Tag: taxes

DOJ Charges California Food Stamp Official for Sending Benefits to Dead People – Then Spending Them

Federal prosecutors have charged a longtime California welfare worker with carrying out a multi-year fraud scheme involving food assistance benefits and dead people.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of former Madera County benefits eligibility worker Leticia Mariscal, 55, of Madera.

Prosecutors alleged that Mariscal stole tens of thousands of dollars in CalFresh benefits by exploiting her access to county databases.

CalFresh is California’s version of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

According to the Justice Department, the alleged scheme took place between December 2020 and April 2025.

Mariscal is accused of improperly accessing identifying information for elderly and deceased individuals.

Authorities said she secretly approved those individuals for CalFresh benefits.

Prosecutors alleged that she then printed EBT cards in their names. Benefits were then deposited onto the cards and allegedly spent by Mariscal herself.

Federal authorities say that more than 15 identities were used in the scheme, The New York Post reported.

The total amount allegedly stolen was at least $40,000.

The case reportedly came to light after the son of a 91-year-old woman living in a nursing home questioned why his mother was receiving food assistance.

Investigators later confronted Mariscal with security footage, according to the complaint.

She allegedly admitted to the conduct after being shown the footage.

Prosecutors said she attempted to shift blame to a former boyfriend she had described as a gang member.

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Somali ‘Medicaid Mogul’ Accused Of Looting Maine Taxpayers, Family Allegedly Put Bounty On Reporter

If you thought the alleged Medicaid fraud in Minnesota by Somalis, which federal prosecutors say could reach $9 billion, was insane, wait until you read the latest report from The Maine Wire: the head of a local nonprofit is accused of lashing out at a local journalist over an investigation, while members of his family allegedly put a bounty on the head of a journalist in Somalia for sharing the reporting.

Earlier this month, Abdullahi Ali, the Executive Director of Health Services contractor Gateway Community Services, was accused of ripping off taxpayers.

NewsNation spoke with a whistleblower who spilled the beans: false records were filed for services that were never provided…

A former Gateway employee, Christopher Bernardini, said the nonprofit was reimbursed with tax dollars from Maine’s Medicaid program and later with federal tax dollars from the Paycheck Protection Program.

While heading up the nonprofit in Maine, Ali was also running for President of Jubbaland in Africa. He boasted to a Kenyan media outlet about how he helped raise funds for the Jubaland Somali army to buy guns and bullets.

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Flushing Chicago’s Future When Rhetoric Replaces Revenue

It’s a sound we all dread: the toilet keeps running long after the handle drops. Water drains, money slips away, and the bill still comes. Anyone standing there nodding, pretending the noise signals progress, must live in Chicago politics—ignoring the damage quietly spreading beneath the floor.

A Mayor at War With Arithmetic

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson keeps insisting he likes business while governing as though payroll offends his values, despite policies that act like our running toilet: employers leave, investment slows, and taxes rise to plug holes, all while policies are openly hostile to growth.

Revenue is treated as an abstraction by leaders rather than wages earned by people who can still pack up and go. Budgets never care about slogans, because when employers exit, residents pay the difference. No matter how well-written, no speech fixes arithmetic.

A City Built on Strength, Undermined by Control

Once, in a time that seems like a galaxy far, far away, Chicago once stood for grit, industry, and upward mobility. Railroads, stockyards, steel, and trade rewarded their leaders’ effort and risk. Governance, consolidated power, and narrow decision-making did something that should never happen: they flushed that spirited grit away, leaving a political structure that rewards insiders and punishes independence.

It’s a script that never changes: predictable election outcomes, concentrated turnout that allows the machines to endure. Leaders hostile to growth arrive preselected rather than challenged.

When Rhetoric Replaces Revenue

The latest version of leadership talks endlessly about equity while ignoring flight. Taxes increase not by choice but by necessity after revenue leaves. Businesses respond to pressure the same way families respond when their neighborhoods become dangerous.

They move.

When each person or entity leaves, their departure tightens the vise on those left behind. Leadership talks endlessly about equity while ignoring flight. Taxes rise not by choice, but by necessity after revenue leaves. 

Businesses respond to pressure the same way families respond to unsafe neighborhoods. They move. Each departure tightens the vise on those left behind. With rising property taxes, multiplying fees, and already-weakened services, officials scold rather than adjust, blaming greed rather than reading the trail they’re leaving.

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Nine US attorneys resign over Trump administration’s ‘fraudulent’ anti-Semitism probe

Nine US attorneys resigned after being pressured by the administration of President Donald Trump to conclude that campuses had violated the civil rights of Jewish students and staff, according to a Los Angeles Times investigation exposing what has been described as a politically driven and legally baseless campaign targeting pro-Palestinian activism at the University of California (UC).

