Fraud in your face, Minny

[savannahskol]

Largest $ fraud EVER perpetuated vs govt, fed or State?  

https://publish.twitter.com/?query=https...4862961123&widget=Tweet

---

---

YouTuber journo (ok, I know) viral video exposing rampant fraud.

He posits a powerful expose.

[savannahskol]

Minny Lt Gov dons hijab, saying Somalis “key part of fabric of Minnesota”.

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/SZ8gI3iS_Mk

---

VP JD Vance:

This dude has done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 @pulitzercenter prizes,” Vance wrote in a post on X.

[purplefaithful]

Covid put way too much $$ out there with not enough oversight...People in need were impacted.

It's definitely a talker for the next Governor election.  I wish I had a good conservative option, a Pawlenty, Arne Carlson etc..

They dont exist in this gen of team red (for me). 

I'm just glad most MN's don't seem to be biting on the all Somalis are bad diatribe. 

It's not only wrong, it's shameful.

---

Key source says story that prompted Trump tirade against Somalis is erroneous

In mid-November, a little-known conservative website published an explosive claim: Al-Shabab, an Islamic terrorist group active in Somalia, was being funded by millions of dollars stolen from Minnesota taxpayers.

The fallout was swift. Within days, President Donald Trump referred to Somalis as “garbage,” federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched an intensive operation in the Twin Cities, and the administration announced a series of investigations into state programs.

But a core source for the article now calls the story “bullshit” and claims he was misquoted. Another person cited in the piece is distancing himself from the reporting. Meanwhile, current and former federal prosecutors have said there is no indication that defendants involved in Minnesota fraud cases sent money to terrorist groups. The City Journal writers say they stand by the story.

Retired Seattle detective Glenn Kerns – the only named person in the City Journal article who connects Minnesota Somali fraud with terrorism, a core premise of the story – said he never traveled to Minnesota to investigate the connection, as the piece claims.

Kerns, 71, said he complained to the outlet soon after the story was published but got no response.

One of the two City Journal authors, reporter Ryan Thorpe, said he has “multiple call logs, text messages, and transcripts of our phone calls, among other materials” and that Kerns “was not misquoted.”

“Any public suggestion that we have falsified our reporting is false and easily disprovable,” Thorpe told the Minnesota Star Tribune in a text, although he declined to provide materials disproving Kerns’ assertions.

The outlet also said Kerns has not returned its calls since the Star Tribune inquired about the story.

The Nov. 19 City Journal story, headlined “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer,” put Minnesota’s fraud scandal in the national spotlight.

After publishing the story, co-author and conservative activist Christopher Rufo urged Trump on social media to revoke temporary asylum for Somali refugees fleeing civil war. The president obliged, threatening to send Somalis “back to where they came from” and raging about Minnesota being “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”

Since then, the federal government has loosed an array of pressure on the state:
Some 100 ICE agents have been deployed to target Somali people, and the Trump administration has claimed hundreds of people have been arrested.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an investigation into whether Minnesota fraud proceeds were diverted to terrorist groups.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon alleged the state received millions of dollars for “ghost students” and is rife with fraud.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced an investigation into whether federal housing programs have been defrauded.

The Department of Labor said it would review the state’s unemployment insurance program.

Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler ordered an investigation into whether another pandemic relief program, the Paycheck Protection Program, was defrauded by “the network of Somali organizations and executives” implicated in other fraud schemes.
Conflicting reports

Kerns initially told the Star Tribune he never talked to the City Journal. Then, after Thorpe provided the Star Tribune with a screenshot indicating they had a 36-minute conversation on Nov. 6, Kerns said he’d mistaken Thorpe for another reporter.

Aside from Kerns, the City Journal story cited “multiple law enforcement sources” saying Minnesota fraud proceeds are a huge funder of al-Shabab, but offered no other evidence.

Kerns said he does think it’s likely a cut of money sent to Somalia ends up in the hands of al-Shabab because that’s what “sources” told him while he was investigating terrorism in Seattle. But he said he was unable to find additional evidence proving that.

“They went way too far on their poetic license to make it into a big story,“ he said.

Kerns said he gave Thorpe pointers about how to look into whether some of the money stolen from Minnesota government programs ended up going to al-Shabab.

