Trump amplifies conspiracy theory that Gov. Tim Walz ordered Minnesota lawmaker’s killing

President Donald Trump amplified the unsubstantiated claim that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz ordered a state lawmaker’s assassination. 

In June, a gunman attacked Minnesota lawmakers, shooting and killing state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and shooting and injuring state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette.

Vance Luther Boelter, 58, of Green Isle, Minnesota, was arrested June 15 on murder and attempted murder charges in connection with the shootings.

Months later, Trump gave air to unproven conspiracy theories about Boelter’s motivation and mischaracterized the suspect’s connection to Walz. 

"Did Tim Walz really have Melissa Hoertman assassinated???" read text on the video Trump shared in a Jan. 3 Truth Social post, misspelling Hortman’s name. 

There is no evidence that Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, was involved in the attack, which investigators described as politically motivated. The claim stems from a link between Walz and Boelter that sparked wild theories from conservative influencers. Hortman, a former House speaker, was a member of the state’s Democratic Farm Labor Party, as are Hoffman and Walz.

The Trump administration did not respond to our request for comment. 

Hortman’s children asked Trump to remove his post, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. Republican state Sen. Julia Coleman called for people to reject "baseless conspiracy theories." Walz and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., also condemned Trump’s post.

Months after announcing he would seek a third term as governor, Walz dropped out of the Minnesota governor race Jan. 5, amid questions of fraud in his state.  

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Melissa Hortman, then House speaker, stands in front of a bookshelf in her office in St. Paul, Minn., May 23, 2023. Hortman and her husband, Mark, were fatally shot at their home June 14, 2025.

The video draws on unproven theories about the attack

The video Trump shared included multiple falsehoods, including that Boelter had been "Tim Walz’s aide" and that Boelter worked for Walz "for years." 

Conservative influencers first said Walz was implicated in the attack after noticing that in 2019 Walz reappointed Boelter to serve as a "business member" on the Governor’s Workforce Development Board, a nonpartisan group charged with advising the governor and Legislature on workforce policy. Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democratic Farmer Labor Party member, first appointed Boelter to the board in 2016, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

The board has about 60 members from the public sector, the private sector, organized labor and community-based groups, its website said. The governor appoints 41 of its members.

Walz’s spokesperson told PolitiFact in June that appointments to the workforce board aren’t the same as positions in the governor’s office or cabinet, and that Walz had no relationship with Boelter. 

Steve Kalina, who places himself on the other side of the political spectrum from Walz and has served on the governor’s workforce board since 2019, told the Star Tribune in June that the board does not interact with the governor on a regular basis.

"It’s goofy to make those stretches that the suspect was a close tie to the governor, a close appointee," Kalina said. 

The video said that Boelter had written a letter to the FBI saying "it was Tim Walz who forced him" to attack the Democratically-aligned lawmakers. 

In July, federal prosecutors said Boelter had confessed to the shootings in a handwritten letter in which he’d also claimed to be acting on secret orders from Walz. Boelter said Walz had instructed him to kill Minnesota’s U.S. senators because "Tim wants to be senator." Boelter wrote that he acted only after someone threatened his family. 

The acting U.S. attorney prosecuting the case against Boelter said the letter was fantasy.

People attend a candlelight vigil for former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, who were fatally shot, at the state Capitol, June 18, 2025, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP)

No evidence the killing was linked to Hortman’s immigrant health care vote

The video said Hortman had been killed in part because she voted "to take away health care from illegal immigrants." 

Before she was killed, Hortman voted with Republicans to pass a bill that included a measure removing adults who are in the U.S. illegally from the state’s MinnesotaCare health program. Hortman opposed the measure, but voted for it as part of a budget compromise. 

Law enforcement officials have not linked Hortman’s killing to the vote. Officials said Boelter had carefully planned his attack and had a list of dozens of Democratic targets in Minnesota and at least three other states.

After Trump posted the video, Melissa Hortman’s son, Colin, told the Star Tribune that his mother had voted for the bill because it was the only way to avoid a government shutdown. 

The video also appeared to conflate Hortman’s health care vote and fraud scandals roiling Minnesota. The state’s oversight of federal and state funds had already been under scrutiny when conservative influencer Nick Shirley claimed in a YouTube video that Somali-run day care facilities in Minnesota had fraudulently taken funds meant to help low-income families afford childcare. 

The day care allegations follow other high-profile fraud incidents in Minnesota: In 2022, dozens of people, most of them Somali, were charged in connection with a fraud scheme; prosecutors alleged the group stole $250 million in federal child nutrition programs. Late last year, federal prosecutors announced initial charges related to what they said were other welfare fraud schemes in Minnesota.

The video said the fraud scandals all tie "back to Walz." It questioned whether Hortman was killed "because she voted against a multibillion-dollar money laundering fraud" that "heavily implicated illegal aliens," and Somali migrants in particular. An estimated 100,000 people who identify as Somali live in Minnesota and the majority are U.S. citizens.

Law enforcement officials have not linked Hortman’s killing to fraud. 

The Trump administration responded to these fraud allegations by freezing federal child care funds in several states and expanding its immigration crackdown. 

Minnesota’s initial probe into the day care fraud claims has not uncovered widespread wrongdoing, CNN reported. State officials reported that the child care centers Shirley’s video accused of fraud were operating normally. The Minnesota Star Tribune and CBS News investigated the day care centers in Shirley’s video, finding that at least seven of the businesses’ received citations for various violations, but no evidence of fraud. 

Our ruling 

Trump shared a video that alleged Walz had Hortman killed. 

In 2019, Walz reappointed Boelter to a state board, but we found no evidence the two were closely acquainted or that Walz was somehow linked to the shootings. Boelter was first appointed to the board by Walz’s predecessor. Walz’s spokesperson previously said the governor appoints thousands of people of all political affiliations to boards and commissions and Walz had no relationship with Boelter. 

In July, prosecutors said Boelter had alleged in a letter that he was acting on Walz’s orders, but they dismissed the letter’s claim as unsubstantiated fantasy. Prosecutors have named no other suspects in the case.

We rate Trump’s claim that Walz had Hortman assassinated False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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