Tag: taxes

Fed prosecutor warns more arrests coming after ‘massive’ fraud found in California homeless services: ‘We followed the money’

A federal prosecutor probing corruption in California’s homeless services promised that more arrests are coming after two real estate executives were busted for allegedly bilking taxpayers out of millions.

First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli told The Post a coalition of federal agencies has uncovered wrongdoing on a staggering scale as he blasted Democrats as “colossal failures” for letting corruption fester for years.

“We followed the money and very quickly we uncovered massive amounts of fraud,” Essayli said.

The recent indictments of housing executives Cody Holmes and Steven Taylor were just the tip of the iceberg, as the duo face accusations that they pocketed state funds intended for homeless housing, the prosecutor said.

“That’s just beginning to scratch the surface,” Essayli said. “We have dozens of other investigations ongoing and we expect to bring more charges this year, and perhaps this month.”

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Dr. Oz Orders Full-Scale Federal Audit of Minnesota Medicaid Under Tim Walz — Fraud Will Be Clawed Back and Withheld From Future Funding

Dr. Mehmet Oz, acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), has formally notified Tim Walz that every Medicaid billing submission in Minnesota will be audited—and that fraudulent claims will be clawed back and withheld from future federal funding.

In early December 2025, CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz sent a formal letter and issued a public ultimatum to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz regarding the “systemic fraud” in the state’s Medicaid programs, potentially exceeding $1 billion.

Dr. Oz wrote at the time:

“You’ve probably heard the news by now: Minnesota fraudsters stole over $1 billion from Medicaid. And you deserve an explanation.

Our staff at CMS told me they’ve never seen anything like this in Medicaid — and everyone from Gov. Tim Walz on down needs to be investigated, because they’ve been asleep at the wheel. Based on what we know now, this is a clear dereliction of duty.

First, the facts:

In recent years, Minnesota Medicaid launched several new programs, including Housing Stabilization Services, which helped disabled homeless individuals, and Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention, which reimbursed therapy costs for families with autistic children.

Some bad actors in Minnesota’s Somali community decided to game the system. And when they got away with it, they decided to go bigger.

The housing program was supposed to cost $2.6 million dollars annually. Last year, it paid out over $100 million. The autism program ballooned from $3 million in 2018 to nearly $400 million in 2023.

These scammers used stolen taxpayer money to buy flashy cars, purchase overseas real estate, and offer kickbacks to parents who enrolled their kids at fake autism treatment centers. Some of it may have even made its way to the Somalian terrorist group Al-Shebab.

So why didn’t Walz stop them?

That’s simple: because he went all-in on identity politics.

Somalis are a huge voting bloc, and the state’s leaders were afraid that “forcefully tackling this issue might cause political backlash.” That’s not me saying that. It’s a Somali-American fraud investigator who talked to The New York Times.

Somali scammers get rich off the programs Gov. Walz was supposed to be managing. Minnesota politicians get elected with Somali votes and keep the money flowing. This isn’t just fraud: it’s political patronage at public expense.

When Minnesota told CMS about the problem last year, they assured us they’d handle it. By summer, it was obvious they couldn’t — or wouldn’t. So, we stepped in and shut down the worst program: housing. We also froze provider enrollment in a few of the most abused programs.

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Tim Walz Drops Out of Minnesota Governor Race. Good Riddance.

With dark clouds gathering over his previously sunny reelection bid, Tim Walz has had enough. Minnesota’s Democratic governor announced Monday he would abandon his pursuit of a third term following widespread negative publicity due to his mishandling of welfare fraud allegations.

Walz has not been accused of personal wrongdoing, but the buck stops here, as they say. Walz was the man in charge while fraudsters stole millions, or perhaps billions, of taxpayer dollars by setting up fake charities, ransacking the medical system, and operating dubious child care services. The sheer amount of plunder has attracted national media attention in recent weeks, with even The New York Times throwing Walz under the bus.

The governor’s response has not reassured his critics that he is laser focused on restoring credibility to these programs and mercilessly prosecuting thieves. It is fine to insist, as Walz has, that the entire Somali diaspora not be smeared for the criminal behavior of some community members, but the governor has made a habit of trying to redirect blame to other groups, such as white men. This is unpersuasive, since the accusations against the Somalis are about proportionality, not absolute levels of crime. Moreover, saying that we must be color-blind with respect to the ethnicities of the fraudsters while also calling for more white men to be held accountable is totally incoherent.

Unfortunately, this incoherence is broadly representative of the Walz persona. This is a man who was elevated to national prominence by Vice President Kamala Harris when she picked him to be her 2025 running mate. In Walz’s own clumsily-worded telling, she picked him because he could “code talk to white guys” like himself. He saw his job as reassuring his own identity group that they could vote for a black woman for president. It’s a reductive and extremely flawed notion of what makes for a relatable presidential ticket; Harris underperformed with men—particularly young men—of all racial backgrounds, not specifically white guys. Walz likes football and fixing trucks, so vote Harris/Walz 2024! This is identity politics at its most vacuous.