“I was pointing him in the right direction to start digging. That was all,” Kerns said in a text. He said he “never said half” of the quotes in the story.

Thorpe disputed that, saying he did an “on the record” interview with Kerns and has transcripts of phone calls. He did not provide the transcripts to the Star Tribune.

“I was clear and upfront with Mr. Kerns from the outset that I was writing about fraud as it relates to Minnesota and that was the focus of much of our conversation,” Thorpe said in an email.

His story quoted Kerns saying, “I went down to [Minnesota] and pulled all of their records and ... all these Somalis sending out money are on DHS benefits. How does that make sense?”

The bracketed word — Minnesota — is the crux of the dispute. Kerns said he never said it.

As part of a decade-old Seattle investigation, Kerns looked at money that was sent from Seattle to Minnesota, but he said he never traveled to Minnesota or pulled any Minnesota records. He said he only called Minnesota officials to ask how they track money sent by hawalas, which are used to move cash back and forth to Somalia since the East African country doesn’t have a formal banking system.

Thorpe acknowledged that Kerns’ original quote said he “went down to the state” and his editor changed it to “went down to [Minnesota].”

“Given the context of our conversation and that the question he was responding to was about Minnesota, a reasonable person would have understood ‘went down to the state’ to mean Minnesota,” Thorpe said.

“If Mr. Kerns now thinks he meant something different, we’re happy to hear from him directly, but he hasn’t answered my calls.”

He noted many of the allegations in the City Journal story were similar to those in a 2016 story by a Seattle TV station, KING5, about suitcases full of cash being flown to East Africa. Kerns was quoted in the story expressing concern that al-Shabab could take a cut of money sent to Somalia.

Two years after the Seattle story aired, a local report by FOX 9 included Kerns discussing his Seattle investigation for a similar story claiming money stolen from Minnesota’s child-care assistance program was funding al-Shabab.

But Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor, a nonpartisan watchdog agency, said the reporting failed to provide evidence substantiating those claims.

While most of the scores of people charged in a string of federal fraud cases have been of East African descent, federal prosecutors in Minnesota have never said that fraud proceeds funded terrorism. Prosecutors said defendants in the Feeding Our Future case spent their fraud proceeds on luxury houses, cars, travel and property in places such as Kenya.

The City Journal story extensively quoted former interim U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joe Thompson, who has taken a lead role in multiple federal fraud investigations over the past four years. But the City Journal authors did not interview Thompson; they quoted solely prior news releases and past news coverage.

When asked during a Dec. 18 news conference whether he’s found any fraud proceeds funding terrorist groups in Somalia, Thompson said there’s no indication the defendants were radicalized and sent money to such groups. He did acknowledge, however, that “some money may have gotten into the hands of al-Shabab.”

That comment echoes the state legislative auditor’s 2019 report, which said regulators and law enforcement were concerned that terrorist groups in countries such as Somalia could take some of the money that immigrants and refugees in the U.S. send to families and friends.

Thompson’s former boss, former U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, who led the nation’s largest pandemic fraud prosecution, Feeding Our Future, has disputed the City Journal story’s assertion that fraud proceeds funded terrorism.

Luger told the Star Tribune that the 70 defendants his office prosecuted in the Feeding Our Future case “were looking to get rich, not fund overseas terrorism.”

Outside of Kerns, the City Journal story quoted “a second former official, who worked on the Minneapolis JTTF” (Joint Terrorism Task Force) who confirmed the “general structure” of the story’s claims.

The City Journal story also quoted former Minnesota fraud investigator Kayseh Magan, who worked for the state’s Attorney General’s Office from early 2020 to the end of 2022, citing a column he wrote last year about Somalis committing fraud.

After the City Journal story was published, Magan asked the outlet to clarify in the story that he was not interviewed, and they did.

Magan said he was so disgusted by the story that he wrote an op-ed calling it “vulture journalism” that undermines the hard work done to prosecute “the rampant fraud that has beset Minnesota’s public programs.”

Source: Startribune

[Waterboy]

Covid put way too much $$ out there with not enough oversight...People in need were impacted.

It's definitely a talker for the next Governor election.  I wish I had a good conservative option, a Pawlenty, Arne Carlson etc..

They dont exist in this gen of team red (for me). 

I'm just glad most MN's don't seem to be biting on the all Somalis are bad diatribe. 

