Tag: welfare

The ‘Minnesota Millionaire’ Exposed A ‘Fully Weaponized’ Welfare Loophole

They call him the “Minnesota Millionaire,” a wealthy retiree who helped expose how a loophole in the food stamp program is being abused and screwing taxpayers out of billions of dollars. 

“I like to say I audited the program. And what better way to audit the program than to be a part of it?” Rob Undersander told The Federalist in a phone interview this week. 

Over the past decade, the retired engineer has been a crusader against the federal Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE) policy, a welfare enhancer with roots in the Clinton administration that has incentivized wholesale theft from U.S. taxpayers ever since. Undersander has worked alongside the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) to end the BBCE loophole and prevent millionaires like himself from tapping into benefits they have no business receiving. 

In a new video exclusively provided to The Federalist, FGA breaks down the scam that more than 40 states have used to balloon the nation’s welfare rolls. The foundation calls it “fraud by design.”  

“In fact, millions of food stamp recipients exceed the federal asset or income limits,” the video explains. Roughly one in five of those Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients count assets of $100,000 or more, the FGA notes. 

Undersander began “auditing” the SNAP program in 2016 — by collecting SNAP benefits. 

‘Fully Weaponized the Loophole’

The retiree was volunteering at the Central Minnesota Council on Aging, helping seniors sign up for Medicare plans, when he learned about Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility. The loophole helps states bypass federal food stamp eligibility requirements, specifically income and asset thresholds. The latter limits take into account liquid assets, such as cash on hand or readily available money in bank accounts. Wealth in property, retirement accounts, life insurance, personal goods and other possessions don’t count toward the asset limits.

States get around the limits through the so-called “non-cash benefit” provision. 

“If someone is deemed eligible to receive other welfare benefits, they automatically qualify for food stamps,” FGA explains in the video. “And states have fully weaponized this loophole.” 

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Political pressure from Somali community hampered Minnesota fraud probes, whistleblower says

A key whistle-blower, and one of the first to draw attention to what he believed was widespread fraud in the Minnesota welfare system, says that state officials hampered probes into the allegations over concerns about pressure from the state’s Somali immigrant community. 

That community has been at the center of recent welfare fraud accusations, including the Feeding Our Future fraud case, in which prosecutors say more than 70 defendants — most of them part of Minneapolis’ Somali community — were charged in connection to a $250 million pandemic-era fraud on a state-funded meals program for children. 

Last year, new charges in the Feeding Our Future case sparked renewed interest in the state’s federally-funded daycare program. Independent journalists flocked to Minneapolis and recorded videos of empty daycare centers that had received millions in state grants. 

“It was obvious that they were committing fraud”: DHS investigator

But, concerns about Minneapolis daycare centers go back at least a decade, according to the whistle-blower, Scott Dexter, who worked as an investigator at the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) from 2013 to 2019. He told Just the News that his team uncovered evidence of fraud in the state’s taxpayer-funded daycare system almost immediately after he started his work. 

“The very first [daycare] that we investigated […] had received about $3.75 million in one year, and so it was obvious that they were committing fraud,” Dexter told the Just the News, No Noise TV show on Tuesday.  

“And the number of these childcare centers would be owned by the same owners, or there’d be, you know, intertwined people involved in it. So one daycare center was involved with another daycare center, so it was obvious that it was a coordinated fraud scheme,” said Dexter. 

In his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year, Dexter said that he was hired after a 28-year law enforcement career to be part of a new investigative unit in the Office of the Inspector General at the Minnesota DHS tasked with identifying fraud in the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). 

Dexter testified that what his team uncovered was “deeply concerning” regarding daycare centers operating out of commercial spaces “with windows covered, no visible play areas, and very few children ever present.” After reviewing records and surveilling locations, they found “documented patterns of overbilling, nonexistent attendance, and in some cases, children being signed in for hours they were never actually at the center.” 

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America Last: War Abroad, Tyranny at Home—and the Theft of a Nation

“We’re fighting wars, we can’t take care of … daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things… We have to take care of one thing: military protection.”—President Donald J. Trump

Every bomb dropped abroad is a bill sent home.

Every war waged in the name of “security” is paid for by Americans who go without—without affordable healthcare, without stable housing, without a government that prioritizes their well-being.

As the U.S. pours trillions into endless wars and military expansion, Americans are left paying the price—not just in dollars, but in lost freedoms and eroded constitutional protections.