But it’s not just that Walz’s vibes are off. His governance in the state of Minnesota has been disastrous, even apart from the fraud scandal. Indeed, Walz has achieved a record as hostile to human liberty as virtually any other currently seated governor. He was, first and foremost, a COVID-19 tyrant who zealously enforced social distancing and mask requirements, including by setting up a coronavirus snitch hotline: Citizens were encouraged to report their neighbors to the government for failing to abide by COVID-19 rules. He also spent coronavirus relief money on pet projects and political kickbacks that were obviously outside the scope of what the money ought to have been used for: state workers’ parking costs, teaching women and minority owned businesses how to apply for state contracts, and the Minneapolis zoo.

For supporters of individual liberty, Walz’s various pronouncements on policy issues were like nails on a chalkboard. He said that misinformation was not protected by the First Amendment. (It is.) He said socialism was just “neighborliness.” (He should take that attitude to New York City, where it belongs, unfortunately.) He said it was “not a mistake” to send sick COVID-19 patients back to nursing homes. (Even former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has dropped that point.)

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JUST IN: Another Georgia State Democrat Lawmaker Arrested and Charged with Defrauding Federal Government

Another Georgia Democrat state lawmaker has been arrested and charged with fraud.

Georgia state Rep. Karen Bennett was indicted by a federal grand jury on Monday for Covid fraud.

Bennett is a pro-BLM, defund the police activist.

Prosecutors said Bennett defrauded taxpayers after she obtained COVID-19 unemployment benefits, despite her business remaining open during the pandemic.

She was charged with one count of false statements.

According to WSB-TV, Bennett was released on a $10,000 bond.

WSB-TV reported:

A second Georgia lawmaker has been charged with defrauding taxpayers by receiving pandemic unemployment assistance that she was not entitled to.

A federal grand jury indicted State Rep. Karen Bennett (D-Stone Mountain) on Monday.

Prosecutors say she received $13,940 for her in-home physical therapy company, Metro Therapy Providers, which she says could not operate during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, investigators say the company was only briefly closed, and remained open through the majority of the pandemic.

On her application, Bennett only reported receiving income from Metro Therapy and the Georgia General Assembly. But she failed to disclose that she was also employed through a church and receiving more than $900 weekly.

She was indicted on one count of making false statements.

Last month, Georgia Democrat state legislator Sharon Henderson was arrested and charged with defrauding the federal government.

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Joe Biden Will Receive a Record Pension of $417,000 Annually as Former President Funded by U.S. Taxpayers, Surpassing the Presidential Salary and Doubling Obama’s Pension

The former president Joe Biden is preparing to receive the highest pension in the history of U.S. former presidents, an estimated amount of 417,000 dollars annually, fully funded by taxpayers.

This figure even exceeds his presidential salary of 400,000 dollars and doubles the approximately 200,000 dollars that Barack Obama receives in his retirement, highlighting a benefits system that rewards longevity in public office at the expense of the national treasury.

According to a detailed analysis by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF), an organization dedicated to monitoring public spending, this record amount arises from a unique combination: the standard pension for former presidents, set at around 230,000 dollars annually, plus the benefits accumulated under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) for his 36 years as a senator from Delaware and eight as vice president.

NTUF experts point out that such a high payment is «historically unusual,» attributable to the maximum salaries reached during his career, adjusted for inflation and without significant caps.

This double source of income reflects how the federal system, expanded under Democratic administrations, allows the accumulation of privileges that contrast with the economic difficulties of millions of Americans, exemplifying the abuse of public money by the left, which promotes a large and costly government while ignoring the tax burden on the middle class.

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Corporation for Public Broadcasting to Shut Down After 58 Years Due to Trump Eliminating Funding

Less than a year after the Trump administration and Congress voted to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity — which helped fund the operations of local public TV and radio stations — has voted to shut down. The CPB announced Monday that its board of directors voted to close the organization after 58 years, rather than continue to exist and potentially be “vulnerable to future political manipulation or misuse.”

The CPB was created by Congress by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to support the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting. The org noted that the rescission of all of CPB’s federal funding came after years of political attacks.

“For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americans—regardless of geography, income, or background—had access to trusted news, educational programming, and local storytelling,” said CPB president/CEO Patricia Harrison. “When the Administration and Congress rescinded federal funding, our Board faced a profound responsibility: CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks.

CPB Board of Directors chair Ruby Calvert called the move — and what has happened to public media — “devastating.”

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Trump cuts off $10B in funding to five blue states for child care, social services over fraud fears

The Trump administration is cutting off more than $10 billion in social services and child care funding meant for a handful of Democrat-led states over concerns that the benefits were fraudulently funneled to non-citizens, officials told The Post Monday.

The Department of Health and Human Services will freeze taxpayer funding from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and the Social Services Block Grant program.

At least $7.35 billion in TANF money will be prevented from going to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York.

The CCDF funding block of nearly $2.4 billion affects all those states.

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HHS ENDS Biden’s Massive Child Care FRAUD Scheme That Let States Pay Providers Without Verifying Attendance

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has officially moved to dismantle a sweeping Biden-era child care scheme that allowed states to shovel billions in federal dollars to child care providers without verifying whether children were actually present, a reckless policy now linked to massive fraud investigations, particularly in Democrat-run hellholes like Minnesota.

