The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota has been inundated with fraud prosecutions for the last several years and there are no signs that trend is going to slow down any time soon.
In fact, the acting U.S. attorney in Minnesota has indicated there is much more fraud to be uncovered in the North Star State. Despite this, the Trump Administration’s nominee to lead the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office has no prior prosecutorial experience.
Daniel Rosen, a commercial litigation and eminent domain lawyer, is set to take over the federal prosecutor’s office in Minnesota if confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In May, President Donald Trump nominated Rosen for the position after Minnesota’s Republican congressional delegation recommended Rosen along with a list of other candidates.
Since then, news reports have documented Rosen’s lack of criminal prosecution experience and his recent move back to Minnesota. As a matter of fact, the White House described the nominee as “Daniel Rosen, of Florida,” in an announcement about his nomination.
While the office awaits a new full-time leader, Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson has used his time in office to aggressively prosecute fraud. In January, Thompson became the acting head of the office after then-U.S. Attorney Andy Luger resigned.
Prior to leading the office, Thompson was an assistant prosecutor who worked on the now-infamous $250 million Feeding Our Future case from the beginning. To date, Thompson has scored convictions against the ringleaders of the fraud scheme and increased the number of Feeding Our Future convictions to 50; over 70 people have been charged.
However, the Feeding Our Future case appears to be just the beginning. Thompson’s office recently unveiled a set of indictments against individuals who allegedly defrauded the now-shut down Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) program.
At a press conference discussing those indictments, Thompson said “the level of fraud in [Medicaid-funded state government] programs is staggering. Unfortunately, our system of trust but verify no longer works. These programs have been abused over and over to the point where the fraud has overtaken the legitimate services.”
Last week, Thompson announced the first indictment to come from the federal investigation into alleged fraud in a state autism program.
“From Feeding Our Future to Housing Stabilization Services and now Autism Services, these massive fraud schemes form a web that has stolen billions of dollars in taxpayer money,” said Thompson in a press release. “Each case we bring exposes another strand of this network. The challenge is immense, but our work continues.”
Addressing this challenge could soon be the responsibility of someone untested in prosecuting fraud.
A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Rosen is a Minnesota native. He has received the support of all four members of the state’s GOP congressional delegation and the support of Minnesota’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.
Throughout the years, Rosen has donated to many Republican candidates including Tom Emmer, Erik Paulsen, and Tim Pawlenty. However, Rosen gave $2,800 to Amy Klobuchar’s presidential campaign in 2019.
Neither the White House nor the Department of Justice answered questions for this story. For his part, Rosen told Alpha News he is confident he can aggressively prosecute fraud in Minnesota. He did not discuss his political donations on the record.
“I look forward, upon confirmation, to aggressively pursuing, without apology, President Trump’s agenda for US Attorneys,” Rosen said. “That includes moving full steam ahead with the prosecutions and investigations of breathtaking corruption in our state government that Joe Thompson and his team are so effectively leading. Minnesotans are fortunate to have a tremendously talented and dedicated group of prosecutors in the US Attorney’s office.”
“I am eager to have the privilege of leading that team and executing for the president and the people of Minnesota,” added Rosen.
The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on Rosen’s nomination in the next few weeks.
Luke Sprinkel
Luke Sprinkel previously worked as a Legislative Assistant at the Minnesota House of Representatives. He grew up as a Missionary Kid (MK) living in England, Thailand, Tanzania, and the Middle East. Luke graduated from Regent University in 2018.
