Tag: fraud

Prosecutor Calls Newsom ‘King Of Fraud’ For Oversight Failures

U.S. First Assistant Attorney Bill Essayli Thursday called California Gov. Gavin Newsom “the king of fraud,” accusing him of a lack of oversight on spending to address homelessness.

Essayli made the comments on the “Fox and Friends” telecast, during which he discussed the federal fraud charges that were filed in October against real estate executives Steven Taylor and Cody Holmes for allegedly misusing grant money meant for homeless housing.

Holmes, 31, of Beverly Hills was charged with mail fraud charge that was allegedly linked to millions of dollars in grant money that the state paid Shangri-La Industries to purchase, build and operate homeless housing in Thousand Oaks, just north of Los Angeles. Holmes was Shangri-La’s chief financial officer.

Taylor, 44, of Brentwood, was charged with seven counts of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of money laundering.

Essayli Thursday said the charges are the “tip of the iceberg” in an investigation he launched with a task force in April. He said more charges would be coming, probably later this month.

The state spent $24 billion in the last five years to address homelessness and can’t account for where the money went, Essayli said on “Fox and Friends.”

President Donald Trump on Tuesday on X said,  “California, under Governor Gavin Newscum, is more corrupt than Minnesota, if that’s possible??? The Fraud investigation of California has begun.”

Newsom’s press office fired back on X. It called Trump a liar and noted Newsom has “BLOCKED $125 billion in fraud, arrested criminal parasites leaching off of taxpayers, and protected taxpayers from the exact kind of scam artists Trump celebrates, excuses, and pardons.”

The Center Square reached out Thursday afternoon to the governor’s office, but did not get a response.

When The Center Square asked the White House Thursday about Newsom, the press office pointed to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s comments during a press briefing on Wednesday. Leavitt told reporters that Trump has directed all agencies to look at federal spending programs “in not just Minnesota, but also in the state of California, to identify fraud and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, all those who have committed it.”

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Billions in healthcare fraud discovered in California, Minnesota ‘pales in comparison’: Dr Oz

Billions of dollars in alleged fraudulent healthcare spending is being investigated in California, specifically probing foreign nationals operating illegal hospice facilities — officials announced Friday in a bombshell press conference.

“We have witnessed a sevenfold increase in hospice in LA County, sevenfold. That doesn’t happen naturally,” Dr Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told The Post during at the press conference.

“There is not seven times more deaths in LA County than there were five years ago. These are fraudsters, and these do tend to be foreign influences, either Russian and Armenian gangs, mafia, that are leading a lot of these efforts.”

Fraudsters who run these facilities are working with about “100 bad doctors,” who convince a patient they’re dying to enroll them in hospice care, Dr Oz said, adding about 100,000 people have handed over their Medicare numbers.

“We are major focused on this issue, and I think our suspicion, our belief, is that the fraud in California will magnify whatever’s happening in Minnesota,” United States Attorney Bill Essayli said. “What’s happening in Minnesota pales in comparison to the level of fraud that we believe is occurring in California.”

Dr Oz said the Trump administration is also cracking down on taxpayer money being used to treat illegal immigrants for elective procedures.

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BUSTED: Ilhan Omar Caught Trying to Funnel $1M to a “Substance Abuse Clinic” Operating Out of a Restaurant Run by Three People at the Same Address — GOP TORPEDOES the Earmark

Another Minnesota money pipeline just got shut down, and this one leads straight back to Rep. Ilhan Omar.

The funding, which was tucked into a federal spending bill, was purportedly destined for a “substance abuse clinic” in Omar’s home state of Minnesota.

However, a shocking investigation led by Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) revealed that the “clinic” was anything but legitimate.

During an interview on Fox Business, Senator Ernst detailed the absolute absurdity of the proposal, describing a trail of red flags that would make any honest taxpayer’s blood boil.

“What I uncovered the other day, in one of our spending bills making its way through Congress, was a $1 million earmark from Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

“This earmark was supposedly going to a substance abuse clinic, which actually happened to be housed in a restaurant and run by three individuals who share the same residential address, according to their IRS paperwork. Tons of red flags.

“So this is what we saw with the fraud involving the daycare centers. Now we see other earmarks coming directly from members of Congress where it seems fraud is being perpetrated as well.

“I raised the issue, and fortunately, the House has now stripped that earmark out of that spending bill. But again, this is how easy money has been flowing to bad actors in Minnesota.”

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Dr. Oz Puts Tim Walz on Notice Over ‘Deep Rot’ of Minnesota’s Medicaid Fraud

Dr. Oz, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), has put Tim Walz on notice. Walz, who is so deeply embroiled in his state’s massive fraud scandal that he was forced to drop out of the Minnesota governor’s race this week, is also facing a criminal probe by the DOJ and a Congressional hearing next month.