In interviews with The Times, nine former Department of Justice (DoJ) attorneys said they were instructed to prepare lawsuits against UC campuses even before investigations had begun, a practice one attorney described as a “fraudulent and sham investigation.”

“Initially we were told we only had 30 days to come up with a reason to be ready to sue UC,” said Ejaz Baluch, a former senior trial attorney tasked with probing alleged anti-Semitism at UCLA. “It shows just how unserious this exercise was. It was not about trying to find out what really happened.”

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House Oversight Chair James Comer DESTROYS “Dollar Store Obama” Hakeem Jeffries After “Malignant Clown” Attack in Defense of Tim Walz and Somali Fraudsters

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) came out swinging on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) in response to a recent press conference where Jeffries called him “a joke, an embarrassment, an unserious individual, and a malignant clown.”

This comes after the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation earlier this month into the widespread welfare and social services fraud perpetrated by Somali aliens, who stole billions of dollars from the state and federal government.

“The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating reports of widespread fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs. The Committee has serious concerns about how you as the Governor, and the Democrat-controlled administration, allowed millions of dollars to be stolen. The Committee also has concerns that you and your administration were fully aware of this fraud and chose not to act for fear of political retaliation,” James Comer wrote in a letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison.

“The Committee therefore requests documents and communications showing what your administration knew about this fraud and whether you took action to limit or halt the investigation into this widespread fraud.”

Additionally, as The Gateway Pundit reported, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has launched his own investigation into the money trail and potential ties to terrorism.

On Thursday, a reporter asked Jeffries if he thinks Walz and Ellison should cooperate with the Committee’s investigation and whether or not he’s worried about the billions of stolen tax dollars in Minnesota.

But instead of even addressing the question, Jeffries went on a baseless attack against Comer and sounded like a bigger retard than Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

“James Comer is a joke, an embarrassment, an unserious individual, and a malignant clown,” Jeffries said before overconfidently pointing to another reporter.

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Media ‘complicity’ blamed as feds say Minnesota fraud crisis could reach $9B: ‘Shown their true colors’

Minnesota’s sprawling fraud crisis has garnered national headlines in recent weeks, but several critics say the problem festered for years, aided by local media that appeared uninterested in holding people in power accountable. 

“In newsrooms, they’re told, ‘We can’t run that because we’re going to be accused of being racist,’” Townhall columnist Dustin Grage recently told Fox News Digital about news outlets in Minnesota essentially enabling the fraud by not calling out shocking taxpayer waste occurring primarily within the local Somali community.

The outlet that is considered by many the top news source in the region, the Minnesota Star Tribune, has faced criticism on social media in recent days over some of its headlines, including “Minnesota Somali community grapples with fraud cases while pushing back against stereotypes” on Nov. 26 and “Trump claims Minnesota lost billions to fraud. The evidence to date isn’t close” on Dec. 11. 

On Thursday, federal prosecutors held a press conference where they revealed that the true scope of the fraud scandal could end up costing taxpayers around $9 billion, prompting some conservatives on social media to point out the Dec. 11 headline.

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Education Secretary Demands Tim Walz Resigns – Somalian Crime Ring Expands

Fraudsters found every angle to syphon money away from taxpayers under Tim Walz’s failed leadership. Education Secretary Linda McMahon is now urging Walz to resign after it emerged that criminals in Minnesota stole over $12 million from the US Department of Education.

“At the beginning of this year, the U.S. Department of Education became aware that fraudulent college applicants, especially concentrated in Minnesota, were gaming the federal postsecondary education system to collect money that was intended for young Americans to help them afford college,” wrote McMahon.

These bad actors used the same ploy to extort money through programs intended to feed poor children and filed applications on behalf of “ghost students” who never existed. These individuals did not need to verify their ID. Some applicants did not even live in the United States if they existed at all. There were 1,834 approved “ghost students” in Minnesota who received a total of $12.5 million in grants and loans.

A teacher at Century College in Minnesota revealed that 15% of his students were “basically an organized crime ring.” Minnesota State College Southeast experienced a spike in new applicants driven by 84 ghost students, who were primarily Somalian. Some of these students enroll in online courses and attend class for the 10 required days to receive financial aid.

“They collected checks from the federal government, shared a small portion of the money with the college, and pocketed the rest — without attending the college at all,” said McMahon. “Our new fraud prevention system has now blocked more than $1 billion in attempted financial aid theft by fraudsters, including coordinated international fraud rings and AI bots pretending to be students.”

