Mounting evidence that Vance Boelter — the man charged with murder in connection with an attack on Minnesota state lawmakers — was politically right-leaning and had no close ties to the state’s governor hasn’t ended conservatives’ online speculation about Boelter’s connection to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.
Conservative influencers first seized on Walz’s 2019 reappointment of Boelter to a state board to promote baseless claims that Walz was implicated in the attack on state Rep. Melissa Hortman and state Sen. John Hoffman and their spouses.
Now, some online personalities said Walz tried to erase evidence of past praise for Boelter.
Without identifying a source, The Patriot Oasis account said“BREAKING: Governor Tim Walz has DELETED every post he made praising Minnesota a*sassin Vance Boelter.”
The verified, pro-MAGA X account promises “no woke nonsense.” As of June 18, that post had been viewed 7.5 million times.
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Ken Blackwella Republican former Ohio Secretary of State, and other social media users shared the statement across other platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky.
“NEW: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz quietly deletes ALL POSTS praising suspected sh**ter Vance Boelter,” conservative commentator David J. Harris Jr. said in a June 15 Facebook post.
We searched and found no evidence for these claims.
None of the social media posts circulating this narrative shared proof for their statements, such as screenshots of the deleted posts.
Walz’s spokesperson told PolitiFact in an email June 18 that Walz had not posted about Boelter on any social media platforms, nor had the governor deleted any posts about Boelter following the news of the shootings.
PolitiTweet and Politwoopstwo projects that tracked politicians’ deleted tweets, were both forced to stop archiving posts in early 2023 when X reduced researchers’ access to the platform systems that allowed for such tracking. We reviewed PolitiTweet’s record of deleted posts from Walz’s accounts @RepTimWalz (which is no longer active) and @GovTimWalz. Of 100 deleted posts across both accounts, none mentioned Boelter. This wouldn’t have captured posts deleted after the shooting, and also doesn’t include any posts deleted from Walz’s @Tim_Walz account.
So far, Walz’s link to Boelter is a board reappointment.
In December 2019, Walz followed his predecessor’s footsteps and reappointed Boelter to serve as a business member on the Governor’s Workforce Development Board. That board advises the governor and state Legislature on workforce policies; it has about 60 members and the governor appoints 41 of them.
On June 14, Walz’s spokesperson told PolitiFact that appointments to the workforce board aren’t the same as positions in the governor’s office or cabinet, and Walz had no relationship with Boelter. The governor’s office appoints thousands of people of all political affiliations to these unpaid, external boards and commissions, the spokesperson said.
Still, this slight connection between Boelter and Walz fueled conservatives’ wild and inaccurate theories that Walz was somehow involved in the shootings.
People who knew Boelter said he was politically right-leaning, supported President Donald Trump and opposed abortion.
David Carlson, who identified himself as Boelter’s roommate and longtime friend, told CBS News that Boelter voted for Trump in 2024 and said Boelter “didn’t like” Walz. Walz was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2024.
Google and Nexis news archive searches for news reports of Walz deleting any posts praising or mentioning Boelter returned no relevant results.
Many of the accounts promoting the unsupported statement about Walz have a history of circulating falsehoods.
The Patriot Oasis said June 9 that a video showed a Marine Corps helicopter flying over Los Angeles in response to the immigration raid protests; we rated similar posts False. The account also wrongly said in February 2024 that former first lady Michelle Obama had “entered the 2024 presidential election.”
In 2018, we rated Blackwell’s statement that, “Democrats and their allies (…) are manufacturing voters,” Pants on Fire! And PolitiFact has fact-checked Harris’ false claims for years.
We rate claims that Walz deleted posts praising Boelter False.
RELATED: How conservative X accounts promoted wild theory implicating Gov. Tim Walz in lawmaker’s killing
RELATED: Sen. Mike Lee’s evidence-free conspiracy theory that the MN shooter was a ‘Marxist’ is Pants on Fire