“At CMS and HHS, we’re increasingly worried about the deep rot within Minnesota’s Medicaid and social services system, which are supposed to protect the most vulnerable Americans,” Dr. Oz said.

“The more we uncover, the more it becomes clear: it’s much worse than we were led to believe by state government officials. We’d previously learned that illegal immigrants were still getting care with allegedly state-only Medicaid programs that were actually using federal taxpayer funds,” Oz said. “And, because of that, we already withheld $1.3 billion from California, Illinois, and yes, Minnesota, which always seems to show up on the list of states with the worst fraud, waste, and abuse.”

“But this is only the tip of the iceberg,” Oz continued. “We have an unfortunate announcement for the Walz administration. They have to admit they were warned. Last month, we instructed the Walz administration to produce a corrective action plan by the end of the year, which we received late New Year’s Eve and found deeply insufficient.”

“We don’t want to hear, for example, that your state law doesn’t allow you to protect federal taxpayers from Somali fraud. And we want a sense of urgency to fix this, as well as clear milestones to hold Minnesota accountable on progress,” Oz said. 

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Keith Ellison Calls Massive Fraud ‘Not Serious’ After Audio of Him Helping Fraudsters Resurfaces

Back at the beginning of December, Townhall reported how Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was not only working to help Somali fraudsters keep access to funding, but that he allegedly received campaign donations for doing so. Here’s what American Experiment wrote about Ellison at the time:

Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Attorney General, can clearly be heard pledging his support to individuals who would soon become his family’s campaign donors and later Feeding Our Future criminal defendants.

His recorded statements flatly contradict his contemporaneous public statements and raise uncomfortable questions about the intersection between political fundraising and constituent services.

American Experiment has exclusively obtained the complete 54-minute, 44-second audio file of a private December 2021 meeting between state Attorney General (AG) Keith Ellison and key figures in the Feeding Our Future scandal.

As I wrote last week, the audio file was named as Exhibit 710 on the evidence list presented to the court by Aimee Bock’s defense attorney, Kenneth Udoibok. The recording was not offered into evidence during the six-week trial that concluded last month, with Bock’s conviction on all seven counts she faced. A timeline of relevant events can be found here.

Now Fox News has picked up the story, and Ellison is not happy about it.

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Nick Shirley Drops Another Video, and It Will Blow Your Mind

Independent journalist Nick Shirley’s back at it, and his second Minnesota fraud video packs the same explosive punch as the first.

That original 42-minute bombshell ripped the lid off Somali-run daycares that are raking in millions from taxpayers while sitting empty, while the Walz administration did nothing to stop it.

The legacy media have been aggressively trying to discredit Shirley and his reporting, but he’s not backing down. In fact, he’s doubling down with fresh footage that makes his first video look like small beans. Last month, after his team dug up over $110 million in shady dealings in just one day, Tim Walz clearly felt the heat. The Democrat governor bailed on his reelection bid, and Shirley took a much-deserved victory lap.

Since then, the situation has gotten worse for Walz. As we previously reported, Minnesota’s legislative auditor dropped a bombshell report this week, revealing that. Walz’s Department of Human Services cooked the books, skipped controls, and blew oversight of $400 million-plus in grants. Employees faked documents to dodge audits.

I suspect this could shove Walz out the door for good—and potentially land him in cuffs.

Shirley’s new video dials things up to 11.

David Hoch, co-founder of Minnesotans for Responsible Government, joined him on the ground in Minneapolis, revealing an insane truth: this fraud hits hundreds of billions nationwide. Minnesota’s slice? At least $80 billion. Layers of shell companies obscure the cash trail, including 1,200 medical transport outfits in the area that do nothing while collecting taxpayer dollars.

Hoch swears by his evidence. “I have been to many of these transportation companies, and I’ve been time-stamping my photographs for a whole year at one facility in Minneapolis, and those vans in that parking lot had not moved one inch in an entire year. They’re all still sitting there.”

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Leftist Minneapolis Livestreamer Andrew Mercado Threatens Nick Shirley and Other Right-Wing Journalists, Says Their Security ‘Will Have to Earn Their Paycheck’

Leftist livestreamer and “citizen journalist” Andrew Mercado made direct threats against Nick Shirley, Cam Higby, and other right-wing journalists during his live broadcast in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

Mercado is on the ground covering the escalating tension in the city over the shooting of a woman who attempted to run down an ICE officer earlier in the day.

The leftist activist has nearly 90,000 YouTube followers.

