Tag: usda

USDA Whistleblower Says Biden Regime Secretly Crushed White Farmers by Only Paying Off Farmer Loans if They Were Not White Males

A whistleblower from the Department of Agriculture told NewsNation that the Biden Administration loan relief program purposely hurt White farmers.

The Biden Regime, through the ‘American Rescue Act’ used $800 million in taxpayer money to secretly give loan forgiveness to minority farmers.

“It’s not right,” the USDA whistleblower told NewsNation. “It was discriminatory. Unethical. And the people who pushed it are still in charge of the agency … (those) at the national office. Trump hasn’t gotten rid of them.”

“So just to be clear, if you were American Indian, Alaskan, Native, Asian, Black, African American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Hispanic, or Latino and you were in that group and you were told you didn’t have to pay your bills?” NewsNation asked the whistleblower.

The whistleblower said, according to the American Rescue Plan, the relief was offered up to 120% loan to value which means the farmers could claim they were upside down to get even more cash!

“Essentially, yes, that’s correct. And that your loan would be forgiven up to 120% of the loan value,” the whistleblower said.

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Trump agency uncovers ‘one of the largest’ food stamp fraud, bribery schemes

A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) employee and five others are under arrest as of Friday morning, after allegedly misappropriating tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer food stamp funds.

“At [the] USDA, we are hyper-focused… on rooting out that waste, fraud and abuse, and… yesterday was, if not the largest, one of [the] largest stings,” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said Friday on “Mornings with Maria.”

“This is a new day, and President Trump promised, as he was traveling across the country over the last few years,” she continued, “that it would not be the government that we know.”

With the assistance of the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office, six individuals have been criminally charged with a bribe and fraud scheme that generated more than $66 million in unauthorized transactions under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps.

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Pigford, Again: Biden’s USDA Allegedly Excluded White Farmers from Loan Forgiveness

The Biden administration allegedly discriminated against white farmers in loan forgiveness, according to a whistleblower — a repeat of the Pigford scandal of 2010, with Tom Vilsack again in charge of USDA.

The Pigford scandal was exposed by Breitbart News founder Andrew Breitbart, who noted that left-wing organizers had exploited the real grievances of black farmers to conduct a covert “reparations” program.

The original Pigford settlement was reached by the Clinton administration. In 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama used the promise of wider compensation to woo rural South Carolina voters.

That promise, Breitbart alleged, was key to Obama’s insurgent win against party favorite Hillary Clinton.

Though Breitbart struggled to force the mainstream media to pay attention, the New York Times eventually vindicated his investigative reporting, a year after his death, showing how Pigford became a massive fraud:

[T]he Obama administration’s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate not just the 91 plaintiffs but thousands of Hispanic and female farmers who had never claimed bias in court.

…

From the start, the claims process prompted allegations of widespread fraud and criticism that its very design encouraged people to lie: because relatively few records remained to verify accusations, claimants were not required to present documentary evidence that they had been unfairly treated or had even tried to farm. Agriculture Department reviewers found reams of suspicious claims, from nursery-school-age children and pockets of urban dwellers, sometimes in the same handwriting with nearly identical accounts of discrimination.

…

The groups found a champion in the new agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack. New settlements would provide “a way to neutralize the argument that the government favors black farmers over Hispanic, Native American or women farmers,” an internal department memorandum stated in March 2010.

Now, another whistleblower has come forward to accuse the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) of racially discriminatory fraud once again.

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Privacy and hunger groups sue over USDA attempt to collect personal data of SNAP recipients

Privacy and hunger relief groups and a handful of people receiving food assistance benefits are suing the federal government over the Trump administration’s attempts to collect the personal information of millions of U.S. residents who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Privacy and hunger groups sue over USDA attempt to collect personal data of SNAP recipientsBy REBECCA BOONEAssociated PressThe Associated Press

Privacy and hunger relief groups and a handful of people receiving food assistance benefits are suing the federal government over the Trump administration’s attempts to collect the personal information of millions of U.S. residents who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., on Thursday says the U.S. Department of Agriculture violated federal privacy laws when it ordered states and vendors to turn over five years of data about food assistance program applicants and enrollees, including their names, birth dates, personal addresses and social security numbers.

