So what made you return to the story?

Well, the Star Tribune actually did a piece trying to take a look at the national perspective and discovering there wasn't much data there.

And so basically that piece, that earlier piece said, yeah, where is the documentation for this massive, historic, worst in the nation fraud? And a year later, it was still a conventional truth.

And we still hadn't really seen much new data.

And let me just explain my renewed interest in it in a broader context.

And that's...

The fraud piece that I wrote is part of a larger series called Debunking the Defamation of Minnesota, which is on stuff other than fraud.

One thing I would like to know is since you've been in the political sphere of reporting for so long, was it ever, can you ever remember a time where there was a story that involved more of the legislative process or players behind the scenes? And was that reported before and has that changed now?

Wait, will you say, I mean, I know what GAL, but will you say what GAL is?

It used to be the General Accounting Office.

It's now the Government Accountability Office, I think.

Very reputable federal agency, even still.

And they have estimated ballpark $377 billion a year in fraud or improper payment.

We'll get into that later, what improper payment is, from all human service programs during the pandemic era.

So that's a huge number.

But our legislature has been divided.