The Briefing Room
State Chapters => State Politics/Government => Topic started by: corbe on July 29, 2020, 03:21:06 pm
-
Former Official Accuses Steve Bullock of Fraud, Intimidation
Whistleblower now challenging Dem's Senate run
Collin Anderson - JULY 29, 2020 5:00 AM
A former Montana health official said Democratic governor Steve Bullock threatened her and other state employees who tried to blow the whistle on welfare fraud.
Wendie Fredrickson, who served as a Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services audit reviewer for more than 20 years, said Bullock "intimidated [state regulators] into ignoring fraud" when they discovered that "roughly about half of the payments were fraudulent" at the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. After questioning the payments made to undocumented recipients, Fredrickson was stripped of her responsibilities and forced to retire in 2014. In an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, Fredrickson said she uncovered the allegedly fraudulent payments after performing a "routine review," but administration officials suppressed her attempt to report the payments to the state's Legislative Audit Division.
"When I went to write the report, they put me in a room with no phone, no internet. They did that with quite a few auditors, anyone they weren't happy with," Fredrickson said. "I went back to my desk and I had a note saying, ‘You're not allowed to talk to legislative audit, you're not allowed to talk to anyone.' And if I did talk to anyone, they threatened to sue, so I was scared to death to bring things forward."
<..snip..>
https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/former-official-accuses-steve-bullock-of-fraud-intimidation/ (https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/former-official-accuses-steve-bullock-of-fraud-intimidation/)