud and in holding top Minnesota officials like current Gov. Tim Walz and current state Attorney General Keith Ellison accountable.
There is currently a vacancy on the federal district court for Minnesota. She should be working overtime to get that position filled with a tough-on-fraud judge. Under the blue slip system. she is the one person keeping that from happening.
Or she could have insisted on hearings being held back in 2022 and 2023 when Democrats were in the majority and the fraud was out in the open.
The FBI raids of January 20, 2022, brought the massive Feeding Our Future fraud scandal to light, and it remains the largest single Covid-era fraud. What was Klobuchar worried about at the time? Amnesty for Central American immigrants. In fact, she has not once issued a press release regarding the state’s fraud scandals.
The closest she come to commenting on the fraud scandals was this press release on the resignation of U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, and his fraud prosecutions are mentioned only in passing.
She has spent the bulk of her Senate career complaining about TicketMaster, or whatever it’s called these days.
This week, the U.S. Senate is currently working on the federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts October 1. Why not throw in some cash for this top-to-bottom audit she touts?
As for her future plan for fighting fraud? An example of the tough-hitting proposals include “require action plans.” A number of the line items in the Klobuchar plan were already passed into law earlier this year, after years of foot-dragging by the state’s Democratic “trifecta.”
There isn’t a single remaining item on her list that couldn’t be implemented today by Gov. Walz calling a special session or by her working through the U.S. Senate. Why do we have to wait for January 2027, or later?