The lawsuit “seeks to ensure that the government is not exploiting our most vulnerable citizens by disregarding longstanding privacy protections,” National Student Legal Defense Network attorney Daniel Zibel wrote in the complaint. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Mazon Inc.: A Jewish Response to Hunger joined the four food assistance recipients in bringing the lawsuit.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a social safety net that serves more than 42 million people nationwide. Under the program formerly known as food stamps, the federal government pays for 100% of the food benefits but the states help cover the administrative costs. States also are responsible for determining whether people are eligible for the benefits, and for issuing the benefits to enrollees.

As a result, states have lots of highly personal financial, medical, housing, tax and other information about SNAP applicants and their dependents, according to the lawsuit.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order March 20 directing agencies to ensure “unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs” as part of the administration’s effort to stop “ waste, fraud and abuse by eliminating information silos.”

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USDA ends ‘maximum pain bird flu gain-of-function experiments’ with Wuhan lab parent

The U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled its $1 million collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the parent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to conduct gain-of-function experiments on bird flu viruses, Secretary Brooke Rollins told Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va.

Speaking at a House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee hearing, Rollins said “it is my understanding that those [experiments] have been discontinued just in the last few months” when Cline asked for their status, started in the Biden administration, and that if she’s wrong, “then 100%, yes,” USDA will stop them.

Cline said her predecessor Tom Vilsack “defended and distorted this risky research” when Vilsack testified, denying it was a “collaboration” even though the “project title” calls it that and claiming there was no “data sharing” even though public records show USDA visiting the China lab to “share results on site.” The Chinese researcher lists the Wuhan Institute of Virology as an affiliation, Cline said.

“It is outrageous that U.S. taxpayer dollars were ever used by the Biden USDA to fund joint experiments with the Chinese Communist Party, especially research that could be catastrophic if mishandled or weaponized,” Cline said in a statement.

The White Coat Waste Project, which exposed through public records requests the five-year project on what it called “maximum pain bird flu gain-of-function experiments” on birds as young as a day old, cheered Rollins’ declaration.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay for the creation of pandemic-causing pathogens, and now, following a White Coat Waste campaign, they won’t have to,” President Anthony Bellotti said.

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USDA Trade Committee That Promotes Hemp Internationally To Be Closed Under Trump Executive Order

The Trump administration is moving to terminate trade advisory committees under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), including one that had been expanded to include hemp industry representatives to promote the crop internationally.

In a notice published in the Federal Register on Monday, USDA advised that it will be going forward with the termination of the committees in compliance with an executive order President Donald Trump signed in February that’s meant to reduce the size of the federal government across multiple agencies. The plan has been paused, however, as USDA is now asking the White House to advise on how to most efficiently facilitate the terminations.

This means the Agricultural Technical Advisory Committee (ATAC) for Trade in Tobacco, Cotton, Peanuts, and Hemp—among six other committees focused on different crops—will be shuttered. 

“It’s certainly a concern,” Jonathan Miller, general counsel at the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, told Marijuana Moment on Wednesday. “You know, the irony has been, for the past decade, we’ve wanted to be treated like every other commodity—and we got that when it comes to this commission. Now, with this broad focus we’re potentially being penalized.”

However, he said that in light of certain policy reversal amid the Trump administration’s efforts to cut spending, he remains “hopeful” that after a review, there will be “a real focus going forward on what’s meaningful and what’s not. And we think this is a meaningful program.”

The ATAC didn’t always have hemp in its title, nor representatives of the industry. But following the federal legalization of low-THC forms of the cannabis crop under the 2018 Farm Bill that Trump signed into law during his first term, USDA got to work incorporating hemp into its various policies and programs, which included its elevation within the ATAC in order to encourage international trade deals.

USDA and the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) have been gradually building up hemp industry representation within the ATAC. The first members were appointed in 2020, and the most recent joined this January, shortly before Trump took office for the second time. The name of the ATAC was changed to explicitly include hemp in 2023.

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USDA Approves Nebraska’s Banning Soda and Energy Drinks From Food Stamps

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins issued a waiver on May 19 restricting the use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds to buy soda or energy drinks in Nebraska, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a May 19 statement.

This is the first-ever state waiver banning soda and energy drinks from SNAP, popularly known as food stamps.

