CRABBY: State Employee Says Fraud Continues at DHS and They Are Withholding Public Information

Summary

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Garage Logic: CRABBY – State Employee Says Fraud Continues at DHS and They Are Withholding Public Information

Date: March 11, 2026
Host: Garage Logic (The Mayor, Joe Soucheray) via Gamut Podcast Network
Guests: Faye Bernstein (MN Dept. of Human Services employee/whistleblower), Jay Coles, Kenny

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Episode Overview

This episode of Garage Logic delves deep into ongoing allegations of fraud, retaliation against whistleblowers, and a lack of oversight at Minnesota’s Department of Human Services (DHS). The primary guest, Faye Bernstein—a long-time DHS employee—offers a candid, firsthand account of internal dysfunction, the consequences of speaking out, and the persistent withholding of public data. Co-hosts Jay Coles and Kenny guide the conversation, probing for details about the culture within DHS and the broader implications for taxpayers and public accountability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Faye Bernstein’s Background and Whistleblowing Experience

• Faye is a 20-year DHS veteran, one of very few current employees willing to speak publicly about internal issues ([03:23]).
• Her journey as a whistleblower began “accidentally” in 2019 when she raised concerns about contracts and compliance. She expected gratitude but encountered “annoyance” that quickly turned to open hostility ([05:49], [07:02]).
• After sending a division-wide email expressing concerns, she was swiftly escorted out—a “perp walk”—marking her transition from internal to public whistleblower ([10:30]).

“I really thought, wow, you know, I'm going to get some thank yous for this. And I just kept getting anywhere from the reactions would be just sort of annoyance… then it just got much more aggressive…”
— Faye Bernstein ([05:49])

“I was out the door, driving home in my car before I knew what had just happened.”
— Faye Bernstein ([10:07])

2. Culture of Retaliation and “Reward” for Suppressing Reports

• Compliance and investigating fraud are supposed to be core duties, but superiors actively discouraged it—even tallying the word “compliance” in her job description to argue she was “focusing too much” on it ([12:11]).
• Whistleblowers are systematically shut down, with retaliation often rewarded by promotions or bonuses instead of being penalized ([13:51]).

“Not only was their retaliation not viewed as a bad thing, it was viewed as a good thing.”
— Faye Bernstein ([14:06])

• Direct violations of the law (outing whistleblowers) were both common and went unpunished—sometimes even rewarded ([14:12]).

3. Lack of Meaningful Oversight and Reforms

• Even after high-profile fraud revelations and public outcry, Faye reports “nothing significant” has changed inside DHS. Bold steps (like an independent Inspector General with subpoena power) have not materialized ([33:46]).
• Leadership is described as largely political appointees, often unqualified and primarily motivated to protect the institution (and their jobs) rather than the public ([34:23], [39:04]).

“We’re just shuffling things around… It’s no secret I speak to law enforcement, I speak to CMS, Dr. Oz’s crew and all those guys. And you know what we need to do? We need to fire some people.”
— Faye Bernstein ([33:49])

4. Withholding Public Information & Over-Redaction

• Faye is currently relegated—despite multiple degrees and legal qualifications—to the job of redacting documents for media requests ([20:53]).
• She expresses serious discomfort about excessive redaction, particularly regarding complaints about fraudulent providers. While names are appropriately withheld, the substance of complaints is being withheld in ways she believes are antithetical to public data laws ([41:20]).
• The legal counsel at DHS is described as serving the commissioner, not the public, further impeding transparency ([47:04]).

“They believe they are commissioner servants, that that is their job.”
— Faye Bernstein ([47:04])

5. Systemic Issues: Leadership, Accountability, and Incentives

• A groupthink mentality prevails among highly paid upper management. Job protection, rather than public service, dominates their actions ([52:43]).
• The bulk of fraud has not resulted in terminations; rather, those who retaliate often rise, while problems persist and whistleblowers are isolated ([22:53], [44:23]).
• Publicly touted reforms (including from the governor) are viewed as ineffective, performative, or slow—simply rearranging bureaucracy rather than enacting true change ([26:53]).

“To me, that's as effective as what Governor Walz announced yesterday would be. Let’s say we just switch all the employees from the fourth floor and we put them on the third floor...”
— Faye Bernstein ([26:53])

• Former Commissioner Harpstead is noted for her philosophy of “give each other grace and assume the best,” which Faye says essentially directed staff to “look the other way” ([51:17]).
• Faye does not believe in extensive kickbacks or illegal personal profit at the top, but does see ethical lines crossed and benefits provided to friends through jobs and promotions ([40:00]).

6. Broader Implications: Media, Public Accountability, and Futility

• Media requests for information are routinely delayed by at least a year, making transparency difficult and news “stale” by the time it’s released ([46:41]).
• Faye and the hosts express grave doubt that internal reform is possible; federal intervention or a new administration may be the only hope ([64:17]).
• Despite the heavy content, there are moments of camaraderie and humor (e.g., “That’s like saying my stalker is my friend” re: DHS calling the FBI a “partner” ([45:45]), and the hosts’ expressions of worry for Faye’s job and safety).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you stifled me… you would get a reward. And he stifled. He made good attempts. I’m here today, so I guess he didn’t do a very good job. But he got a reward.”
  — Faye Bernstein ([16:52])

• “I've thrown a lot of data requests. I could see who got promotions and who got bonuses that year. All those people did.”
  — Faye Bernstein ([13:51])

• “It could start as compassion, but then it just goes into lawlessness, you know?”
  — Faye Bernstein ([23:33])

• “My current job is putting the black marks over documents that we are redacting for media requests. Nine years of college, that's what I do.”
  — Faye Bernstein ([21:08])

• “Accountability. People need to be fired. We’re not going to get out of this by just keeping all the same staff.”
  — Faye Bernstein ([33:49])

• “I’ve reported a couple of things in the last two months that have not at all been looked at… So there, this is not the worst. It’s still going on.”
  — Faye Bernstein ([58:42], [59:01])

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Timeline of Important Segments

• [03:18–04:35] – Faye Bernstein’s committee testimony excerpt
• [05:49–10:30] – Whistleblowing origins, retaliation, and accidental “going public”
• [12:11–16:52] – Compliance duties, retaliation, and internal reward structure
• [19:00–20:53] – Commissioner oversight and Faye’s sidelined duties
• [26:53–29:40] – Reactions to Governor Walz’s proposals and “big fraud reports”
• [33:08–35:57] – Independent inspector general, leadership failure, and need for firings
• [41:20–47:39] – State’s over-redacting public information and legal obstructions
• [51:17–52:58] – “Assume the best” mentality and its consequences for oversight
• [56:41–59:01] – Ongoing investigations, expectation of federal involvement, evidence withheld
• [59:12–65:18] – Hosts’ reflection on the broader issue, impact on reporting, and expected future (calls for federal intervention)

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Takeaways & Context

• Systemic Issues: Problems at DHS are deeply entrenched, linked to political appointees and a hostile culture toward accountability.
• Retaliation Over Correction: Whistleblowers are punished or silenced, while those who suppress problems are promoted or rewarded.
• Withholding of Public Data: DHS over-redacts and delays fulfillment of legitimate information requests, undermining transparency and accountability.
• Lack of Real Reform: Despite public statements and some high-level resignations, meaningful change or consequences for wrongdoing are still lacking.
• Personal Cost: Faye Bernstein’s career trajectory and the treatment she describes exemplify the heavy personal toll on those who speak up.

