Social media erupts after Minnesota AG posts about cracking down on fraud: 'You're kidding right?'

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Minnesota’s attorney general was widely mocked by conservatives on social media over the weekend for a social media post touting his work to crack down on fraudsters at the same time a massive fraud scandal that could total up to $9 billion has exploded in the state over the last several years.

"Scammers thought Minnesotans were easy targets," Democrat Keith Ellison, who has been Minnesota attorney general since 2019, posted on X on Friday in a message that is approaching 1 million views.

"They were wrong. From student loan scams to fake utility callers, we shut them down this year — fast."

Ellison’s video, where he promoted various wins cracking down on robocalls and online scams, was blasted online by those pointing out the fraud scandal involving government agencies and welfare programs that has rocked the state under his watch.

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"Arsonist claims to be fire fighter….," GOP Sen. Ted Cruz posted on X. 

"Seriously?" Former sports broadcaster Michelle Tafoya, rumored to be mulling a run for Senate in Minnesota, posted on X.

"How could your team make this video when it was under your nose that Somalis in your state stole up to $9 billion of taxpayer funds meant to help Americans in need?" Post Millennial senior editor Andy Ngo posted on X. 

"Spare us your feign outrage, Keith," Minnesota Republican Rep. Tom Emmer posted on X. "You’ve done nothing but enable and exacerbate fraud in Minnesota. This all happened on your watch. Welcome to the party."

"Scammers were right," former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab, who worked on the Feeding Our Future fraud case in the state, posted on X. "Minnesota was an easy target. That’s why they stole literally BILLIONS of dollars from us."

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"You’re kidding right?" Townhall columnist Dustin Grage posted on X. "They literally created a new term called ‘fraud tourism’ to describe how easy it was to defraud Minnesota taxpayers."

"No s---, Sherlock," conservative communicator Steve Guest posted on X. "Minnesota was an easy target. Per CBS News, $9 BILLION worth of Medicaid fraud happened right under your nose. And the largest funder of Al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia is the Minnesota taxpayer."

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In a statement to Fox News Digital received after publication, a spokesperson for Ellison's office said, "The Minnesota Attorney General's Office has broad authority in civil law to protect consumers, and Attorney General Ellison regularly uses that authority to protect Minnesota consumers from scams, deception, and fraud by businesses, corporations, and other individual bad actors."

"That's what the video is about.  When it comes to criminal fraud against federal- and state-funded Medicaid programs, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of Attorney General Ellison's Office works closely with the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute it, including on the very cases in which the Justice Department announced new indictments on Thursday."

The spokesperson added that Ellison's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit is "one of the most successful units of its size in the country: in the last 7 years, it has won more than 300 convictions and $80 million in judgments for the State."

"In a recent audit, the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recognized Minnesota for winning more Medicaid fraud convictions than any other comparably sized state."

Ellison, along with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have been the target of heated criticism from conservatives and Republican officials in the state over the fraud scandal that has infiltrated several government agencies and, according to a press conference from federal prosecutors last week, could end up costing taxpayers up to $9 billion.

"Tim Walz was responsible for putting into place the commissioners of the different departments who are allowing all this money to go out, and then you had Keith Ellison, who not only should have done something about stopping the fraud once he had a sense that things were happening, he should have started to investigate it," Teirab told Fox News Digital in an interview earlier this month. 

"He now tries to say that he was working hand in hand with the federal government… absolutely false, lying about what he did, what he knew and when he knew it."

Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.