Somalian crime organizations have found methods to steal from taxpayers through programs for education, food stamps, COVID, small businesses, childhood disability assistance, and elderly care. The welfare state has become their personal piggy bank. What has Walz done to curtail crime? Absolutely nothing. Over $1 billion has gone missing under Walz, which is far too high to be considered a mere oversight.

Walz plans to seek a third term in 2026, as Minnesota has no term limits for governors. He says that he will take accountability but has not taken any steps to curtail fraud. He refuses to accept that these crime rings are connected to Somalian crime organizations. Walz has every intention of expanding the unregulated welfare state and will not hesitate to raise taxes on the very people these programs are designed to assist.

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Justice Department Quietly Reverses Clinton-Era Rule On Immigrant Welfare Benefits

For almost 30 years, a key part of America’s 1996 welfare reform laws has existed mostly on paper after the Clinton DOJ effectively nullified it with a loophole. Now, the Trump DOJ says it’s time to enforce those laws as Congress originally wrote them.

Earlier this week, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel quietly reversed a Clinton-era legal opinion that had sharply limited when immigrants could be denied federal welfare benefits. The earlier interpretation narrowed the law so much, critics say, that it allowed many immigrants – including some who were not lawfully eligible – to continue receiving benefits Congress intended to restrict.

The new DOJ opinion restores a broader reading of the law, potentially expanding waiting periods for benefits, strengthening sponsor repayment requirements, and closing loopholes that have existed since the late 1990s.

What Congress Intended in 1996

In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) along with major immigration reforms. The message was straightforward: immigrants should be self-sufficient, public benefits should not encourage immigration, and American taxpayers should not be responsible for supporting new arrivals.

To enforce those goals, Congress created several rules:

  • Most lawful permanent residents were barred from receiving “means-tested” federal benefits during their first five years in the U.S.
  • Family members who sponsored immigrants had to sign legally binding affidavits promising to support them.
  • If a sponsored immigrant received certain benefits, the government could seek reimbursement from the sponsor.
  • When agencies evaluated eligibility for benefits, they were required to count the sponsor’s income as part of the immigrant’s resources.

Congress defined “federal public benefit” broadly but never formally defined the term “federal means-tested public benefit.” That gap would become critical.

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Secretary of State Rubio Confirms ENDING NGO ‘Foreign Aid Industrial Complex’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio made it very clear that the days of NGOs, an integral part of the ‘Foreign Aid Industrial Complex’, sending aid often in direct opposition to America’s priorities, are over.

Rubio told reporters, “Foreign aid should be used for the purpose of furthering the national interest. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about human rights. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about starvation. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about hunger. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about humanitarian need.”

“What it does mean, however, is that even foreign aid, which is NOT charity – it is an act of the US taxpayer.”

In July, Rubio signaled the changes when he announced that USAID would no longer send foreign assistance across the globe.

Rubio noted that USAID had, for decades, failed to ensure the programs it funded actually supported America’s interests.

The State Department took over foreign assistance programs beginning on July 1.

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FBI Raids Somali-Owned ‘Health Services’ Business in Minnesota as Medicaid Fraud Exceeds $9 Billion

The FBI on Thursday raided a Somali-owned ‘health services’ business in Bloomington, Minnesota, after the Health and Human Services Department flagged it for fraud.

FBI agents were spotted carrying boxes out of Somali-owned Ultimate Home Health Services.

Fox 9 reported:

FBI agents raided the offices of a Bloomington business on Thursday, days after the State of Minnesota suspended a business license at that address citing fraud.

A FOX 9 crew witnessed FBI agents and other federal investigators carrying boxes from a business in a plaza off 17th Avenue South near Old Shakopee Road East. The business is located in a suite next to a pizza shop, an Asian market, and a laundry mat.

Inside the building, there was damage to a door belonging to Ultimate Home Health Services which appeared to have been forced open.

A letter dated Dec. 5 shows the Department of Human Services had suspended the license for Ultimate Home Health Services, a home and community-based service, citing the risk of fraud.

“This immediate suspension is based on a determination that persons served by your program are at an imminent risk of harm and because the holder and controlling individual are the subjects of a pending administrative action related to fraud against the program which is administered by a state agency,” the letter states.

The letter goes on to say that the state determined clients for the business were not required services, a client who died hadn’t been reported, and staff had provided false information to DHS licensors. The letter also states that the license holder is already facing administrative action for fraud against the program.

Assistant US Attorney Joe Thompson on Thursday said the Somali fraud may have ballooned to $18 billion.

“The fraud is not small. It isn’t isolated. The magnitude cannot be overstated,” Thompson said.

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