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Final Reflections

This episode offers a rare, unvarnished look into the internal barriers facing would-be reformers within government agencies. Faye Bernstein’s testimony paints a picture of a bureaucracy more interested in insulating itself than truly serving the public interest. Her story, and those like hers, challenge official narratives and expose the ongoing struggle for transparency and accountability in Minnesota state government.

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For listeners:
If you care about government accountability and public stewardship of taxpayer funds, this is a must-listen episode that underscores the importance of both courageous insiders and independent, persistent journalism.

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For more content from Garage Logic, visit garagelogic.com.

Transcript

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[Kenny]

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[Jay Coles]

What's that?

[Kenny]

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[Jay Coles]

I'm hair challenged. Yeah. J. Cole. So you got more hair in your face than I do in my whole head.

[Kenny]

How you doing, brother?

[Jay Coles]

I'm doing well. How you?

[Kenny]

We found a great guest for today.

[Jay Coles]

We did.

[Kenny]

Just sitting here, minding my own business on Garage Logic on Monday. And during. I don't know if it was during the news or beforehand, we played a little bit of audio from Fay Bernstein who was testifying before the committee. Was it this month or last month?

[Jay Coles]

It was Monday. Yeah, it was fraud committee on Monday.

[Kenny]

So Busy week. And as soon as I saw her, I called you and you got on it right away.

[Jay Coles]

I did. Because I'd seen her testify before and I thought, you know, you're right, she's great. And I had originally thought whenever I first saw her testify, man, I gotta get her. We should get her right in the newsroom. Still.

[Kenny]

Yeah. Still employed by dhs. And I wanna play a little bit of that audio about a minute or so of the audio of the beginning of her testimony before we say hi to Faye. Go ahead, gabe.

[Faye Bernstein]

Good morning, Ms. Bernstein.

[Committee Chair / Official]

Welcome to the committee.

[Faye Bernstein]

Please state your name for the record

[Committee Chair / Official]

to begin your testimony.

[Faye Bernstein]

Thank you, Chair Robbins and members. My name is Faye Bernstein. B E R N S T E I N I first want to just make a comment on the report and say the word that I think no one from DHS wants to hear again. But that's retaliation, the R word. I am a 20 year employee, I'm a current employee of DHS and I am one of the very, very few DHS employees who can publicly speak about what the environment is there. We have a very large group. You probably have heard about the large group of employees who anonymously tweet and anonymously work with law enforcement and the ola, et cetera. I have chosen to be public. I think it has certainly harmed me professionally, personally. It has harmed me in many ways to be public. But I feel like we have to just openly speak about the conditions at the Department of Human Services and Welcome.

[Kenny]

Faye. Hi, Faye.

[Jay Coles]

Hi. Thanks for joining us.

[Faye Bernstein]

Thank you for having me.

[Kenny]

That took a lot of courage, my lady. Wow. We've been waiting for you basically to come come forward and talk to all of us about this. So it's pretty cool that you've done that.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah. And as a guy who's covered it, I told you this going back to 2010, 2011, fraud, specifically connected to DHS. I was shocked. You still had your job.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, that's a mystery. I will say that normally what DHS does, instead of a straight out fire, they kind of harass you into quitting. And I just have more stamina than most. That's the thing, I guess I grew up on a farm in North Dakota and I'll just keep plugging along.

[Jay Coles]

I mean, you did tell me you faced some, as you testified to the retaliation. When did you start to go public? And then when did the retaliation start? And what type of retaliation? For those who haven't heard yet and

[Kenny]

just if I may, what led you to going public?

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, why that decision Well, I tell

[Faye Bernstein]

you, going public was really kind of accidental. What had happened is In January of 2019, I started to notice some things and then I just started sort of going up the chain of command, talking about what I was seeing. And really naive at this point. I thought I was doing a great job. I really thought, wow, you know, I'm going to get some thank yous for this. And I just kept getting anywhere from the reactions would be just sort of annoyance, which you know, that I could handle. But then it just got much more aggressive, I would say. And finally in. And when I say that, I just mean like I was not invited to any meetings that I previously was. Was actually facilitating. All of a sudden I had almost nothing to do really. And what I did get assigned was just super unimportant things. It was really.

[Jay Coles]

Because at the time. Sorry to interrupt you, but at the time you were working in an area where you could see problems with contracts, correct?

[Faye Bernstein]

Right. What had happened is I've done contracts for maybe 10, 15 years at DHS and. But then all of a sudden I got a promotion to a lead. And as a lead, then I saw more than just mine. I saw everybody's from this area. It was the Behavioral Health Division. And the Behavioral Health Division has now and always has had a lot of contracts. There's a lot of grant money that runs through there.

[Jay Coles]

Is it grant money plus Medicaid money? A combo of the two. How does that work?

[Faye Bernstein]

A little bit of Medicaid money, but a lot of what runs through the Behavioral Health Division is federal grants or state grants, State appropriations.

[Jay Coles]

All taxpayer dollars?

[Faye Bernstein]

Yes, 100% taxpayer dollars.

[Jay Coles]

And you see problems in the guardrails because there are none in some of these contracts, Correct?

[Faye Bernstein]

Right. And then I would just speak about it. And I remember one incident where there was a contract being given to a former employee. And when I just wanted to check into that and make sure that that was not something that was done as sort of a favor, that it was a legitimate reason we were giving her a contract. And there was such a ruckus about that. And basically I was told by our director that I had just really upset people and I had made a lot of enemies by doing that, that I had really upset people by asking. I mean, I intended to dedicate about five minutes of my day to just asking, okay, was this an rfp? Just your basic questions. And there was such a ruckus about that that I was asking what was considered personal questions.

[Jay Coles]

But she was a former DHS employee now getting a grant yeah. And so it would seem to me to be a very fair question and a smart question to say, can we even do this? Is there a conflict of interest? Did she get special treatment? Correct.

[Faye Bernstein]

Right. I mean, the first question I actually asked is, do we have a policy or anything that says we can't do this for, say, two years or something? I really didn't know. Turns out we don't. It's just a sort of a case by case basis, and that's fine. And I tell you, when I looked into it, when I ultimately got what I needed to know, it was nothing. It was fine. But I really wondered, like, why is that such a big deal? And then it just became more and more where I really had almost nothing to do. And then in July, it was July of 2019, I wrote an email to everyone in my area. So it was 100 and some people just saying, I have some concerns about our contracting. I have concerns about maybe what our leadership is asking us to do that maybe we shouldn't be doing. And I just think maybe we should all, you know, sort of get together and think about this and talk about this. And, you know, people make jokes about how slow the government is, but when they want to kick you out, they kick you out fast. I mean, I was out the door, driving home in my car before I knew what had just happened.