It's not only wrong, it's shameful.

---

Key source says story that prompted Trump tirade against Somalis is erroneous

In mid-November, a little-known conservative website published an explosive claim: Al-Shabab, an Islamic terrorist group active in Somalia, was being funded by millions of dollars stolen from Minnesota taxpayers.

The fallout was swift. Within days, President Donald Trump referred to Somalis as “garbage,” federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched an intensive operation in the Twin Cities, and the administration announced a series of investigations into state programs.

But a core source for the article now calls the story “bullshit” and claims he was misquoted. Another person cited in the piece is distancing himself from the reporting. Meanwhile, current and former federal prosecutors have said there is no indication that defendants involved in Minnesota fraud cases sent money to terrorist groups. The City Journal writers say they stand by the story.

Retired Seattle detective Glenn Kerns – the only named person in the City Journal article who connects Minnesota Somali fraud with terrorism, a core premise of the story – said he never traveled to Minnesota to investigate the connection, as the piece claims.

Kerns, 71, said he complained to the outlet soon after the story was published but got no response.

One of the two City Journal authors, reporter Ryan Thorpe, said he has “multiple call logs, text messages, and transcripts of our phone calls, among other materials” and that Kerns “was not misquoted.”

“Any public suggestion that we have falsified our reporting is false and easily disprovable,” Thorpe told the Minnesota Star Tribune in a text, although he declined to provide materials disproving Kerns’ assertions.

The outlet also said Kerns has not returned its calls since the Star Tribune inquired about the story.

The Nov. 19 City Journal story, headlined “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer,” put Minnesota’s fraud scandal in the national spotlight.

After publishing the story, co-author and conservative activist Christopher Rufo urged Trump on social media to revoke temporary asylum for Somali refugees fleeing civil war. The president obliged, threatening to send Somalis “back to where they came from” and raging about Minnesota being “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”

Since then, the federal government has loosed an array of pressure on the state:
Some 100 ICE agents have been deployed to target Somali people, and the Trump administration has claimed hundreds of people have been arrested.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an investigation into whether Minnesota fraud proceeds were diverted to terrorist groups.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon alleged the state received millions of dollars for “ghost students” and is rife with fraud.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced an investigation into whether federal housing programs have been defrauded.

The Department of Labor said it would review the state’s unemployment insurance program.

Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler ordered an investigation into whether another pandemic relief program, the Paycheck Protection Program, was defrauded by “the network of Somali organizations and executives” implicated in other fraud schemes.
Conflicting reports

Kerns initially told the Star Tribune he never talked to the City Journal. Then, after Thorpe provided the Star Tribune with a screenshot indicating they had a 36-minute conversation on Nov. 6, Kerns said he’d mistaken Thorpe for another reporter.

Aside from Kerns, the City Journal story cited “multiple law enforcement sources” saying Minnesota fraud proceeds are a huge funder of al-Shabab, but offered no other evidence.

Kerns said he does think it’s likely a cut of money sent to Somalia ends up in the hands of al-Shabab because that’s what “sources” told him while he was investigating terrorism in Seattle. But he said he was unable to find additional evidence proving that.

“They went way too far on their poetic license to make it into a big story,“ he said.

Kerns said he gave Thorpe pointers about how to look into whether some of the money stolen from Minnesota government programs ended up going to al-Shabab.

“I was pointing him in the right direction to start digging. That was all,” Kerns said in a text. He said he “never said half” of the quotes in the story.

Thorpe disputed that, saying he did an “on the record” interview with Kerns and has transcripts of phone calls. He did not provide the transcripts to the Star Tribune.

“I was clear and upfront with Mr. Kerns from the outset that I was writing about fraud as it relates to Minnesota and that was the focus of much of our conversation,” Thorpe said in an email.

His story quoted Kerns saying, “I went down to [Minnesota] and pulled all of their records and ... all these Somalis sending out money are on DHS benefits. How does that make sense?”

The bracketed word — Minnesota — is the crux of the dispute. Kerns said he never said it.

As part of a decade-old Seattle investigation, Kerns looked at money that was sent from Seattle to Minnesota, but he said he never traveled to Minnesota or pulled any Minnesota records. He said he only called Minnesota officials to ask how they track money sent by hawalas, which are used to move cash back and forth to Somalia since the East African country doesn’t have a formal banking system.