This is not national defense.

This is organized theft.

While Americans struggle with rising gas prices, soaring grocery bills, and mounting debt—fueled in part by reckless tariffs and preemptive wars—the federal government is spending money it doesn’t have on military expansion, foreign conflicts, and presidential excess.

This is not America First.

If anything, it is becoming painfully clear that Donald Trump’s “America First” approach to governing puts America last every time.

Trump has not made it a priority to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure. He has not made it a priority to invest in innovation or ensure that the nation remains competitive in a rapidly advancing technological world. Nor has he shown much concern for caring for veterans, the elderly, or the young.

Instead, the government is cutting back on programs that make Americans healthier, smarter, and more secure—while the president builds monuments to himself and indulges in a taxpayer-funded lifestyle of staggering excess.

Despite once claiming he would be too busy to play golf, Trump is on track to leave taxpayers with a bill exceeding $300 million in travel and security expenses—much of it tied to frequent trips to his Florida properties. Each visit to Mar-a-Lago costs an estimated $3.4 million.

Meanwhile, taxpayers are shelling out $273,063 per hour to keep Air Force One in the air.

And while millions of Americans struggle to afford basic necessities, Trump is demanding $377 million—an 866 percent increase—to renovate the White House residence.

But these excesses, outrageous as they are, pale in comparison to the true cost of this administration’s priorities: war.

The Trump administration has requested $1.5 trillion for its FY 2027 military budget—separate from an additional $200 billion in emergency funding for the war in Iran.

The sitting president of the United States is spending money that is not his to spend in order to fight endless wars unauthorized by Congress that do nothing to protect the American people or our interests, while insisting that the federal government’s only priority should be the military industrial complex.

In addition to increasing the budget for the military, prisons, nuclear weapons, and a weaponized Justice Department, the Trump administration has also proposed budget cuts of $73 billion to non-military programs—slashing funding for medical research, public schools, and low-income heating assistance, as well as cuts to affordable housing, job training, small-business lending, anti-poverty programs, agriculture, NASA, research in social sciences and economics, humanitarian assistance and global health programs, among others.

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FRAUD FUGITIVE ON THE RUN: $11M Medicaid Scam Suspect Flees U.S. Before Trial After Posting Bond — Critics BLAST Tim Walz’s “Soft-on-Crime” System for Letting Him Keep Passport

In another jaw-dropping example of Minnesota’s collapsing justice system under far-left Governor Tim Walz, a major fraud kingpin in the state’s largest-ever Medicaid scam has skipped the country, just days before his high-profile trial was set to begin.

Abdirashid Said, the top defendant in a sprawling $11 million personal care assistant (PCA) fraud scheme, is now a fugitive after skipping a scheduled pretrial hearing in Hennepin County.

The trial, expected to last weeks and expose a massive web of fraud targeting taxpayer-funded Medicaid programs, has now been abruptly canceled.

According to reporting from KARE 11’s Lou Raguse, Said had been facing serious charges including racketeering, aiding and abetting theft by swindle, and perjury.

Prosecutors alleged he played a central role in a coordinated scheme involving PCA companies that billed Medicaid for services that were never performed, effectively siphoning millions from taxpayers.

Said had already been convicted of fraud in a previous scheme and was ordered by a judge NOT to work for any company receiving Medicaid funds, KARE 11 reported.

Yet he allegedly continued the grift, complete with perjury on the witness stand, where he claimed massive checks were just “loans and gifts” to pay off prior restitution.

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Welfare Loophole That Lets Millionaires Get Food Stamps

Rob Undersander is a millionaire. He also received taxpayer-funded food stamps. His story illustrates an absurd – and intentional – loophole in America’s welfare system that taxpayers need closed immediately.

Rob applied for food stamps in 2016. A Minnesota resident, he clearly exceeded the program’s asset limits. But in the application process, he was deemed eligible to receive a brochure on domestic violence services, which under state policy allowed him to receive food stamps. Three weeks later, his first food-stamp benefits arrived in the mail. The taxpayer cash arrived like clockwork for the next 19 months, ultimately amounting to more than $6,000. (Rob only did this to prove the system was broken, and instead of keeping the money, he donated every penny to charity.)

It’s no accident that despite being a millionaire, Rob received welfare payments that are supposed to be for the truly vulnerable. The federal government and states have conspired to create a system that intentionally bypasses the program’s eligibility standards. Call it fraud by design.

