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Minnesota’s Republican state senator is urging her fellow conservatives to stop peddling wild conspiracy theories linking the assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Holtman to the U.S. presidential election. The fraud scandal currently rocking the state.
“I am a Minnesota Republican. I have never agreed with Melissa. Not once. But I am begging people to stop sharing this conspiracy theory,” state Sen. Julia Coleman Tweet In response, actress, producer and socialite Sarah Foster claimed Holtmann’s death was “related” to the controversy. Foster, the daughter of media mogul David Foster, most recently served as creative co-head of Bumble and co-produced the Netflix hit no one wants this and her sister Erin Foster.
In recent days, MAGA world goes crazy A sweeping case has emerged in Minnesota alleging that about $9 billion in federal funds that support child care and Medicaid programs run by more than a dozen state governments may have been stolen.
“This fraud was not small. It was not isolated. The scale cannot be overstated,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson Thompson. said earlier this month. “What we saw in Minnesota was not a handful of bad actors committing a crime. This was a shocking, industrial-scale fraud.”
The investigation has been politically and culturally fraught because 82 of the 92 defendants charged are Somali-American, prompting Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans to claim that Somali immigrants are “ripping off the state” while calling Minnesota “the epicenter of fraudulent money laundering.”
Trump also used the scandal to demonize and denigrate Somalis as a whole, calling them “trash” and claiming they “contributed nothing,” stoking racist and xenophobic sentiments among Democrats and liberals. Meanwhile, the president has Double down on his bigoted rant. while calling for Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) to be expelled from “the country.”
Last week, MAGA YouTuber Nick Shirley, who spoke at the White House Roundtable on Antifa Violence and posted a video of himself visiting a Minnesota day care facility, brought attention to the fraud case from right-wing media and the Trump administration.
At one point in the video, Shirley visits a Somali-owned education center that hangs a misspelled sign that allegedly received $4 million in funding, asking the owners about the funds they received and where the children who allegedly attended the facility were. The interaction went viral on social media Highly praised by Vice President JD Vance FBI Director Kash Patel said “This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz faces harsh criticism from Republicans and the White House over the fraud case as he seeks a third term. This week’s response points out He “has been working for years to combat fraud and have asked the state Legislature for more authority to take aggressive action.”
His office added that Walz “hired an outside firm to audit payments to high-risk programs, shut down the Housing Stabilization Services program entirely, announced the appointment of a new statewide program integrity director, and supported criminal prosecutions.”
The fraud investigation has received heightened attention in the right-wing media ecosystem, and Foster, who hosts a podcast with his sister, joined the social media debate over the weekend with wild speculation that Holtman’s murder was connected to the state’s alleged fraud scheme.
Foster became increasingly critical “far left” In recent years, he has called them the “ultimate bullies” and accused “liberal” politicians San Francisco Cash App founder stabbed, and “Tribe Chief” In response to the wildfires in Southern California.
“So are we just going to pretend her murder had nothing to do with the multi-billion dollar fraud scandal that just came to light? Well,” she Post to X Saturday, share A tweet from June From far-right influencer Nick Sortor, who came up with his own conspiracy theory at the time.
“OMG! Rep. Melissa Holtman sounded so scared in an interview with the media after she voted against health care for illegal immigrants,” Salter wrote at the time. “She was just assassinated this morning. She knew she would eventually be targeted in some form.”
In the days after Holtman and her husband were murdered in their home, allegedly by anti-abortion evangelical Vance Bolt, prominent conservatives — For example, Elon Musk and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)) – false claims A “Marxist” killed Hortmann because “the extreme left is full of murderous violence.” Meanwhile, some have even suggested Walz was responsible for the assassination, wondering if the governor had any “She was executed to send a message.”
Foster’s tweet has been viewed 1.8 million times, with more than 50,000 likes and 13,000 retweets, with other celebrities backing her baseless theory. Alison Lohman, movie star drag me to hell and stickman, reacted with several bullseye emojis, although she later appeared to delete the reaction.
“We need justice for Rep. Melissa Holtman,” conservative state Rep. Heather Scott (R-ID) reacted Foster’s tweet, meanwhile Other pro-Trump accounts shared a photo of Walz, calling him the “father of fraud,” while saying: “You disobey your family and you pay the price.”
Coleman, who told Foster and others to stop peddling conspiracy theories about Holtman’s death, explained why the now-deceased Democratic leader became emotional in a video Salter shared months ago.
“She is not scared in this video. She is crying because she has to take this vote to keep the government open, which is very difficult for her,” Coleman wrote. “This is who she is as a leader. Even though I disagree with her views, I can tell her heart is fully in it and sometimes the weight of her decisions wears on her sleeve.”
Coleman added that “some of the people on the list didn’t vote the same way,” citing A note left in Bolt’s car That includes about 70 other targets, including Walz, Omar and Sens. Tammy Baldwin, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.
“Tim Walz had nothing to do with the assassination. Fraud had nothing to do with the assassination,” the Republican congressman continued. “The assassin was deranged. Completely deranged. Minnesota lost a good woman because of this.”
Coleman launched a lengthy rebuttal on social media that ended with a message to Foster and others peddling the claims. “Unless you have proof, please stop trying to leverage social media into the death of a good man you know nothing about,” she declared.
independent Representatives for Foster have been contacted for comment.