Minn. lawmaker says fraud oversight work will continue after committee hearing was canceled

Representative Kristen Robbins, who represents District 37A (Western Maple Grove and western Hennepin County) and chairs the new Fraud and State Agency Oversight Committee in the Minnesota House, told reporters that the committee’s first scheduled public hearing was canceled after Department of Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead declined the invitation.

Robbins said the cancellation did not end the committee’s work. “We still wanted to show you that we are here doing the work,” she said, adding the panel will continue meeting with whistleblowers, prepare additional hearings and publish materials online that the canceled hearing would have presented.

The announcement came during a brief floor or press appearance in which Robbins said the committee had invited Harpstead and a second witness, Bill Glahn, a senior policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, to discuss alleged fraud and the center’s “fraud and waste tracker.”…