Under the leadership of President Trump, HHS, through its Administration for Children and Families, is rescinding provisions of the 2024 Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) rule imposed under Joe Biden.

“Congress appropriated this funding to support working families and ensure children have safe places to grow and learn,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“Loopholes and fraud diverted that money to bad actors instead. Today, we are correcting that failure and returning these funds to the working families they were meant to serve.”

The Biden regime’s insanity included:

  • Forcing payments on enrollment alone, not verified attendance
  • Mandating upfront cash to providers before any care was even provided
  • Push states toward provider contracts instead of parent-directed vouchers

But under President Trump’s triumphant return and HHS’s new rule changes:

  • Attendance-based billing is BACK! States can now demand proof that kids are actually there before handing over a dime.
  • No more free money upfront! Payments after services
  • Parental choice restored! Vouchers over crony contracts

The New York Post reported:

The President Biden rule took effect on April 30, 2024, meaning more than $19.3 billion in taxpayer dollars over 20 months may have been spent before President Trump could correct provisions that could have prolonged massive day care fraud in Minnesota.

[…]

Between 2021 and 2024, the Administration for Children and Families shelled out more than $91.8 billion from its Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), a federal block grant program that helps fund child care in states, US territories and tribes, per HHS data.

A whopping $56 billion went out the door just in 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The officials froze all future funding from CCDF — the third-largest block grant program after Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grants — last week until states can verify there is no fraud.

[…]

More than a decade before, HHS’ Office of Inspector General audited states and found tens of millions of dollars were being erroneously paid out to child care centers.

The consequences of Biden’s lax rules are playing out most dramatically in Minnesota, where allegations have surfaced that daycare providers collected hundreds of millions of dollars for children who never showed up or didn’t exist at all.

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“More to Come” – HHS Deputy Secretary Hints Something Big Is Coming as Questions Swirl Around Somali UN Ambassador’s Ties to Ohio Health Agency Convicted of Medicaid Fraud

The Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is signaling that major revelations are imminent involving Somalia’s sitting ambassador to the United Nations, a man who now presides over the UN Security Council while allegedly tied to an Ohio healthcare company convicted of Medicaid fraud.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported on troubling new evidence showing that Abukar Dahir Osman, Somalia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, once worked deep inside Ohio’s Medicaid bureaucracy and later ran — or was formally associated with — an Ohio home healthcare company now appearing on a federal fraud exclusion list.

Osman, often referred to by the nickname “Baale,” has served as Somalia’s UN ambassador since 2017. As of this month, he holds one of the most powerful rotating posts in global diplomacy: President of the UN Security Council.

In that role, Osman:

  • Oversees Security Council meetings
  • Sets the Council’s agenda
  • Manages resolutions and presidential statements
  • Speaks for the A3+ bloc (African nations plus Caribbean representation) on major global conflicts, including Afghanistan and Yemen

But long before wielding global authority in New York, Osman built his career inside Ohio’s taxpayer-funded welfare and Medicaid system.

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BEYOND PARODY: Craigslist Ad From a Daycare Center in Minneapolis Seeks to Hire 20 Child Actors

This is just too funny to be real. A post on Craigslist in the city of Minneapolis is supposedly from a daycare center that is looking to hire up to twenty child actors.

Since anyone can post something on the marketplace/message board website, it could be from anyone, but given the intellect of the Minneapolis fraudsters we have seen in recent weeks, it may very well be real.

In their defense, they are at least offering good money for the actors they seek to hire.

PJ Media reported:

Is a Minneapolis ‘Daycare’ Trying to Hire Child Actors on Craigslist?

Either a Minneapolis fake daycare is actually trying to hire child actors to restart taxpayer funding or someone is playing a truly extraordinary practical joke on Craigslist users.

A listing posted several days ago on Craigslist from “Help Us Daycare” actually advertises a desire to hire “child actors for 3 day contract (Ventura Village).”. The listing claims the daycare lost state funding due to “white supremacy” and asserts that it needs to hire 20 child actors for a few days to show up to the fake daycare because the “ENTIRE client base has already found new daycare services.” So when the state investigators arrive, the listing explains, kids need to be on site. The listing seems too insane to be sincere. On the other hand, when you consider the craziness uncovered in the Minnesota Somali daycare fraud investigation, perhaps this entry warrants a little government scrutiny…

The Craigslist listing rambles, “Due to this insane poor decision clear in white supremacy, we had to close our doors immediately. We must prove we are a function day care to get the funding back. The issue is, the ENTIRE client base has already found new daycare services so we need to find new clients base quickly.” I would feel more confidence in the alleged functionality of the daycare if the person composing this could actually write English.

The crazy listing continues, “To help hurry this state vetting processes, we are looking to hire 20 child actors for 3 days, while state is present on site. We pay up to $1500 actor, per day. If you are interest, please send your child’s age and a note of what makes your child a special actor. Submit phone number as well, as we will be doing quick phone interviews as part of hire process.” The tone is certainly rather desperate.

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