Thorpe acknowledged that Kerns’ original quote said he “went down to the state” and his editor changed it to “went down to [Minnesota].”

“Given the context of our conversation and that the question he was responding to was about Minnesota, a reasonable person would have understood ‘went down to the state’ to mean Minnesota,” Thorpe said.

“If Mr. Kerns now thinks he meant something different, we’re happy to hear from him directly, but he hasn’t answered my calls.”

He noted many of the allegations in the City Journal story were similar to those in a 2016 story by a Seattle TV station, KING5, about suitcases full of cash being flown to East Africa. Kerns was quoted in the story expressing concern that al-Shabab could take a cut of money sent to Somalia.

Two years after the Seattle story aired, a local report by FOX 9 included Kerns discussing his Seattle investigation for a similar story claiming money stolen from Minnesota’s child-care assistance program was funding al-Shabab.

But Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor, a nonpartisan watchdog agency, said the reporting failed to provide evidence substantiating those claims.

While most of the scores of people charged in a string of federal fraud cases have been of East African descent, federal prosecutors in Minnesota have never said that fraud proceeds funded terrorism. Prosecutors said defendants in the Feeding Our Future case spent their fraud proceeds on luxury houses, cars, travel and property in places such as Kenya.

The City Journal story extensively quoted former interim U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joe Thompson, who has taken a lead role in multiple federal fraud investigations over the past four years. But the City Journal authors did not interview Thompson; they quoted solely prior news releases and past news coverage.

When asked during a Dec. 18 news conference whether he’s found any fraud proceeds funding terrorist groups in Somalia, Thompson said there’s no indication the defendants were radicalized and sent money to such groups. He did acknowledge, however, that “some money may have gotten into the hands of al-Shabab.”

That comment echoes the state legislative auditor’s 2019 report, which said regulators and law enforcement were concerned that terrorist groups in countries such as Somalia could take some of the money that immigrants and refugees in the U.S. send to families and friends.

Thompson’s former boss, former U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, who led the nation’s largest pandemic fraud prosecution, Feeding Our Future, has disputed the City Journal story’s assertion that fraud proceeds funded terrorism.

Luger told the Star Tribune that the 70 defendants his office prosecuted in the Feeding Our Future case “were looking to get rich, not fund overseas terrorism.”

Outside of Kerns, the City Journal story quoted “a second former official, who worked on the Minneapolis JTTF” (Joint Terrorism Task Force) who confirmed the “general structure” of the story’s claims.

The City Journal story also quoted former Minnesota fraud investigator Kayseh Magan, who worked for the state’s Attorney General’s Office from early 2020 to the end of 2022, citing a column he wrote last year about Somalis committing fraud.

After the City Journal story was published, Magan asked the outlet to clarify in the story that he was not interviewed, and they did.

Magan said he was so disgusted by the story that he wrote an op-ed calling it “vulture journalism” that undermines the hard work done to prosecute “the rampant fraud that has beset Minnesota’s public programs.”

Source: Startribune

Purple,

Are you really trying to shuck off Billions of Dollars of fraud because a biased newspaper said that some poor terrorist groups were being wrongly accused? lol    I agree with you that no group of people should be classified as all bad or all good, but it is undeniable that there are rampant issues with the Somali population in MN being a huge cash drain and outright stealing taxpayer money.  Ihlan Omar is about as anti-semitic as a person can be and likely married her brother to become a citizen in the first place.  

I think it's a little disingenuous of you to post some irrelevant article just trying to spin the dialogue on this.  This is a real problem that heads should roll for.  Let's face it, you cannot vote Republican, not because Republicans are radical, but because your party is.  MAGA is far from being highly conservative, so I'm not sure how you can say that Republicans have become anything but more mainstream since 2016.  Pawlenty was middle of the road, but he would be branded as Hitler in today's world by liberals in MN.

