Republican Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia is calling for criminal prosecution of former Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, accusing him of orchestrating what Carter describes as a massive fraud scheme that funneled taxpayer dollars to Somali nationals through a Minnesota food aid program.
Carter, a pharmacist by trade who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, did not mince words in a recent exclusive interview with Breitbart News. He wants Walz behind bars.
"Tim Walz should go to jail. He was the governor when this happened. He knew about it, and he allowed it to happen."
The fraud in question centers on Feeding Our Future, a federally funded child nutrition nonprofit in Minnesota that became the subject of what federal prosecutors have called one of the largest pandemic-era fraud schemes in the country. The case involves allegations that tens of millions of dollars intended to feed children were instead stolen and laundered, with a significant number of the defendants being Somali nationals or of Somali descent.
The Feeding Our Future scandal erupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the federal government loosened oversight requirements on food aid distribution. Minnesota's Department of Education, which administered the program at the state level, raised red flags about suspicious claims from the nonprofit. But rather than shutting the pipeline, the organization sued the state to keep funds flowing, and a state judge sided with them, as Breitbart reports.
Federal investigators eventually moved in. The FBI arrested dozens of individuals connected to the scheme. Multiple defendants have been convicted at trial or pleaded guilty to charges including wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged the stolen funds were used to purchase luxury cars, real estate, and other personal goods, both domestically and overseas.
Carter's argument is straightforward: Walz, as governor, had executive authority over the state agencies involved and bears responsibility for the breakdown in oversight that allowed the fraud to metastasize.
The Feeding Our Future case sits at the intersection of several issues that have defined conservative criticism of Democratic governance in Minnesota and beyond:
Minnesota under Walz became a case study in what happens when a state government treats oversight as an afterthought and equity rhetoric as a substitute for competence. The Somali community in Minnesota, concentrated largely in the Minneapolis area, has been a focal point of progressive outreach for years. Democratic politicians have courted its leaders, celebrated its growth, and resisted scrutiny of programs disproportionately serving that community as culturally insensitive.
The result was predictable. When state employees flagged irregularities, the political environment made aggressive enforcement difficult. Nobody wanted to be the bureaucrat who cut off food money to a politically favored constituency during a pandemic.
Carter is not making a narrow procedural complaint. He is arguing that Walz's leadership failures were not accidental but reflective of a governing philosophy that treats taxpayer money as a social engineering tool rather than a public trust. The congressman pointed to Walz's broader record in Minnesota, including his handling of the 2020 riots and his administration's approach to immigration and refugee resettlement, as evidence of a pattern.
The call for criminal accountability, rather than just political embarrassment, marks an escalation. Republicans have criticized Walz on the Feeding Our Future scandal before, particularly during his brief stint as Kamala Harris's running mate in the 2024 presidential race. But Carter is explicitly saying that political criticism is insufficient. He wants a criminal referral and prosecution.
Whether that happens is another matter. Federal prosecutors have focused on the individuals who directly executed the fraud. Going after a sitting or former governor for supervisory negligence would require evidence of direct knowledge and willful inaction, a high bar legally even if the political case is compelling.
This is the frustration that animates Carter's remarks and resonates with conservatives across the country. The people who steal the money go to prison. The people who built the system that made the theft easy, who ignored the warnings, who created the political culture where no one dared ask hard questions, walk away with their pensions and their book deals.
Walz left the governor's mansion and landed on a national ticket. The defendants in the Feeding Our Future case face decades in federal prison. The distance between those two outcomes tells you everything about how accountability works in American politics.
Carter is trying to close that gap. The political system he is working within may not let him. But the question he is raising deserves more than a shrug: When a governor presides over the largest fraud scheme of its kind and no one in leadership pays a price, what exactly is the point of having a governor?