Mercado’s Facebook profile reads, “Editor-In-Chief at Mercado Media. YouTube Partner. Meta Partner. US Army Veteran. Minnesotan.”

During his stream from Wednesday’s protest, Mercado is seen walking among a group of activists while ranting about his plans to target “right-wing propagandists.”

“I’m going to harass the f-ck out of right-wing propagandists… tracking where they’re at and then just literally following them with a feed… They’ll have security but that’s fine,” the activist streamer stated.

Mercado continued, “Security will have to earn their paycheck that day… We have to follow Nick Shirleys and Cam Higby around… They need to not be able to move without the entire country knowing where they are at.”

The portion of his livestream was clipped and posted to X, where it now has over 100,000 views.

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Ex-Con Husband of Squad Member Ayanna Pressley Slaps Phone Out of Man’s Hands When Confronted About Fraud

Squad member Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and her ex-husband, Conan Harris, a convicted felon, do not like being confronted about allegedly defrauding American taxpayers in Minnesota. And they are willing to get violent instead of answering questions.

When asked to comment on the fraud, Pressley ignored the questioning, but Harris took it a step further and slapped the phone from the questioner’s hand.

A man is heard asking, “Congresswoman Pressley, do you support….” but before he could finish, Harris slapped the phone and it slammed to the floor.

The surprised man said, “Sir, you cannot take my phone out of my hand.”

Pressley quickly moved through the Chelsea City Hall in Chelsea, Massachusetts, ignoring the questions, as he called after her, “Congresswoman Pressley, do you support President Trump investigating Somali childcare fraud in Minnesota?”

“Congresswoman Pressley?”

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Minnesota Democrats Blocked Auditors from Tackling ‘Avalanche’ of Somali Fraud, Blacklisted Whistleblowers

The Somali-dominated Democratic political machine in Minnesota successfully silenced hundreds of government experts who tracked the huge flow of taxpayer funds through Somali-run businesses, a top Minnesota Republican told a House hearing on Wednesday.

Up to 1,000 government auditors, accountants, and program managers were silenced by Democratic threats, Minnesota House Rep. Marion Rarick told a House hearing:

The most severe ones was that they would be fired with cause so they couldn’t have unemployment insurance, that they would be blacklisted from all state agencies… [including] Hennepin County, Ramsey County. As you know, those are Democrat-run.

Many government experts, non-government professionals, and Republicans detected many of the frauds, but their voices were muffled by Democrats who allied with the Somalians’ political machine in the state. “They don’t want a fraud unit to do anything — they want a fraud unit [only] on paper,” Steve Halicki, a Minnesota fraud investigator, told a TV station in 2015.

In 2023, state employees formed an anonymous group on Twitter to report the fraud to the public: “We are over 480 Minnesota state staff serving with pride & commitment to our people & state. We strive for a better Minnesota free of fraud. Commentary Account,” they wrote.

On January 7, the group declared:

We’ve been yelling from every rooftop possible about fraud. Few understood or listened to the scale of the problem. Systemic issues mean that someone in leadership is advising or forcing staff to commit wrongdoing. And these leaders will be NAMED.

Journalists’ clout in Minneapolis has also been shattered by the political and economic power of the Somali migrants. The result is that local politicians and cops were able to ignore multiple articles and TV segments about blatant fraud by many Somali businesses.

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Questions Grow as Lt. Michael Byrd, Who Shot Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, Operates a Taxpayer-Funded Home Daycare as $190 Million in Federal Child Care Funds Flow to Maryland

In one of his autopen’s last acts before Joe Biden left office was to pardon Capt. Mike Byrd, the DC officer who shot and killed January 6 protester Ashli Babbitt in cold blood during the protests on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

As TGP’s Brian Lupo noted, video evidence captured Byrd shooting an unarmed Babbitt without warning as she attempted to climb through a narrow window near a barricaded entryway to the Speaker of the House’s office area in the U.S. Capitol.

Following an investigation, Byrd was cleared of any wrongdoing, although questions remain about the escalation to lethal force without attempts to subdue or detain Babbitt.

In the video, other armed law enforcement officers are visible in the background, appearing available to provide backup if needed.

In addition to Byrd leaving his Glock 22 service weapon in a Visitor’s Center bathroom in February 2019, Byrd also had his police powers revoked on several occasions for failing to meet semi-annual firearms qualifications standards.

Byrd expressed defiance after being pressed about killing Babbitt during an NBC interview months following the killing. He claimed that he saved “countless lives” by killing Babbitt.

He also whined that he has been getting death threats since killing the Air Force veteran. The officer said that it was “disheartening” and that he was simply “doing my job.”

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