[purplefaithful]

Purple,
Are you really trying to shuck off Billions of Dollars of fraud because a biased newspaper said that some poor terrorist groups were being wrongly accused? lol    I agree with you that no group of people should be classified as all bad or all good, but it is undeniable that there are rampant issues with the Somali population in MN being a huge cash drain and outright stealing taxpayer money.  Ihlan Omar is about as anti-semitic as a person can be and likely married her brother to become a citizen in the first place.  
I think it's a little disingenuous of you to post some irrelevant article just trying to spin the dialogue on this.  This is a real problem that heads should roll for.  Let's face it, you cannot vote Republican, not because Republicans are radical, but because your party is.  MAGA is far from being highly conservative, so I'm not sure how you can say that Republicans have become anything but more mainstream since 2016.  Pawlenty was middle of the road, but he would be branded as Hitler in today's world by liberals in MN.

No, its too big to shuck off...

I hope they keep hunting down the perps. No doubt some % of that $$ found its way into terrorist orgs...IT had to the way $$ is taxed there. I dont think it was widespread intentional it be that way here, but thats beside the point. 

I'm not even going to touch on Omar as she and I overlap little in our view of the world/state etc.

Just like on the conservative side, there is a continuum on the progressive side too...It's not accurate to think of them (me) all as one entity when in reality its far more fragmented than that. 

World is just not that black/white...Not that you need any lesson from me

Here is the Strib article I mean to cc and paste this am...Sorry for the confusion!

===================

A video that surfaced on YouTube this past weekend contained explosive allegations about Minnesota’s child care assistance program, raising new concerns about fraud and triggering a quick reaction from state regulators.

In the 43-minute video, which went viral on social media and currently has more than 1.4 million YouTube views since it debuted Friday, right wing influencer Nick Shirley alleges that a group of day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis have misappropriated “upwards of $100 million.”

In 2024, the program — which provides financial assistance to help low-income families pay for child care so parents can work — cost $306 million.

Despite registering concerns about the accuracy of the report, state regulators responded by sending inspectors to each of the centers featured in the video to see if there were licensing issues or other problems.

Tikki Brown, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families, said at a Monday afternoon news conference that two of the Minneapolis centers closed this year, including Quality Learning Center in Minneapolis just last week. Quality featured prominently in the video.

“While we have questions about some of the methods that were used in the video, we do take the concerns the video raises about fraud very seriously,” Brown said.

The video has amplified national scrutiny on Minnesota over Medicaid fraud, which federal investigators say has swamped state programs, while also raising concerns that fraud has continued to proliferate in a program flagged for issues 10 years ago.

Shirley’s video prompted a response from Vice President JD Vance and FBI Director Kash Patel over the weekend. On Monday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X that ICE agents were knocking on doors in a “massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud.”

The video shows Shirley and a man identified as “David” as they visit 10 day care centers that allegedly received public funding to see whether the businesses are actually taking care of children.

In most cases, Shirley and his partner are either unable to get anybody to answer the door or are refused entry. A few employees or clients of the centers challenged their claims, but it’s not clear if any of those individuals were the facility owners.

Brown said it is hard to draw solid conclusions from the video because it’s not clear whether Shirley visited the daycare centers during the week, when they would likely be full of children, or on a weekend or holiday, when they would likely be empty.

Brown said each of the centers has been visited in the past six months, but none of those unannounced visits turned up evidence of fraud. She said the department has not yet found problems that warrant pausing payments to any of the centers.

Brown declined to provide information about the recent closings of Quality Learning Center on Nicollet Avenue or Mako Childcare on 25th Avenue South.

“We generally don’t disclose information if we have a current, open investigation,” she said.

Shirley’s video provoked a fast response from Minnesota Republicans, including several candidates who are running for governor.

“The amount of attention and outcry that you are seeing is a direct result of the massive frustration from Minnesota taxpayers who are tired of being ripped off by fraudsters,” said Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who’s among those vying to unseat Gov. Tim Walz in his bid for a third term. “The Walz administration had years to address these issues but has frequently ignored or downplayed the issues at every turn.”

A spokeswoman for Walz said he “has worked for years to crack down on fraud and asked the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action.”

“He has strengthened oversight – including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed," spokeswoman Claire Lancaster said in a statement to the Minnesota Star Tribune, adding that he shut down a high-risk program and hired an outside auditor and a new statewide program integrity director.

House GOP Floor Leader Harry Niska said it’s hard for Republicans to trust what the Walz administration says about fraud after the issue has continued to fester.

“We have a governor and an administration that has totally broken its trust with the people of Minnesota,” Niska said.