[Jay Coles]

Because you sent an email addressing problems that you thought were connected to contracts involving probably millions of taxpayer dollars.

[Faye Bernstein]

Oh, yes.

[Jay Coles]

So you're simply raising the questions. And that's when it started.

[Faye Bernstein]

That is when I accidentally became public, because what had happened is sent the email, get perp, walked out real fast, go home. And then I had known that the email would maybe cause enough controversy that it would get sent out of my division, Behavioral Health, and would end up with other people around the building. You know, I thought, a friend of a friend who works in another division is going to, you know, get this, and they're going to laugh. And I didn't think it was going to be a big deal. It didn't occur to me that it would get sent outside the building. I didn't think it would go to a reporter. So all of a sudden I get a call from a reporter, and that had just not entered my mind. So I thought, what the heck? And there I just thought, well, once I've been public, I might as well just keep going, and I might as well just keep talking. So I've just kept talking now for seven years. Six.

[Kenny]

Seven years that might have saved your job.

[Faye Bernstein]

I am now, looking back, I am glad that. That. That did happen. And I got some advice at the time not to. And I'm glad I didn't follow that advice. I'm glad I just kept going, because right now, if I was fired, it would be pretty obvious.

[Kenny]

Right, right. Just to be clear, the discovery of these. Admiral, what am I trying to say? These. This fraud. I wanted to say it without saying fraud, but the possibility of fraud, that falls under the purview of your job heading, right?

[Faye Bernstein]

Oh, it completely did at that time.

[Kenny]

That's why you're there, to find what you found, correct?

[Faye Bernstein]

Yes. And it was strange, the discouragement. I actually had a supervisor who said. Who went through my position description, my job description, counted how many times the word compliance was in my job description, and said, you are focusing too much on compliance because your job description only says it 12 times. Or I don't even remember the number.

[Kenny]

Wait, wait. What? 12 times, Kenny?

[Jay Coles]

12 times in one job description?

[Faye Bernstein]

I mean, it was a huge part of what I. Huge. Well, actually, it's a huge part of what everyone is supposed to be doing.

[Jay Coles]

Well, correct. But you were now higher up, almost like in a management position, if you will. Right.

[Faye Bernstein]

I was definitely supposed to be on the lookout for non compliance.

[Jay Coles]

So there you go, Kenny doing her job too well.

[Kenny]

So the middle managers that shut you down, do you think. Do you feel they did that on their own, or were they also receiving orders from above? How's the chain of command work there?

[Faye Bernstein]

That is something I have always wondered about, is how much independent activity there was versus how much was being directed in that way. I will say, it seems like a pretty. It seems like there's sort of an informal playbook out there, because one of the things I did after all this happened is I threw a lot of data requests. I could see who got promotions and who got bonuses that year.

[Kenny]

Oh, really?

[Faye Bernstein]

All those people did. So not only was their retaliation not viewed as a bad thing, it was viewed as a good thing.

[Kenny]

They were rewarded.

[Faye Bernstein]

They were rewarded.

[Jay Coles]

I was gonna say, so here's a little pay bump for making sure Faye's not a problem anymore.

[Faye Bernstein]

I mean, there was our director of internal audits. He outed me, actually. I made a report of fraud to him. He interpreted that to be, faye is a bad employee. And he immediately went to the person that I was reporting about and said, faye, Fay Bernstein just said this and this about you. He just completely outed me. Well.

[Jay Coles]

And then blew any chance at an investigation.

[Faye Bernstein]

Oh, yeah. And, boy, did that make my life miserable. For a while. You know, that's against the law. You can't reveal the name of a reporter. But sure enough, bonus that year. A month later. A month later, he got a bonus.

[Kenny]

The director. His title. The Director of Internal Audits.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, he outed me. And he's still there. And he's well liked. He's very well liked.

[Jay Coles]

Still there. He outs you, which is not legal. You're right. They're not supposed to do that. Number two, you're saying to him, hey, I think there's fraud here. And the lead internal auditor says, yeah, we're not gonna go down that path. I'll just notify the person you've just fingered.

[Faye Bernstein]

And it's on email. That's. I mean, it's very boldly done. This is not done subtly. This is very boldly done. He gets a bonus. And the person who would have given him that bonus is our current commissioner, Shereen Gandhi. Sure. She would have given him the bonus. She was his boss at the time.

[Jay Coles]

She was his boss at the time.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yep. And you can only get a bonus through your boss. So she gave him a bonus.

[Jay Coles]

How many other. Were there other instances where you or some of these other whistleblowers that are so far remaining anonymous where you came to him and said, we think there's fraud here and something similar to what happened to you happened to them? Has this been a repeated thing? Faye, have you seen this? Over and over.

[Faye Bernstein]

You know, I've seen in the press since this about people just prior to me. Is his name Scott Stillman?

[Jay Coles]

Scott Stillman. And then there's a Scott Dexter.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yes. And I saw you had him on.

[Jay Coles]

Yes. And then we have another guy that Ken and I had to protect called Agent X. He was hired by Ramsey county as a forensic auditor to work with the BCA and DHS on fraud. So we've had others. Even though he wasn't a DHS employee, he was still hired to find fraud. He was a forensic fraud investigator. So there have been others. Is it fair to say you believe from what you've seen, that it's the culture at DHS to ignore the. The fraud?

[Faye Bernstein]

It is. It really is not something to talk about if you do talk about it. I had a supervisor once tell me that he was told if he stifled me and he used the word stifle, and after seven years, I still remember that word. If he stifled me, he would get a reward. And he stifled. He made good attempts. I'm here today, so I guess he didn't do a very good job. But he got a reward. I mean, he's been promoted many times. So. Yeah. It is not what it would be referred to as a compliance atmosphere. That's not the atmosphere. I went to this conference once about three, four years ago on compliance, and I finally quit participating because the other people that were there, and this was people from all over the U.S. some government, some large corporations, some small nonprofits, you know, real mix. I had to quit participating in the little breakout sessions because I was bringing things that other people couldn't comprehend. I was talking about retaliation and how do you get people to actually make reports? And everybody was staring at me like they could not in any way relate to what I was bringing as a concern about the Department of Human Services. That was. We were so far removed from what is considered a compliance atmosphere. We just. We don't have that.

[Jay Coles]

And then if you speak out, you get retaliated against. And then those who do the retaliation get bonuses or promotions.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, you know, the.

[Jay Coles]

And now one of them is the head of dhs.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, she also. I have her signature on a discipline letter to me as well. So, I mean, I know her well because she was my North Korean minder for about two years. She was sent to clearly just keep track of what I was doing and sort of limit my access. I've never been to North Korea. I imagine that that's what it looks like.

[Jay Coles]

This is astounding to me. I didn't know any of this until now. Even though we talked on the phone at length. The head of dhs, the current commissioner, Shereen Gandhi, at one point was sort of hovering over you and watching you and trying to keep you in line. Gave a promotion in terms of a salary bump to somebody who had retaliated against you. She disciplined you. She was clearly aware of this culture. She was part of it. And now she runs dhs.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah. So it's. I'm in a weird spot where how

[Jay Coles]

can anybody be confident that she's taking this seriously, to stop the fraud as best she can?

