Newly recovered audio from 2018 shows that then-state Rep. Peggy Flanagan missed a hearing in which whistleblower Scott Stillman warned that the state's Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) was on track to become "Minnesota's Watergate." Stillman worked for the Minnesota Department of Human Services as a digital forensics supervisor/manager at the state's digital forensics lab until about 2018. During his work, he investigated fraud in CCAP and in 2017 emails to DHS supervisors, described "organized crime" cases involving the theft of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, expressing concerns the money was being sent overseas.
Flanagan served on that committee, but wasn't at this hearing. Less than a decade later we learned that Minnesota's welfare programs, including CCAP, were defrauded to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars.
"This has the potential to be Minnesota's Watergate," Stillman said in the audio. "And I would ask, I'm not a state employee anymore, I'm a taxpayer. These people stood up for something that was right, to defend our country, to defend our state, to do their job, the job that they were tasked with. And I appeal to you, is there some way you can protect them?"
"Is there anything you can do? I know we have a new administration coming in," he continued, "I'd like to ask the new administration: are you going to protect these people?"
"Can you promise the taxpayers that there's going to be transparency?" Stillman asked. "We've had data and emails...
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