Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday answered questions from reporters for the first time since announcing the suspension of his reelection campaign earlier this week, offering a look into what he called his “personal” decision to drop out of the race.

Asked if he had made his decision not to seek a third term because of pressure from fellow Democrats, Walz said it was a choice “made with my family,” and took aim at the administration of President Donald Trump, calling recent immigration enforcement actions and suspension of federal aid due to suspected welfare fraud a “war that’s being waged against Minnesota.”

“I think it’s a personal decision,” Walz said during a news conference on paid family and medical leave in Minneapolis. “It’s effectiveness. I never took this job to be governor. I took the job to pass things like paid family medical leave. I took this job to get our children food. I took this job, and what I will continue to do for a year … (to) protect every single person in this state.”

Minnesota has attracted significant attention from the Trump administration in recent months after long-standing issues with government fraud gained national media attention. Federal officials have cut off day care funding to Minnesota and threatened to pause Medicaid funding unless the state demonstrates further actions to boost the integrity of its federally funded programs.

Walz: ‘It’s the best decision for Minnesota’

Federal prosecutors estimate the state lost billions of federal dollars in recent years to Medicaid theft schemes, though Walz officials have disputed that figure and have painted recent actions by Trump officials as a weaponization of the federal government.

“This is a concerted effort to try and destroy the president’s opponents, to destroy the rule of law,” Walz said. “And it became apparent to me that he was going to do that with me being there. I just feel, along with my family, that it’s the best decision for Minnesota. I feel very confident in that.”

Walz announced he wouldn’t seek another term on Monday amid mounting scrutiny on his handling of large-scale fraud in state welfare programs in recent years. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor governor’s final decision on a third term reportedly came after a weekend meeting with U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is now considering running for governor in 2026.

Asked if he recommended Klobuchar run, Walz said he spoke with “all” of the Democratic Congressional delegation and “let them know” of his plans.

“I spoke with a lot of key allies. I spoke with my family. And just let them know that this is what we were going to do,” he said. “Sen. Klobuchar was one of those conversations.”

A central issue in state politics

While the governor described his decision as personal, it comes as fraud has become an unavoidable, central issue in state politics.

Walz had initially pushed against criticisms that his administration had not been proactive enough in stopping fraud. But in recent months, he directed his administration to take greater action amid a wave of new federal prosecutions and pressure from Republican opponents.

Federal fraud indictments continue to emerge in housing and autism programs after a federal investigation first became public in the summer of 2025. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson recently described Minnesota as having an “industrial-scale” fraud problem.

In December, Thompson announced new fraud charges in two Medicaid-funded programs and told reporters that the state could have lost $9 billion or more to fraud in 14 “high-risk” Medicaid-funded programs since 2018. Walz and other state officials have disputed that estimate.

Walz said Thompson “would have been let go by any other administration” for “speculating about things with no factual information.”

“That’s defamation,” Walz said. “And that’s coming from the U.S. attorney. We are under assault like no other time in our state’s history because of a petty, vile administration that doesn’t care about the well-being of Minnesotans.”

Not resigning

Walz was first elected in 2018 and won a second term in 2022. No governor has served three consecutive terms in Minnesota history.

Asked about Republican calls for his resignation, Walz told reporters: “You can make all your requests for me to resign over my dead body.”

The governor said dropping out of the race would allow him to focus on addressing fraud in state programs during his final year in office.

“I’m accountable for this, and because of that accountability, I’m not running for office again,” he said Tuesday. “But I have a year to continue to improve on a record that I think will stand up against anybody’s.”

A Forest Lake man who authorities say posed as a teenager and cyberstalked North Branch High School students has been indicted for production of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Damien William Quinn, also known as Ryan William Shattuck, 34, of Forest Lake, was arraigned Tuesday on an indictment charging him with four counts of production of child pornography, two counts of attempted production of child pornography, one count of receipt of child pornography and five counts of cyberstalking, U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen’s office said in a press release.

He was ordered into custody until his trial.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office gave the following details about the indictment:

Quinn, who had multiple fake Snapchat and Instagram accounts, pretended to be a teenager to his minor victims and asked for sexually explicit photos and videos. He used those accounts to cyberstalk victims at North Branch High School, saying he had nude photos of them. He also shared nude photos of one victim, authorities allege.

The indictment alleges that he modified at least one photo to make the girl seem nude.

Authorities say they have identified 11 victims — six minors and five adults — but that there may be more. They ask anyone who attended the high school and had any suspicious online interactions with someone to call the FBI Tip Line at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324).

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The Washington County Board on Tuesday voted to have staff draft a letter to federal officials regarding rumors that the city of Woodbury is being considered for one of 23 Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers across the country.

The agency reportedly is planning to develop detention centers to house more than 80,000 immigrants and county officials want to get their opposition to a Woodbury center on the record.

“Let’s be clear that we’re opposing it,” said Vice Chair Bethany Cox. “Let’s be clear that we want open and honest communication just to give us an answer: ‘How do we respond to constituents? What’s the story there?’ And then, yes, if this is moving forward, there’s a public process that the city and the county have, and we expect transparency for people to follow through with it.”

Dozens of constituents have contacted county board members to express their concerns about a possible ICE detention center in the county, officials said. Two residents spoke about the issue during public comments at the board meeting on Tuesday.

One of them, Woodbury resident Paul Toveson, said the suburb is known “to be a city for families and made of all cultures.”

“Woodbury welcomes everyone,” Toveson said. “What would happen if a prison — a detention center or some other term to lock people up — came to Woodbury? Would we be known as a welcoming city for families to enjoy shopping here, enjoy the parks and relax in their home without fear? Or would we be known as a city who built a facility near two schools, a large church and several facilities for families?

