WATCH: Rep. Gill Pummels Gov. Walz Over Somali Fraud - Forces Walz to Desert His Staff Faster Than He Deserted His Army Unit in 2005
Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz is finally facing up to his state’s widespread fraud accusations and predictably doesn’t have much to say for himself.
On Wednesday, Walz and Minnesota Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison testified before the House Oversight Committee, which was holding a hearing on misuse of government funds.
As a part of that hearing, Texas Republican Rep. Brandon Gill took to grilling Walz for the idiocy that is branding anyone who calls out the actions of the Somali community racist or Islamophobic.
One exchange between the two, later posted to social media platform X, involved Gill asking about Faye Bernstein, a compliance officer at the Department of Human Services in Walz’s state.
KMSP reported in 2019 that Bernstein faced retaliation over calling out problems with state contracts. After her whistleblowing, a watchdog found $29 million in unauthorized payments to two Native American tribes.
“Yes, I’m familiar with the name,” Walz told Gill after asking about her.
After confirming Bernstein was a Democrat, Gill proceeded with her story. “She’s also stated publicly she was retaliated against and called racist and that her work responsibilities were diminished whenever she was highlighting fraud within your administration. Are you familiar with that?”
Rep Brandon Gill SLAMS Tim Walz for calling whistleblowers “racist or Islamophobic” for reporting fraud in Minnesota:
“Do you think it’s racist or Islamophobic to highlight and try to stop fraud…that was the message your administration was sending to multiple whistleblowers.” pic.twitter.com/7QWJZdMNuV
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 4, 2026
Walz tried to shrug off any talk about Bernstein, but Gill was persistent.
“You would agree that the tone in your administration comes from you ultimately, right? The tone of how you might deal with whistleblowers?”
“We protect them,” Walz shot back, but Gill wasn’t having it: “It doesn’t sound like you’re protecting them.”
He then pulled a quote from Minnesota Republican Rep. Kristin Robbins, chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Oversight Committee.
“We have dozens of credible whistleblower reports saying the exact same thing, that people were told not to say anything because they would be called racist or Islamophobic or it would hurt the state.”
In January, the New York Post reported as much, noting that Robbins said, “The group of whistleblowers that I interact with claim that they’ve been denied vacations, promotions, and that it’s hurt their careers,” even saying whistleblowers were being electronically surveilled.
“Do you think it’s racist or Islamophobic to highlight and try to stop fraud?” Gill asked.
“It is not,” Walz answered, only for Gill to cut him off: “It’s not, but that was the message your administration was sending to multiple whistleblowers.”
“I can’t speak to that,” Walz told him. “You don’t want to speak to that, I think,” Gill replied, breaking into a smirk.
From Robbins and Bernstein’s perspective, Walz did nothing to protect whistleblowers, and possibly even allowed them to be hurt.
He’d rather protect criminal immigrants than his own staff.
No one should be surprised with Walz. This is someone who lied about his military record repeatedly and proved himself to be a buffoon, astoundingly making the Democratic ticket in 2024 look even worse.
CBS News reported in January that Walz said he would never seek office again. Minnesotans — and certainly the rest of the country — won’t miss him.
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