ICE agents shot and killed Alex Pretti during a federal raid on Tim Walz's billion dollar fraud scandal.
Minnesota just elected the woman who ran that scandal straight to the United States Senate.
The woman Trump warned voters about just became one of a hundred senators with a vote on ICE funding.
Flanagan Spent Eight Years as Walz's Number Two While Fraud Drained Minnesota's Safety Net
Peggy Flanagan served as Minnesota's lieutenant governor for eight straight years.
She sat two feet from Tim Walz while his administration oversaw one of the largest public fraud schemes in American history.
The Feeding Our Future scandal alone diverted roughly $250 million in federal food aid meant for hungry kids.
FBI Director Kash Patel put it bluntly.
"The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg," Patel said.
Seventy eight people have been indicted.
Fifty seven have already pleaded guilty or been convicted.
Prosecutors even uncovered a separate plot to bribe a juror with $120,000 in cash.
One federal estimate put Minnesota's total fraud exposure as high as a billion dollars, and a federal prosecutor floated a figure as staggering as $9 billion before Walz dismissed it as "sensationalized."
House Oversight Chairman James Comer opened an investigation into whether Walz's administration knew about the fraud and sat on it anyway.
Even the Washington Post editorial board ripped Walz for refusing to take responsibility.
Flanagan had a simpler answer for all of it.
"The governor has been very clear that the buck stops with him," she said.
Eight years as his second in command, and somehow the buck never stopped with her.
Flanagan Beat a Trump Backed Challenger By Blaming the Boss She Served for Years
President Trump personally backed Michele Tafoya, the former NFL sideline reporter turned Republican nominee.
Tafoya spent the campaign trying to pin the fraud on the woman who stood next to Walz the entire time.
"My opponent has been second in command in this state for eight years, drawing a taxpayer-funded paycheck," Tafoya said at a debate last month.
"We have massive fraud, historic fraud. We have test scores down. We have crime spiking. We have a massive surplus turned into a deficit."
It did not matter.
Minnesota had not elected a Republican senator in decades, and Flanagan held the advantage from day one.
The seat was open because Sen. Tina Smith chose to retire rather than defend it herself.
Flanagan had also outlasted Craig in the primary while getting outspent nearly two to one, which told Democratic strategists that anger over ICE was worth more to primary voters than Schumer's money.
She also had a weapon Tafoya could not match: outrage over ICE.
When federal agents poured into the Twin Cities to chase down the fraud, the operation turned deadly.
Agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti during Operation Metro Surge – the crackdown Flanagan's own fraud scandal helped trigger.
Flanagan turned those deaths into her campaign's centerpiece.
"We need to rip ICE apart and stop them from terrorizing our communities," she told supporters after winning her primary.
Tom Homan was not interested in apologizing for the operation.
"They ought to be saying thank you. The state's safer because of that," the border czar said, pointing to more than 4,000 arrests, including 14 people convicted of homicide and 87 convicted of sexually assaulting children.
Kamala Harris tried a version of this dodge in 2024, telling voters she was never really in charge of the border crisis she was assigned to fix as vice president.
Voters did not buy it, and she lost.
Minnesota Democrats just proved the dodge still works if the audience is blue enough and the villain is ICE instead of the border.
Chuck Schumer should be nervous either way.
His handpicked recruit, Rep. Angie Craig, lost the primary to Flanagan months ago, and Democratic operatives were already conceding morale inside his operation had cratered.
Now he inherits a senator who ran on gutting the one agency his caucus will need funded and armed the next time a blue state buries another fraud scheme in paperwork.
Minnesota did not elect a watchdog. It elected the fox that was already inside the henhouse, and told her to guard the door.
Sources:
- Alex Miller, "Trump-Backed Ex-NFL Reporter Loses Senate Race to Progressive Who Vowed to Rip ICE Apart," Fox News, November 4, 2026.
- Fox News, "Peggy Flanagan Vows to Rip ICE Apart After Toppling Moderate Dem in Key Senate Battle," Fox News, August 12, 2026.
- Fox News, "Schumer Dealt Another Blow as Progressive Insurgency Scores Win in Key Senate Battle," Fox News, August 12, 2026.
- Fox9, "Michele Tafoya on Fraud, Affordability, Immigration and Minnesota's U.S. Senate Race," Fox9, October 16, 2026.
- Fox News, "FBI Surges Resources to Minnesota as Director Patel Calls $250M Fraud Scheme Tip of a Very Large Iceberg," Fox News, July 19, 2026.
- Fox News, "Minnesota Fraud Cases Explained: How Hundreds of Millions Allegedly Slipped Through State Programs," Fox News, January 5, 2026.
- Hanna Panreck, "Tim Walz Called Out by Washington Post for Refusing to Take Responsibility for Minnesota Fraud Scandal," Fox News, December 3, 2025.
- Fox News, "Homan Tells Minnesota Leaders to Say Thank You Instead of Demanding Reimbursement as ICE Operation Ends," Fox News, February 4, 2026.
