What did the 2019 Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor say about earlier allegations linking Somali community funds to terrorism?
Executive summary
The Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) 2019 assessment of allegations tying child‑care assistance fraud to terrorism found pervasive weaknesses in fraud detection and management but did not substantiate a direct link between CCAP fraud proceeds and financing of terrorist organizations; the report said such allegations were outside the scope of its review and cited no confirmed terror‑funding trail [1]. Local and national outlets later described the audit as having “quashed” claims that child‑care dollars were being funneled to groups like al‑Shabaab, even as partisan actors continued to assert or allege more far‑reaching national‑security ties [2] [3] [4].
1. What the Legislative Auditor set out to review
The OLA’s 2019 document focused on the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) and related state processes: it examined allegations of fraud, assessed DHS’s fraud‑risk analysis and investigative coordination, and reviewed how state actors handled whistleblower claims and media scrutiny [1]. The audit documented systemic vulnerabilities in CCAP — including providers reporting serving more children or hours than actually occurred — and concluded the program was susceptible to multiple fraud schemes that had not been fully quantified by the office [2] [1].
2. The OLA’s findings on terror‑funding allegations
Crucially, the OLA stated that while fraud was evident and problematic, it did not uncover corroborating evidence that CCAP fraud proceeds were being used to fund terrorist activity; the report explicitly noted the office’s inability to verify claims that fraud money was linked to terrorist organizations and deferred to law‑enforcement expertise on such criminal financing matters [1]. Subsequent coverage summarized this point plainly: the audit “could not confirm” the possibility that child‑care subsidy fraud directly bankrolled terrorism, and leaders in Somali and Muslim communities cited the report as definitively undermining that charge [2] [3].
3. How the OLA addressed whistleblowers and state conduct
The OLA criticized aspects of the state’s handling of whistleblowers and communications: it found that certain officials did not meet with whistleblowers and that fear of litigation or accusations of racism affected how state agencies pursued fraud allegations, which in turn created distrust and may have hindered investigations [1]. Reporting later emphasized that investigators and some state employees — including a Somali‑American fraud investigator cited in the press — felt political and reputational pressures shaped decision‑making in the Walz administration [4] [2].
4. Competing narratives and partisan amplification after the audit
Despite the OLA’s restrained findings on terrorism links, conservative outlets and some congressional voices amplified or reasserted claims that fraud proceeds were reaching terrorist networks, citing law‑enforcement sources, whistleblower testimony, or separate investigations; congressional hearings and politically framed releases sometimes presented a starker picture than the audit itself did [5] [6] [7]. Mainstream investigative reporting and public‑broadcast outlets stressed that while theft and misuse of funds occurred, “there was never any evidence” presented in prosecutions that the primary intent or outcome was to fund terror groups, a counterpoint highlighted by former federal prosecutors and news organizations [3] [4].
5. The OLA’s limitations and what it did not claim
The OLA made clear its mandate and limits: it audited state program administration and fraud controls, not international terrorist financing pathways, and it expressly noted that terrorism‑link assertions were beyond what its review could verify; where evidence of foreign remittances or criminal transfers existed, those matters required criminal‑investigative follow‑up outside the auditor’s purview [1]. That functional distinction has been central to debate — proponents of the terror‑link claim say criminal probes may yet reveal ties, while defenders of the Somali community point to the OLA’s inability to substantiate such links as a rebuttal to what they call Islamophobic and politically motivated accusations [8] [2].
Conclusion: what the 2019 OLA report did — and did not — say
The 2019 OLA report diagnosed serious fraud risks and failures in Minnesota’s child‑care subsidy oversight and criticized how whistleblowers were handled, but it did not find or document a verified pipeline from CCAP fraud to terrorist financing and explicitly limited its conclusions on that question to what its mandate and evidence could support; claims that the audit proved money funded terror are therefore inconsistent with the OLA’s text, even as political actors have continued to assert broader national‑security narratives that the auditor did not confirm [1] [2] [3].