[Faye Bernstein]

I will know it's being taken seriously when somebody actually asks me to help with the solution. And nobody that's. That has never happened. If it did happen, I would feel differently. I would feel differently because then I would. I don't need anybody to make an admission. I don't need anybody to say, we really did you bad, Faye. I know that I don't need anybody to say it to me, but I do need people to acknowledge that I have information that can really help. I can help you.

[Jay Coles]

And nobody's done that.

[Faye Bernstein]

Oh, gosh, no, no. My current job, I get shuffled from one job to another. I just get a call and say, okay, you're done doing that, and now you do this other thing. So my current job, I have nine years of college. I have an undergraduate and a graduate degree in psychology, and I have a law degree. And my current job is putting the black marks over documents that we are redacting for media requests.

[Jay Coles]

And I can tell you, as a reporter, I'm very familiar.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yes, I do your black marks.

[Jay Coles]

You're the one. Yes, I get these. We do these data requests, Kenny.

[Kenny]

Yeah. And I'm very familiar.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah. You see? You see the black? Yeah.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

That's what you do.

[Faye Bernstein]

That's what I do now. Nine years of college, that's what I do.

[Kenny]

You might not be able to answer this question, and you might want to think about it, but what do you suppose the motivation is for those superiors to stifle you? Why would they do that?

[Faye Bernstein]

I have been just flummoxed by that. This Tim o' Malley report.

[Kenny]

The big, beautiful fraud report.

[Faye Bernstein]

The big, beautiful fraud report, yes. That got me thinking a little bit. I'm gonna meet with him, actually, tomorrow because I want to just give him some examples of where. I've seen where this. It could start as compassion, but then it just goes into lawlessness, you know? So how do we explain that? I take issue a little bit with use of the word compassion, because when we allow millions or billions of dollars to be stolen from people with disabilities and other vulnerabilities, if we allow that, that seems cruel, not compassionate. That seems cruel. So it's. And even so, even if we would say that Commissioner Gandhi is compassionate, and that's why maybe some decisions have been made that have not been really compliance focused. Even if I was to go with that, they still don't get a pass, and I think they still need to be fired. So much harm has been done. Our previous commissioner, Commissioner Harbstad, it would be hard for me to say a lot of positive things about her, but the one positive thing I could say about her is that a year ago, when she's having a conversation with Governor Wells, and Governor Wells says we really need to be an agency that is focused on compliance. Commissioner Harpstead said that I'm out because that's not my deal. There's some integrity in saying that's not my forte. And I'm gonna leave, and you can find somebody who is who that is if people don't get fired right now at dhs I wish they would at least have the integrity to resign and just say I've screwed it up so bad.

[Jay Coles]

It's interesting we had Kenny and I had Ryan Raish on. He's in our investigative unit downstairs in the TV newsroom. I've known Ryan for quite a while now. He did an interesting story so we had him on. But he also, it was on another subject. But in the meantime he had also requested from DHS after a Governor Walz press conference where Governor Walz said hey, we're putting people in jail and we're firing people. So he asked who got fired at dhs. This is almost two months ago now. He still, when I asked him last week on the show, he still hasn't received a response from dhs, the governor's office or anybody as to how many people were fired. He doesn't have a number at all. So I can't sit here and say, and Ryan couldn't certainly say no one has been fired. But when we've asked about these so called firings, they haven't provided any of it. And once you're fired and go through the process as you know of appeals and if it's upheld that becomes public information.

[Faye Bernstein]

So yeah, I can.

[Jay Coles]

Do you know of anybody getting fired?

[Faye Bernstein]

Well, one, one person, Eric, sort of just disappeared one day.

[Jay Coles]

So you know of one firing?

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, yeah, one. And you know the OLA report from a month or two ago that came out and talked about the backdating, the falsifying of records within the Behavioral Health Division that was, you know, really shocking to the ola. There's rumors about who is behind that and those rumors make sense to me. I think this person would be a person who would give that directive and I can guarantee you that person is not going to get fired because they're a well liked staff. They don't rock the boat. They're a well like staff.

[Jay Coles]

But if you falsify records like that, backdate records, isn't that against the law if not criminally, administratively? Are you allowed legally to do that? I don't think you are. So what kind of a message is that? You can break an administrative law backdating information and still keep your job. And after what you've told us, I wouldn't be surprised if they get a bonus.

[Faye Bernstein]

They may very well actually. Yeah, it probably will be a bonus.

[Jay Coles]

Do you find this astounding? How do you describe it?

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, I am just shocked. It really struck me that conference I spoke about a few minutes ago that really struck me like oh my gosh, We. We are just so far off. We are so far off. And so when I hear like the press conference yesterday, and I don't know if that's an executive order, I don't know what that's going to look like. But to me, that's as effective as what Governor Walz announced yesterday would be. Let's say we just switch all the employees from the fourth floor and we put them on the third floor and then we move the fifth floor people to the second floor people. That shuffle is going to be about as effective as what he's announcing. I didn't. I mean, let's just shuffle around some more.

[Jay Coles]

And I couldn't figure out what. Why, if I understood it correctly, he wants till 2032 to have it fully implemented. This plan, I think it was six years or something like that. I could be a long stretch. Yeah, it's like. I think you're right, if I remember right. And I'm thinking, why would that take six years to restructure dhs? I don't. What six years?

[Kenny]

We're working on it, Jay. We're working on it. Get back to us next year.

[Jay Coles]

I couldn't figure out. I mean, don't we. Maybe you can help me understand this. Don't we have something called pmap? Prepaid medical assistance. What's it? Pmap, Right.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yep.

[Jay Coles]

So that's essentially buying insurance. Right. With the HMOs or the MCOs. So if we lose this $250 billion from the feds, don't we have insurance in place? Am I understanding that correctly? So they wouldn't lose anything.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, I don't understand this whole loss. Yeah, I don't understand that either.

[Jay Coles]

So I'm interpreting that correctly. We have PMAP. It's prepaid medical assistance insurance with the HMOs, with the. Now they're called MCOs. So that it's all insured. So that if something like this were to happen, everybody's gonna get their services. I didn't quite understand Governor Walz's stuff yesterday. And eliminating the MCOs. I don't.

[Faye Bernstein]

Do we have a problem with the MCOs?

[Jay Coles]

I don't get that. I don't get it. That's my whole thing. Were the MCOs causing this problem or were stated state employees who were not doing their jobs the problem? So why are we eliminating the MCOs? I don't have any of these answers, but I thought maybe you'd have an insight into that.

[Faye Bernstein]

No. Same as pulling some duties, a lot of duties out of the county and Giving them to us.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, right.

[Faye Bernstein]

We don't have any problems with the counties.

