On Thursday’s Finnerty, Rob Finnerty did what too many mainstream outlets have refused to do: he pulled back the curtain on the cozy relationship between the Minnesota Star Tribune’s CEO and the Democratic establishment, and accused the paper of burying a scandal that should have been front-page news. The segment laid out how Steve Grove’s past as a Walz administration official raises serious questions about whether the paper has been protecting political allies instead of holding them accountable.
The scale of the alleged fraud emerging out of Minnesota is staggering and impossible to ignore; conservative investigators and some officials point to $1.3 billion in suspicious remittances tied to Somali networks while others warn the true cost to taxpayers could balloon into the billions more. Federal estimates and investigative reporting now suggest we may be looking at a crisis far beyond a single crooked scheme — this is systemic theft of the public purse that demands answers.
Yet Minnesota’s hometown paper, the so-called guardian of civic life, has been conspicuously muted, prompting conservatives and locals to accuse the Tribune of deliberate silence and even active soft-pedaling of the story. Social media and conservative outlets have cataloged the paper’s year-end reviews and editorial choices and concluded that what looks like journalism often smells like a cover-up when it inconveniences powerful Democrats.
Let’s be blunt: Steve Grove did not appear in a vacuum at the Star Tribune. He left Gov. Tim Walz’s administration to take the top job at Minnesota’s largest paper, a move that creates a staggering conflict of interest when the paper is supposed to scrutinize that same administration. The optics are terrible and the reality is worse — Minnesotans deserve a paper run by people who won’t protect political friends.
When critics pointed this out the paper pushed back, insisting its newsroom operates independently and that it has published numerous pieces on the subject. That defense rings hollow to taxpayers watching their dollars vanish while the institutional press spends more time policing speech than chasing truth. If the newsroom is truly independent, then the Tribune should welcome independent audits and transparent answers, not reflexive denials.
Republican leaders and former governors have rightly piled on, calling out both Gov. Walz and the media that protected him for years while fraud quietly metastasized. From state lawmakers to national conservatives, the refrain is the same: no more cover-ups, no more excuses, and no more pretending “sensitivity” is a valid reason to ignore theft on an industrial scale. The people who run our institutions must answer — and if they won’t, voters will.
This isn’t an abstract media fight; it’s real money stolen from working Minnesotans, from families and seniors who expect their taxes to be spent wisely. Patriots across the state and nation should demand immediate federal and state probes, full transparency from the Star Tribune about editorial decisions, and political consequences for any officials who looked the other way. The next chapter in this story will test whether America’s institutions serve the people or the powerful — and hardworking Americans should settle for nothing less than the truth.