“Prior to this waiver, SNAP recipients could buy anything except alcohol, tobacco, hot foods, and personal care products,” said the statement.

The waiver, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2026, is part of the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, the USDA said, adding that this “historic action seeks to reverse alarming disease trends across the country.”

One in three children between the ages of 12 and 19 is affected by prediabetes, it said. Forty percent of school-aged children and adolescents suffer from at least one chronic condition, while 15 percent of students in high school drink a minimum of one soda per day.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February establishing the President’s Commission to Make America Healthy Again. The agency is tasked with investigating the “root causes of America’s escalating health crisis,” including chronic disease among children, according to a White House fact sheet.

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Lawmakers Call On USDA To End Biden Era Discriminatory Policies Against White Farmers

Wisconsin’s Republican House delegation is calling for an end to Biden-era programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture that discriminate against white male farmers. The holdover initiatives that, among other things, offer better loan terms to so-called “socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers” are at the core of civil rights legal battles four-plus years in the making. 

In a letter exclusively provided to The Federalist, the lawmakers urge Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to investigate the case of Adam Faust. The disabled Wisconsin dairy farmer “has been subjected to protected class-based discrimination by USDA … ineligible for certain USDA programs” because he is white and a man, the letter asserts. 

“President Trump has taken bold and decisive action to eliminate racially discriminatory policies within the executive branch,” the congressmen — Reps. Tony Wied, Derrick Van Orden, Tom Tiffany, Bryan Steil, Glenn Grothman, and Scott Fitzgerald — remind the Ag secretary. “Agencies, including USDA, have been ordered to terminate all race-based programs and regulations. USDA should comply with President Trump’s order immediately. Each day without reform further disadvantages farmers, like Mr. Faust, based on their immutable characteristics.”

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Former USDA Program Director Pleads Guilty in $400,000 Kickback Scheme — Faces Prison for Corruption and Abuse of Public Office

In yet another disgraceful case of federal corruption, a former United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) official has pleaded guilty to a years-long kickback scheme that bilked taxpayers out of nearly $400,000.

Kirk Perry, 60, of Lorain, Ohio, who once held a position of trust as a USDA Program Director, admitted in court to conspiring with his nephew, Jamarea Grant, 31, to defraud the federal government by submitting fraudulent invoices for work that was never done.

The scam ran unchecked from 2015 through 2022, even as Perry enjoyed the benefits of his federal post, quietly funneling money into his own pockets and betraying the public trust.

According to Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin and Special Agent in Charge Jeldrys Lowry of the USDA’s Office of Inspector General, Perry orchestrated a scheme in which his nephew was placed in a no-show job through USDA contractors, reporting directly to Perry himself. Grant received nearly $400,000 for work he never performed — with Perry signing off on it all.

Even more brazen, Perry had direct access to his nephew’s bank account and siphoned off about $125,000 of the stolen funds into his own pocket.

Perry pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to conspiracy to commit money, property, and honest services wire fraud. Grant had already pleaded guilty to the same charge last November. Perry now awaits sentencing on December 4, 2025, while Grant’s sentence is pending.

The Department of Justice confirmed that both men face up to 20 years in federal prison for their crimes.

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USDA Imposes New Verification Rules on Food Stamps to Tackle Exploitation by Illegals

The Trump administration is taking a hardline stance against illegal immigrants exploiting food stamps, issuing strict new guidance to state agencies to ramp up identity and immigration verification.

On Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Acting Deputy Under Secretary John Walk directed states running the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to tighten the screws on fraud.

The Department of Agriculture’s new rules demand states use more reliable documents to confirm identity, crack down on fake Social Security numbers, and fully utilize the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system—provided free by DHS. States are also urged to adopt stricter identification processes and conduct more in-person interviews.

A memo from Acting Deputy Under Secretary Walk noted, “By law, only United States citizens and certain lawfully present aliens may receive SNAP benefits. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-193) established that “aliens within the Nation’s borders not depend on public resources to meet their needs.” SNAP is not and has never been available to illegal aliens.”

“To ensure that tax dollars do not fund SNAP benefits to illegal aliens or other ineligible aliens, State agencies should carefully examine their identity and immigration status verification practices and make necessary enhancements.”

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