[Jay Coles]

Correct. Counties haven't been. The problems have been from testimony like you've given that there have been no guardrails. Nobody was taking it seriously, Nobody was investigating. And if you wanted to, you got retaliated against. So the solution is, well, let's kick out the mcos. Let's take out the middleman when the middleman's not the problem. Shift from the counties. Well, the counties weren't the problem. And what takes six years to do all this? I don't know. And maybe you don't have the answers either. But I was kind of underwhelmed by what was presented. It didn't seem that bold to me. And even as Kenny loves to call it, I just love it. The big beautiful fraud report from Judge o'. Malley. And again, correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't he stating a lot of the obvious?

[Faye Bernstein]

Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, well, in all of these, I believe part of the Walz plan that he talked about yesterday, or maybe Commissioner Gandhi brought this up about a review of the culture at DHS or something like that. You know, in the last 10 years, I have sat through so many and I've done so many surveys on this whole culture thing. I am not kidding when I say I bet I've participated in about a million dollars worth of where we hire in an outside contractor to come and they produce a report and then. And a, it's super obvious. Everybody knows it. I mean, you could just tape record conversations in the break room and you could do the same thing. You could write this report and then it does. Nothing happens anyway. And then I hear Commissioner Gandhi actually bragging and saying that 75% of DHS employees know how to report fraud and feel comfortable doing it. My gosh, 75% is not good at all.

[Jay Coles]

That means one fourth of your staff

[Faye Bernstein]

doesn't know how to do it, is just running around. Gosh, that's.

[Jay Coles]

See, I'm telling you. Faye, I'm so glad you're joining us because when you're giving the testimony, it's great. But I love to be able to do these follow up questions and Kenny and I have so many that I don't even, I still don't. After the o' Malley report, the big beautiful fraud report and Governor Walz's big rollout yesterday, I still don't see anything bold or new. In fact, eliminating MCOs goes back to the old days before we had the MCOs. We brought the MCOs in because they were going to be the solution. None of this seems to make any sense to me in terms of what the bold new direction is to stop the fraud. The one big thing I think that

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[Faye Bernstein]

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[Jay Coles]

B and correct me if I'm wrong, would be this truly independent Office of Inspector General.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

That would have law enforcement authority and could serve subpoenas and be separate from the governor. I'm not saying it's gonna cure it all, but I'm just saying to me that seems like a big bold step to do that and that's not even happening. So in your estimation, after 20 years of being there, the last seven or eight where you've been retaliated against, has anything significant to this date come out that you would say is bold and is gonna help eliminate or at least curb this type of fraud?

[Faye Bernstein]

No, no. We're just shuffling things around.

[Jay Coles]

That's what it seems like.

[Faye Bernstein]

And what's interesting is it's no secret I speak to law enforcement, I speak to CMS, Dr. Oz's crew and all those guys. And you know what we need to do. We need to fire some people. I keep hearing the word accountability. Accountability. People need to be fired. We're not gonna get out of this by just keeping all the same staff. That is just food. Well, that's the definition of insanity. Right? That's just craziness that we expect that all these same people are gonna do something dramatically different. Now. That just doesn't happen. We just need to. And people that need to be fired are not necessarily bad people at all. They're just not compliance oriented. They're the kind of people who get upset when I ask an obvious question about a contract to a former employee. Those are just people that shouldn't be working in a place where we are, you know, we have a fiduciary responsibility. That's just not. That doesn't make sense. And another thing that would probably be worth looking at is the fact that our whole upper level is appointed positions. And, boy, some of those people come in and it is shocking how unqualified they are. I'm sure they're qualified for something, but they're not qualified to be in charge of large work areas. They're just not. I mean, I've given this example where it was an assistant commissioner, and I. She was the last person that I. She was the last person on sort of the hierarchy that I needed to go to, and she just cocked her head and looked at me like she had never heard the words that were coming out of my mouth.

[Jay Coles]

She probably hadn't. Wow.

[Faye Bernstein]

And then she got a huge promotion.

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[Jay Coles]

And if she's an assistant commissioner, she's well over $100,000 a year.

[Faye Bernstein]

Oh, you bet. Oh, you bet. And she then got promoted to chief of staff. Yes.

[Kenny]

So I have some pretty heavy questions I want to ask you, but we have to take a really short time out here, and I'm going to lay them on you when we come back. But I want to talk about Schoonover Body Works and Auto Care. They know how to keep it positive. We do this thing on Thursday on GL called Positive Thursday. And it's because Mike Schoonover, his family and his team at the shop are positive every single day. And that positivity is what makes their business a cut above all others. Whatever your vehicle may need, it can be found at Schoonover's Inshore View. Bodywork, engine work, tires, glass, even detailing. You want to clean up that mess, bring it to Schoonover. And if you go there for body repair after a crash, be rest assured The Schoonover team will act as your advocate with your insurance company, and we'll make sure they don't try to shortchange you with the quality of the replacement parts or even the labor. You'll always be kept in the loop as those repairs on your vehicle progress. I'm absolutely positive that your experience at Schoonover Body Works and Auto Care will be very positive. 1060 County Road E in Shoreview. And on the web, schoonover bodyworks.com. we'll take a quick break. We'll be right back. All right. So, Faye, I'm really. I'm actually worried about you being here and the things you're reveal and retaliation, and I'm kind of. I'm. I'm not a good reporter. I don't like asking uncomfortable questions. But I. I want. I'm trying to impress Jay Coles, who's made a living out of asking.

[Jay Coles]

Your questions are way better than you give yourself credit for.

[Kenny]

These are miserable questions that nobody should answer publicly.

[Jay Coles]

That's why you ask miserable questions. But they're miserable. But they need to be asked.

[Kenny]

So they make me miserable. Do you have a list of. This is one of two questions. Do you have a list of or do you know in your head who should be fired?

[Faye Bernstein]

I do have some things in my head on that. Yeah. But I wouldn't say them out loud.

[Kenny]

Okay.

[Faye Bernstein]

But I do have. You know, when I'm talking about. I'm talking about probably around the 20ish people.

[Jay Coles]

That many? 20 people.

[Kenny]

Are they all appointed positions or some of them just hired employees?

[Faye Bernstein]

That's mostly appointed. I tell you, most of the problem that we have is appointed positions because you pretty quickly see, oh, that's just somebody's friend. That's just somebody's friend. They were not in any way vetted. That's just a friend. You can pretty quickly see it. Very rarely, there will be an appointed position that actually has some value, but that's an outlier.

[Jay Coles]

So if you're at 20 with. Sorry, Kenny, but if there are 20 of them and they're all political appointees, we're talking. That's higher ups.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yes. Oh, absolutely.

[Kenny]

Just as an aside, the reason I understand this is in radio, whenever I've had a boss who hasn't had to face one of these, I don't respect him or her. If I have a boss actually faced three hours and you've got to fill it, then. Then I respect. Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

Every day.

[Kenny]

Three hours.

[Jay Coles]

Every day. Yeah. Yeah.

[Kenny]

Every day I'm with you.

[Jay Coles]

On that, brother.