Federal law establishes two ways to qualify for stamps – either by meeting the income and asset limits, or by qualifying for a cash welfare program. But in 1999, the Clinton administration issued guidance that lets states decide what qualifies as a benefit under those programs. States have responded by offering benefits that are nothing of the kind, in a deliberate attempt to bypass the asset and income limits for food stamps. The domestic violence brochure that Rob received is a good example. States routinely print pamphlets or establish hotlines that have nothing to do with food stamps, yet states deem them as benefits that let ineligible people get on the program anyway.

The Clinton administration frankly admitted the guidance violated congressional intent. The Obama administration later encouraged as many states as possible to use this loophole, while giving it a formal name: “Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility.” Today, 43 states and Washington, D.C.. have embraced this fraud. Our organization estimates that at least 5.9 million otherwise ineligible people are enrolled in food stamps through this loophole. They are also a major reason why at least one out of every $10 spent on food stamps is improper.

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SoCal: Orange County Man Pleads Guilty to Submitting $270 Million in Fraudulent Claims to Medi-Cal in 11 Months: DOJ

A man in Orange County, California, pleaded guilty to orchestrating a scheme to steal $270 million in bogus Medi-Cal claims in 11 months, the DOJ announced on Tuesday.

“Paul Richard Randall, 66, of Orange, pleaded guilty Monday to one count of wire fraud committed while on release. He has been in federal custody since June 2025,” the DOJ said.

According to federal prosecutors, Randall and others, through a business called Monte Vista Pharmacy, submitted claims for expensive prescription drugs that contained generic ingredients that were “not medically necessary.”

Monte Vista Pharmacy billed Medi-Cal millions of dollars a month after it suspended its requirement that healthcare providers “obtain prior authorization before providing certain health care services or medications as a condition of reimbursement,” the DOJ said.

Medi-Cal suspended the prior authorization as it transitioned to a new payment system.

Of the $270 million that was billed to Medi-Cal, Randall and his co-conspirators received $178 million.

Randall and the other defendants laundered the money by transferring the funds to a third party to pay “kickbacks” to Patricia Anderson, 58, of West Hills.

Randall is facing up to 30 years in federal prison.

“This defendant used a public health program as his personal piggy bank,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. “This guilty plea should send a message that this administration — consistent with the President’s war on fraud — will not turn a blind eye while criminals fleece taxpayers.”

“Thanks to the leadership of President Donald Trump, the Department, working closely with the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, is supercharging efforts to take down every fraudster and bring them to justice,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“In one day, the Department prosecuted the theft of a half-billion in taxpayer dollars. All those ripping off the American people are on notice,” Blanche added.

“The defendant was a repeat fraudster who caused Medi-Cal, a program designed to help those in need, to be billed nearly $270 million for expensive and medically unnecessary medications,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

“He and his co-schemers stole over $178 million through false and fraudulent claims for these medications, lining their own pockets with public funds. The Criminal Division will aggressively prosecute those who defraud Medicaid and exploit taxpayer-funded benefit programs,” he said.

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Trump Admin Busts Open Gavin Newsom’s $146 BILLION Medi-cal FRAUD Machine

Fox News just laid bare the staggering scale of waste, fraud, and abuse plaguing California’s Medi-Cal program under Governor Gavin Newsom.

In a hard-hitting segment, Kayleigh McEnany highlighted the eye-watering numbers: $146 billion per year lost to fraud in the state’s Medicaid expansion.

“That is slightly more than Warren Buffett’s estimated net worth. It is more than the GDP of several small countries,” McEnany stated.

The revelation comes as the Trump administration ramps up its nationwide assault on entitlement fraud through the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force and aggressive oversight by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Oz didn’t hold back when asked about the bigger picture.

“How big do you think this fraud is nationwide?” McEnany pressed.

“We believe nationwide it’s $100 billion in Medicare and Medicaid,” Oz replied. “If you’re worried about Medicare being there for you… and you’re worried that it’s going to expire… This fraud, getting rid of it, will DOUBLE the life expectancy of the Medicare trust fund.”

He added, “That’s a massive increase in numbers of years of extra Americans can trust that the program will be there for them.”

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Trump says workers must pay for imperialist war with cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and daycare

Speaking at a closed Easter lunch at the White House on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump declared that the federal government should stop paying for daycare, Medicare and Medicaid, all of which, he indicated, must be sacrificed for imperialist war.