“Would people want to live in Woodbury where perhaps a large fence is put up, protests are heard and making the Minneapolis and St. Paul papers for all the wrong reasons?”

Warehouses to detention centers?

The Washington Post reported last month that the Trump administration is developing a plan to “overhaul the United States’ immigrant detention system.” The plan would involve renovating industrial warehouses dotted around the country to serve as ICE detention centers, the Post reported, citing a draft solicitation for contractors that it reviewed.

The Post said the system would be made up of seven 5,000- to 10,000-bed warehouses and 16 smaller facilities. Two of the larger warehouses would be in Texas and five more in Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri and Virginia.

Woodbury was listed as a location of one of the 16 smaller warehouses, with 500-1,500 beds, in a graphic that accompanied the article.

City officials in Woodbury have not been notified of any plans for an ICE detention center, said Commissioner Fran Miron. He said city officials contacted the owner of a property on Hudson Road mentioned as a possible location, and the property owners said they had not been contacted either.

“I think that’s a good sign from our perspective,” he said. “Typically we wouldn’t respond to these types of things, but they’ve gained some prominence because the media at high levels are reporting on these issues, but we’ve not received anything from the federal government or from ICE indicating that they have a desire to use a facility here in Washington County.”

Miron said one big question is whether the federal government can circumvent the authority of the county or the city.

“We don’t know any of those answers, and we’re just speculating at this point in time, so I believe the letter will be a good response,” Miron said. “If there is a request, we’re going to be open about it. We’re going to try to encourage a public process. We’re going to work collaboratively with any community that might be identified for a location like that and, and try to identify the issues that might be of concern.”

Public health and safety concerns

Board Chair Karla Bigham said she has concerns about the public-health impacts of any possible ICE detention center, particularly when “we’re in the middle of an influenza outbreak.”

Bigham also raised concerns about the “added pressure and burden” a detention center would have on local law enforcement. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the Woodbury Police Department would have to provide security for traffic control and “just keeping the community safe,” she said. “Staff is already stretched thin, and so is law enforcement in both of those departments. I just have great concern when it comes to that area, too.”

Commissioner Michelle Clasen, who represents Woodbury, said she wanted her constituents to know that they have been heard and that “there are conversations happening toward action at this time.”

“I want to be very clear, though, that the county doesn’t have a decision-making role in this space,” she said.

An ICE detention center on Hudson Road in Woodbury could be “a public-health nightmare,” said Clasen.

“It doesn’t have the sanitation,” she said. “It doesn’t have the water, not to mention the lawsuits regarding water usage, if that even applies in that building. There’s still a multitude of questions. There’s a public process that has to happen.”

Clasen supported putting together an advocacy letter to federal delegates, “because they’re really the ones who would be able to get the information that we’re looking for or we would hope they can get more information … and ask that they really look into this for us.”

Unwanted federal attention?

Cox said she was torn because a letter about a possible detention center might draw unwanted attention from federal officials.

“I feel like the state of Minnesota already has a lot of attention from our federal government on us, and I don’t want to say that if we ignore it, it will go away, but that seems to be some of what we’re seeing with our federal government,” Cox said. “I’m reading the emails, I see what’s there, and I hear the concerns. Believe me, I hear them. I am not trying to just put my head in the sand and make this, you know, bury it, but I’m torn. Let’s start drafting it, but let’s wait to send it until maybe we have more information later.”

Oakdale resident Laura Kittel, who also spoke at the board meeting, said she hopes county officials will send a letter to make a humanitarian statement.

“A warehouse is not a suitable home for human beings,” she said. “ICE is pretty much targeting brown people indiscriminately. A lot of the people here are here legally and they haven’t committed crimes. Even if they’ve overstayed a visa, that’s a civil offense and not a criminal one, and yet they’re being treated like criminals. I think that this should be concerning to everybody in our community. I do not find it acceptable to have ICE show up in our neighborhood. … Immigrants have a right to be here. They’re human beings as well. If they followed the law, and even if they haven’t, they don’t deserve to be treated like animals.”

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has filed a lawsuit against a St. Paul nonprofit that purported to help people with job, housing and other community support claiming that instead, the president of the company used the money for personal expenses.

The lawsuit against Act for Cause and its president, Rajesh Mehta, claims that he used the money from the nonprofit like his own personal bank account spending money on his son’s college tuition, piano lessons, gym memberships, car payments, property taxes and other personal expenses, said a press release from Ellison’s office.

Mehta bought a building at 220 Robert Street South in St. Paul and then used it as the registered office of Act For Cause. He later transferred ownership of the building from the nonprofit to another company he owned and charged tenants rent.

“It is appalling that the defendant founded and used a nonprofit to serve his own personal interests, rather than help the people of Minnesota,” Ellison said. “My office launched this investigation and filed this lawsuit because I will not allow nonprofits to serve as a guise for nonprofit leaders to enrich themselves.”

Ellison claims that when Mehta closed the nonprofit, he transferred ownership of its $1 million building to one of his for-profit companies for free. He then allegedly rented the building to 10 to 15 businesses, and kept the rent money. In addition, the lawsuit claims that Mehta made large cash withdrawals from the nonprofit that were not accounted for.

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The lawsuit, filed in Ramsey County, also claims that because the nonprofit didn’t have a board of directors, as is required by law, there was no oversight into Mehta’s actions.

A call seeking comment to the Act for Cause office was unsuccessful as the phones were disconnected.