[Kenny]

So. And I think a lot of people listening can understand that too. You just don't respect the people above you if they don't know your job, if they don't know what you go through and how hard it is. And then, of course, the second question, it's the big one, and I don't expect any bombs to be dropped here, but do you think anybody up top, maybe in your office or even higher, profited from this fraud?

[Faye Bernstein]

No. I've discussed this with the FBI, actually. I do not believe there was kickbacks. Right. What would be, you know, true under the table kind of dealing. I don't believe any cash didn't witness any of that. Right. And I. And I really sincerely don't believe that it has happened. What I think has happened of more is I'm gonna give my friend a job sort of thing. So benefits. Benefits have been received when they shouldn't have. I would say ethical boundaries have been crossed. But I do not imagine any employee of DHS going, you know, getting actually indicted for. For some sort of receiving a tangible benefit.

[Jay Coles]

You mentioned to me. I brought this up to Kenny. I found this very interesting too, in our phone conversation. They have you now redacting. You're sitting there with a law degree and two other degrees, and you're redacting information. And I was hoping you would elaborate a little bit on this. You said to me, and as a reporter, it piqued my interest, you felt like you were being told to redact a lot of stuff in there, black out a lot of stuff that you believe is actually public information. Do I remember that right?

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah. I am uncomfortable. And this. If anybody in my team hears this, they will not be surprised because I've kind of brought this up a few too many times, maybe in annoying fashion. But, yeah, I think that we are over redacting. I think it's because we in particular, what really bothered me was I was doing a batch of redactions on the housing program that had to be shut down.

[Jay Coles]

Housing stabilization.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yes. We had a mailbox for HSS where people receiving the service could write in, ask us questions, hey, what's going on with my application? And complain about their housing provider as well. Right. It was just sort of anything could go into that mailbox. And some of those emails are really pretty disturbing. The complaints that people had, some people were writing in. I mean, clearly we had a lot of notice of fraud because people, Recipients of the service were kind enough to write in and tell us a long time ago. I think you Got some fraud problems here because I signed up with this provider. I have never, ever seen them, but yet I see on my Medicaid billing there their name is. But I've never even seen them.

[Jay Coles]

Right.

[Kenny]

We heard stories like that from people in the last few years. Yes.

[Faye Bernstein]

And so what we are being told to do is redact what is referred to as the story, meaning what their complaint is.

[Jay Coles]

Wow.

[Faye Bernstein]

And I don't see anything that would allow us to do that. Obviously, you know, data practices Chapter 13 in Minnesota requires us to redact all personal information. You know, name, address. That's out, and that's fair. And that's.

[Jay Coles]

But the content and the context of their complaint. I would argue as a reporter, the content of their complaint should be public.

[Faye Bernstein]

I think so, too. And our general counsel is saying, no, that is private information of that person. And I believe it's personal information. I believe it's, you know, they're telling us their personal story. However, when it's not associated with their name, it could be anybody. It could be anybody. And there is great public value. There's great value for that information to be out there. I tell you, some of the things that people were writing in were about services they were providing, I think should be known. I mean, I'm obviously not going to release them. I can't do that. But I wish they would. I wish that information would get out

[Jay Coles]

there because the circumstances of their story or who the provider is that's not delivering, or both.

[Faye Bernstein]

Oddly enough, we do not redact the name of the provider.

[Jay Coles]

Oh, okay. So just the story.

[Faye Bernstein]

The story. The quote, unquote story. The issue that they are informing us about. So what you get then is, you know, you get an email that has a date and the provider's name is going to be on there and the provider's address and everything can be on there, but nothing that came from the person providing us the client, if you will. The client.

[Jay Coles]

So you're essentially, you're saying the states, in your opinion, the state's withholding public data.

[Faye Bernstein]

I don't feel right about it. I definitely do not feel right about it.

[Jay Coles]

And I've experienced this as a reporter. The attorneys for these government agencies will write an opinion explaining why they believe it's private, just hoping that no one will challenge it, that the media will not legally challenge it. Right. You gotta go, you know, to an administrative hearing.

[Kenny]

Essentially exhausting the media or the reporter, just exhausting you, wearing you down and

[Jay Coles]

just not having the resources. You know, betting on the fact that the media primarily the media is not going to spend the money to go to court over it. I'm pretty proud to say here that the Hubbards did that in 2014 with me. I was getting the run around with Met counsel on a Metro Transit story, on a bus story. I wanted some video from a particular bus driver on his bus. And they told us that the clips that I wanted of this bus driver in question were part of his personnel data because they would use the video for training as what he did right and did wrong. And I'm using this as an example of the Met Counsel coming up with a pretty creative legal reason to say I couldn't have it. We challenged it and went all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court and we won. We prevailed eventually and got the information. So I'm suspecting here the legal counsel for DHS is saying, let's just push it to the limit. My interpretation is legally the context of those complaints are not public. And let them challenge it. Let's see if anybody spends the money and the time to challenge it. And nine times out of 10, they don't or more.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, well. And of course, we are so far behind on doing our data requests that we're at least a year behind. Right. And so you've already got a year wrapped up in this. So I can see where by the time you get your information, it's stale information anyway. You're not going to pursue it.

[Jay Coles]

Wow.

[Kenny]

A year behind. I didn't realize that.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, we are a year, a little bit more than a year. Our general counsel, none of who I know particularly well, but I do know they are, who advise us on what to redact and what not to redact. Our general counsels, they believe that their job is to protect the commissioner. That's it. They don't believe by their actions I'm saying this, they've never said this to me, but they appear not to believe that they are public servants. They believe they are commissioner servants, that that is their job.

[Jay Coles]

So essentially you're saying the attorneys at DHS are working for the commissioner and protection of the commissioner and the higher ups at DHS and not for the taxpayer, not for the public.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yes.

[Jay Coles]

I'm not overly surprised based on my experience with my rejections that I get from state agencies and county agencies. You read the reason they have to give you a legal reason under data practices. And you read it and you just like when they told me at Met Council can't have the bus driver's video because we use it for training. So therefore it's Part of his personnel file was the most absurd thing I'd ever heard. But it's not surprising and it's really disconcerting right now with billions in fraud in question, for that state agency to then now continue in your opinion, to withhold public information, that's just not right.

[Faye Bernstein]

Well, and even the fact that we are so far behind, you know, Ramsey county, there was a judge there that finally fined, I believe the city of St. Paul.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah.

[Faye Bernstein]

Because they just weren't.

[Jay Coles]

Weren't doing the data requests.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Faye Bernstein]

So I wonder if sometime we'll start

[Jay Coles]

getting fined, somebody takes them to court. Probably. Well, you could stand a good chance, let's put it that way.

[Kenny]

I need to back up here earlier. About 30 minutes ago, there was reference to both Jody Harpstead and you said Eric. I'm assuming you meant Eric Grumdahl.

[Faye Bernstein]

Correct.

[Kenny]

Do we know then, Jay way in here. If you know, I don't personally know. Why. Why did Jody step down? And part two, why did Eric get fired?

[Faye Bernstein]

The Oversight Committee in D.C. did interviews. Some we've seen, of course on TV. They do them live right there. But in other cases they've just done behind closed door interviews. But those transcripts are available, I believe. I believe that's.