“Don’t send any money for daycare,” Trump said, because “we’re fighting wars.” He went on, “You gotta let states take care of daycare and they should pay for it too … Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,” insisting that Washington had to concern itself with only “one thing, military protection.”

He added that the federal government’s role was to “guard the country,” before dismissing Social Security, which serves more than 70 million people; Medicare, which covers about 68 million; and Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program), which together cover more than 75 million people, including about 36 million children, as “little scams.”

The remarks, delivered in a setting where Trump evidently felt free to speak more openly than usual, were a blunt threat against programs on which millions of workers and their family members depend. Capitalist politicians generally avoid such direct attacks on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security because these programs remain deeply embedded in the lives of working people who have paid into them for decades. Trump, however, stated with unusual candor the real priorities of the ruling class.

The significance of the remarks lies not only in their content but in the circumstances under which they were made. The Easter lunch was closed to the press, and video of the event was briefly posted by the White House and then deleted. In contrast to Trump’s later scripted primetime address on Iran, the lunch exposed a more direct statement of policy: Social spending is to be gutted, while war spending is treated as the only indispensable function of the state.

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Minnesota Judge Hands Somali Fraudster Just 6 Months After $500K Theft in Child Food Scam

A fraudster in the massive “Feeding Our Future” scandal has received just six months in jail after stealing nearly half a million dollars in taxpayer money meant for children.

Zamzam Jama was sentenced to six months behind bars and ordered to repay $491,000 for her role in the scheme.

The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel, who was somehow appointed by President Trump back in 2018, one day after a co-conspirator received only a one-year term.

Brasel has previously ruled in favor of mail-in voting and counting ballots days or even weeks after an election has concluded. Mail-in ballots are the most common method that Democrats use to cheat.

The case involves one of the largest fraud operations in recent U.S. history.

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Forget Minnesota – The Amount Of Fraud Uncovered In California Is Staggering

California is a cash machine. The state collects some of the country’s highest income, business, and fuel taxes, and now spends more than $300 billion per year. And yet, everywhere you look, California seems to be falling apart.

The roads are crumbling. Mismanaged wildfires have turned neighborhoods into ash. Drug addiction and homelessness have metastasized, turning parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco into no-go zones. And the cost-of-living crisis is pricing middle-class taxpayers out of basic necessities like groceries and gas, even as the state spends billions on welfare programs that never seem to lift anyone out of poverty.

Californians are beginning to ask: Where is all this money going? On paper, it funds hospitals, universities, schools, prisons, infrastructure, and other public services. But beneath the surface, something else is happening that California Governor Gavin Newsom does not want you to see: massive, systematic, brazen fraud.

We conducted interviews with public officials, fraud experts, and political figures, and reviewed hundreds of pages of government reports, state audits, criminal indictments, and other public records on California fraud. From unemployment insurance and Medicaid to failed homeless initiatives and welfare programs, seemingly every state program has been compromised by criminals. The best estimates suggest that, on the governor’s watch, fraudsters, scammers, and organized crime rings have stolen at least $180 billion from taxpayers.

Welcome to Gavin Newsom’s empire of fraud.

Fourteen months after Newsom began his first term as governor of California, the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world. Roughly 2.7 million Californians eventually lost their jobs. The state’s economy went into freefall as its leaders imposed some of the country’s most restrictive public-health measures. In response to the crisis, Newsom sought to dump pallets of cash across the state—as quickly as possible.

One way to inject money was through California’s massive unemployment insurance program (UI). Unemployment insurance is administered by the state’s Employment Development Department (EDD), which can process billions of dollars in payments monthly. Before the state turned on the cash machine, however, experts had warned that the system was ripe for fraud.

Haywood Talcove, one of America’s leading fraud specialists and CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government, was one such expert. “I was begging [federal officials] not to let the money go out like that, because it was going to be the biggest fraud in the history of our country,” he said. “Obviously, I wasn’t successful.”

For many reasons, California was particularly susceptible to the large-scale fraud schemes Haywood Talcove saw on the horizon. Not only did the state have some of the most generous welfare programs in the country; its bureaucrats had also failed to implement some basic fraud controls during Newsom’s tenure.

“They literally suspended all of the rules for the [unemployment insurance] program,” Talcove said. “[That made] it possible for anyone to get that benefit even if they weren’t entitled to it. It was very intentional. They knew what they were doing. But it caught up to them because it just got so out of control.”

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