[Kenny]

I think they are, yeah.

[Faye Bernstein]

But as far as the specifics about Commissioner Harpstead leaving, that showed up in that report and she was asked why did she depart? And she said that she left because she did not feel that fraud was her. It was, it was in her wheelhouse.

[Jay Coles]

Wasn't her expertise.

[Faye Bernstein]

Right. And I tell you that I thank her for that because it's a bit of an understatement, but she came to dhs, whatever, five, six, I guess six years ago when we were already. We had screwed up a bunch of stuff with a couple of tribes to the tune of about 30 million. We already had the child care assistance. I don't remember what the total on that was, but we had screwed that up bad. So she came in and it wasn't like today, but we already knew we needed to make some major changes. And what she instead brought was, gosh, every Friday we would get this video from her that would encourage us to. The two phrases she constantly used was give each other grace and assume the best. So any healthy sense of paranoia that any of us had was beat out of us. Because that means if I, for instance, am a little suspicious of an invoice I got and I'm wondering if I should. No. Assume the best, Faye. Give them grace. So we were actually instructed look the other way. It's the right thing.

[Kenny]

Compassion, Faye.

[Jay Coles]

Compassion?

[Faye Bernstein]

Yes.

[Jay Coles]

That's astounding. When that much money's at stake. It's astounding, Jay.

[Kenny]

They're breaking rules and laws so they can be compassionate. And for some reason, with me. That's why I asked you who's profiting up top, because that doesn't make sense to me. In my world, there's too many people like you, Faye, that go, wait a minute.

[Jay Coles]

I can only surmise, Kenny, and you could correct me if you think I'm way off base. I think you touched on it. If it's not kickbacks and if they're not on the dole and all of that, it simply comes down to you get a nice six figure income with good health benefits. You get promotions and bonuses. The job itself is the perk. And why rattle the cage? Why create problems for the agency? We've got it pretty good here and we're getting paid well. Protecting their job, protecting their retirement. Right.

[Kenny]

Let's not roil up the waters here.

[Jay Coles]

I mean, am I on base there, you think?

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, the group think sort of thing. You know, they'll be meeting, everyone's making 150 a year or whatever and pretty much nobody says much.

[Jay Coles]

Let's just go along to get along because we're making good money.

[Faye Bernstein]

It's a pretty easy way to learn a living if you don't do anything. I mean, really, some of these appointments are just really amazingly unqualified.

[Jay Coles]

Do you think there's too many? Like, you could cut half the staff of the upper echelon. I'm talking about. Could you get rid of half of them? Because it's just duplicative.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yes, up top you could. Down below, I mean, like my peers, I feel very different about. My peers are. No, and almost without exception, my peers know way more than their supervisor.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah. My thought has always been just at a glance as a reporter, you look and see the staffing and you would see all the commission. You know, you had the commissioner and then all these assistant commissioners and lawyers and you're just like, why do they need this many assistant commissioners? Why? I mean, it just seemed like a lot to me.

[Faye Bernstein]

But, well, and then there. I don't know if this is still going on. I think it is. There are deputy assistants, then there's deputy assistants.

[Jay Coles]

Yes, Deputy.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, there's commissioners, deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners and deputy assistant commissioners, which seems to be a little redundancy in there, but.

[Jay Coles]

Oh, if I got you a list, Kenny, I should get the List. You had it at one time.

[Kenny]

Just give me the list of how much they make.

[Jay Coles]

Oh, it's all.

[Kenny]

You want me to be really irritated.

[Jay Coles]

All north of 120. Yeah, all north of 120, Kenny. And it's a lot of them. When you look at the. Yeah, I'm not picking on the people doing the work. When you look at them administratively, if you want to call it that, the administration that's running it, there are gobs of them. I could never understand why you needed that many. That's like in the newsroom, we have one assistant. We have a news director and an assistant news director. Be like if we had a news director, an assistant news director, and then a deputy assistant news director, and then an assistant news director to the assistant. When you look at the employee chart, it's almost like, why do they need this many? And it's probably several million dollars or more if you added it all up. Because am I right, it's all 120 north of 120.

[Faye Bernstein]

Oh, for sure. Yes. Yeah.

[Kenny]

Well, I'm sure Program director, Program Integrity Director o' Malley knows who you are, by the way.

[Jay Coles]

He's out in six weeks. Did you see that? OMalley's leaving in six. He's done. He's done. He did a six week stint. He's not going to be the office of. And he's not going to be the director of Office of Program Integrity anymore. Ken. He's done.

[Faye Bernstein]

Representative Robbins seemed a bit surprised by it.

[Jay Coles]

Everybody was surprised by it.

[Kenny]

I'm speechless. I did not know this.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah. Six weeks stint and he's gone. I'm curious, too. Are you still talking with the FBI?

[Kenny]

Oh, my God.

[Jay Coles]

You still. So the FBI is.

[Faye Bernstein]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh. DHS refers to the FBI as our partners. That's like saying my stalker is my friend.

[Jay Coles]

You know?

[Faye Bernstein]

That's not your partner, man.

[Jay Coles]

Come on. Does that. Does that show up in memos or something? Or emails? They actually call FBI investigators partners?

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

Kenny, next time the FBI shows up at your door, just say, partner, Come on in. Now, that's funny.

[Kenny]

Well, this. This proves to me that this fraud cannot be investigated from within the halls of DHS at all. Because you should be in the room right now, every day, Fay, with these investigators, telling them and teaching them and talking about what you know and when you knew it and who shut you down. You should be an integral part of the investigation right now, today.

[Jay Coles]

Agreed.

[Kenny]

The fact that you're doing a college intern's job instead of what you're trained for Is pretty revealing. Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah. Well. And look at all the retaliatory stuff they did against her. When do you meet? You meet with Judge o' Malley tomorrow?

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

What does he want to talk to you about?

[Faye Bernstein]

I actually contacted him.

[Jay Coles]

Oh, and he's open to it, huh?

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah. And he was really nice and open to it. Yeah. And was interested. I'm going to talk to him about times that I've seen something that maybe started as compassion and then just turned into. Became something that would be against the law.

[Jay Coles]

Became fraud.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yes. So. And what does that mean? I mean, it's the. I remember in law school, when does negligence become criminal?

[Jay Coles]

Yes.

[Faye Bernstein]

When does somebody who is unqualified for the job that they were appointed to do, because that's really where most of the problems are. When are they responsible for the result of this? I am not at all excited about any sort of indictment or anything like that. I would hate to see that happen of anyone who works for the state. But firing. Yeah, I'm ready for that. It took me years to say that. I've only been comfortable saying that people need to be fired from. For probably less than a month. Prior to that, I just kept thinking, no, no, give him a break. Give him a break. But it's just. That's.

[Jay Coles]

Well, because I think you're a good person and most of us are that way. We don't want to see anybody lose their job.

[Kenny]

But I do. Kenny, I'm very angry about this contribution is minuscule compared to a lot. But this is outrageous

[Faye Bernstein]

and I don't wanna be the bearer of bad news. But what we're hearing about on the news is not all of it. I mean, I can say that I've reported a couple of things in the last two months that have not at all been looked at or had hit at all. So there. This is not the worst.

[Jay Coles]

It's still going on.

[Kenny]

Jay is actually sitting on some stuff that we know about that we haven't even brought up yet. Yeah, no, that's not public knowledge.

[Jay Coles]

Still working on that. One thing I told you about.

[Kenny]

There's so much. In my world, not only should people have been fired, they should have stepped down. And in my world, it goes right up to the governor's office. The way he is deflected to me is embarrassing. It really is. I feel like every time he opens his mouth up and talks about fraud, he's lying to us.

[Jay Coles]

He got on that train a little bit too late. Right. All of a sudden, now he's interested.

[Kenny]

Well, this wouldn't Happen in the private sector, Jay?

[Jay Coles]

No, no.

[Faye Bernstein]

And I'm not confident that he still is on the.

[Jay Coles]

On the train.

[Faye Bernstein]

Right. Because when I see, like, the oversight committee in D.C. when I see him asked something about retaliation, and he dodges the question by saying, Minnesota has strong whistleblower statutes, protection. Da, da, da, da. So I did the online forum and contacted his office about a week ago saying, you know, I'm not a mermaid. I'm a real person. Maybe you think I don't exist, but let's talk because I exist, right.

[Jay Coles]

As someone who's being retaliated against.

[Faye Bernstein]

Like, I just.

[Jay Coles]

They respond, of course not.

[Kenny]

I guarantee you they know you.

[Jay Coles]

I guarantee, oh, 100%.

[Faye Bernstein]

Well, he said when he was. When he was. When my name was said to him, he said. Sounds familiar.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

It's a little more than familiar, as we all know. That's. That's. That's.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, sounds familiar.

[Jay Coles]

Well, a lot of good stuff. Have you shared much of your thoughts on some of this with reporters at all or in committee? A testimony, this notion that people should be fired and some of the public redaction should maybe not be redacted as this first time we're hearing some of this stuff.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah, it is. I haven't talked in much detail because I do fear getting the old pink slip one of these days.

[Jay Coles]

Well, if you get it now, you know who to call, because somebody will cover that, because it's gonna have to be. Yeah. I mean, to do it now, as you said at the top of the show, to do it now would be pretty obvious why they're doing it.

[Faye Bernstein]

Yeah.

[Jay Coles]

It takes a lot. It takes a lot of courage to do what you're doing. So thanks for doing sitting down.

[Kenny]

Tremendous amount.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

I'm. Much respect. Fay, thank you so much for coming in here.

[Jay Coles]

Good information that we hadn't heard before. Some of it. Really appreciate it.

[Faye Bernstein]

I got a lot in here.

[Jay Coles]

You got a lot going on.

[Faye Bernstein]

You do.

[Jay Coles]

Well, thanks. Really appreciate it.

[Kenny]

Let's take just a quick little break, and we'll come back and wrap it up.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, sounds good.

[Kenny]

We are talking off the air right there, and Gabe asked a very important question that I kind of wish we would have asked on the air, but he asked Faye if she was part of the. The Twitter group. I think they call themselves. Something about DHS employees. Something. Something.

[Jay Coles]

I don't know. It's something with DHS in it. Yep.

[Kenny]

And she is not a part of that group.

[Jay Coles]

Not part of the official group that started it.

[Kenny]

Right, Right. So that's not her. But she said a lot of. How did she put it? A lot of people are higher up than she is.

[Jay Coles]

Yes, yes. And the one really incredible thing was when she said she's convinced that some of the information coming out through those Twitter posts has to be coming from, as she put it, the eighth floor of the executive suite. Like one of the top two, three, four people at DHS is what she's implying. Right. It's like somebody that would have access to stuff that she would never have.

[Kenny]

So that person is listening to us watching this right now. I guarantee you person, you need to call me.

[Jay Coles]

Get in touch with Kenny.

[Kenny]

We can protect your identity.

[Jay Coles]

We'll have another agent X. Yeah, well, and I was just chatting with her too, as she stepped out of the studio with some stuff. She and I are going to stay in touch because there's some questions I have about navigating some. You guys sometimes get clever about how you go about getting information and asking data requests so they can't deny it. So she's a breath of fresh air. Because I can count on one hand over all the years, Kenny, of somebody who's currently employed with whatever state agency goes public like she does, risking it, you know, she's risking her job. I mean.

[Kenny]

And you never hear from them again.

[Jay Coles]

No. And they often, if they do what she does, they often get terminated, they get fired.

[Kenny]

I'm worried about that happening to her this week.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, she. I asked her about it on the phone. She and I talked for a long time yesterday. I wanted to make sure, as you did, that she was comfortable, you know. Yeah, we'd love to have you on, but we also don't want to see. And she, she, she was of the mindset, like she said, the very beginning of the show. Well, if they do something now, I probably have good legal recourse.

[Kenny]

Do you get the feeling that the only way this is going to come to any kind of conclusion is through the U. The Minnesota U.S. attorney's office, which we know has been gutted.

[Jay Coles]

Good question.

[Kenny]

And that's pretty much it because I don't see them changing anything from within or find to point a finger at, to lay off to fire. I just don't see it happening.

[Jay Coles]

And I'm with you in that camp, Kenny. Cause just listening to Fay, when she talked about Judge omalleys report, when she talked about Governor Walz's new plan, which didn't seem very new and the o' Malley report didn't seem very new and I point blank asked her. It just seems like much of the same. Am I wrong? Is anything going to change? She's of the mindset until these people get fired. The higher ups, some of those 20 higher ups she's talking about. And maybe a change of administration because Governor Walz won't be governor next January. Between now and the end of the year. I don't know. Kenny, Good question. Will it change? She doesn't seem to have any confidence that it will.

[Kenny]

Do you think you and I are making a difference or should we just pull the plug on this? Because we've been going strong on fraud now for over a month.

[Jay Coles]

And I think we are making a difference. Yeah. I think anytime you can get someone like her on to do what she did. And when we had Scott on and Agent X and Dave Finewalks. They lay out and give you details that you're not aware of. And I think people come away better informed. And let's face it, I mean, Operation Metro Surge and fraud for the last three, four months have been the story. That's all anybody's talking about. That's just how it is.

[Kenny]

We're going to change gears next week.

[Jay Coles]

Yes, we are. And I like that.

[Kenny]

Jay, the animals are talking about you and they don't have anything good to say. They never do. We're gonna talk to George Bowman and his book, Eavesdropping on Animals. He knows what the critters are saying about us.

[Jay Coles]

This is what I gotta find out. What are they saying about us? How does he know?

[Kenny]

I can't wait to talk to him. That's next week.

[Jay Coles]

That'll be fun.

[Kenny]

Thank you.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

To everybody for listening to news from the Krabby Coffee Shop. And thank you, Coles.

[Jay Coles]

Yeah, thank you, Kenny. We'll see you next week. We'll take a little lighter side next week. It'll be fun.

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