---

Zak Osman is manager of the Minnesota Child Care Center, which Shirley visited last on his video. He said the doors are always locked for safety, and the staff was on high alert due to the Trump administration’s actions against Somalis for the past month.

He said they don’t do “walk-in appointments” but there were children inside at the time and their cameras prove it. “You cannot see anyone from outside,” Osman said.
Shirley was there for about 40 seconds before a shift supervisor heard what he was saying and tried to close the door but Shirley was holding onto it, so she had to pull it shut hard.

Since the video went viral, the center has been bombarded with phone calls from across the country, with people talking about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and saying things like “give us our money back,” he said.

State workers visited the center Monday, in what Osman said was the fifth audit this year.

But the new allegations are raising questions about whether fraud has proliferated in a program that was flagged for deficiencies a decade ago.

One of the first major scandals involving fraudsters in the Somali community started in 2015 when three Minneapolis day care centers were raided by police and accused of overbilling the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP).

The program was aimed at helping low-income families with child care costs, but investigators discovered some day care operators billed the state for more children than were actually present.

By 2017, investigators filed charges against 10 day care operators, but the penalties were modest compared to the more recent fraud cases involving a meals program overseen by the state Education Department.

Though some of the individuals convicted in the Feeding Our Future scandal have received federal sentences of up to 28 years, none of the people convicted in the daycare scheme were sentenced to more than five years in prison, according to a Star Tribune review of the cases. Two of the convicted fraudsters received sentences of 30 days or less.

In half of the cases, records show, nobody was sent to jail. Prosecutors either dismissed the charges when the owners agreed to repay the stolen funds or never pursued criminal charges against individual owners after the companies pleaded guilty and were ordered to make restitution.

The cases drew public outrage after a Fox 9 report alleged in 2018 that as much as $100 million annually was being misappropriated and possibly diverted to terrorist groups in East Africa.

A 2019 report from the Legislative Auditor found “no evidence” to support those claims. State and federal prosecutors filed charges over $5.4 million in misappropriated funds, but the auditor concluded the actual amount of fraud was likely higher.

But investigators also concluded that internal controls at the state DHS were “insufficient to effectively prevent, detect, and investigate fraud.”
Temporary DHS Commissioner Shireen Gandhi told a panel of state lawmakers in February that Minnesota has about 1,800 licensed child-care centers and about 5,800 licensed family child care providers.

She said about 3,600 providers are enrolled in the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). Every year, Gandhi said, state licensers make unannounced site visits to child care providers.

They report any violations or conditions that could be suggestive of fraud to CCAP investigators, she said.

Since 2021, the Child Care Audits and Investigations unit has referred about five cases a year to law enforcement for criminal investigation. She said the unit also stopped payments to 79 child care providers since 2021.

In response to previous questions from the Star Tribune, DHS said that it has taken numerous steps since 2019 to beef up anti-fraud efforts, including using data to flag improper billing requests, enhanced attendance requirements, increased use of video surveillance, a formal system for fraud referrals and more frequent inspections of new providers.

However, the department has not implemented one of the Legislative Auditor’s chief recommendations: replacing handwritten sign-in sheets with an electronic attendance system.

The auditor noted that most child care fraud involved providers who submitted inflated attendance records to obtain extra money, similar to what federal authorities have documented in the meals program.

In 2019, 22 states required some automated way of collecting attendance, while eight other states were developing those systems, according to the legislative auditor.

[Waterboy]

No, its too big to shuck off...

I hope they keep hunting down the perps. No doubt some % of that $$ found its way into terrorist orgs...IT had to the way $$ is taxed there. I dont think it was widespread intentional it be that way here, but thats beside the point. 

I'm not even going to touch on Omar as she and I overlap little in our view of the world/state etc.

Just like on the conservative side, there is a continuum on the progressive side too...It's not accurate to think of them (me) all as one entity when in reality its far more fragmented than that. 

World is just not that black/white...Not that you need any lesson from me

Here is the Strib article I mean to cc and paste this am...Sorry for the confusion!

===================

A video that surfaced on YouTube this past weekend contained explosive allegations about Minnesota’s child care assistance program, raising new concerns about fraud and triggering a quick reaction from state regulators.

In the 43-minute video, which went viral on social media and currently has more than 1.4 million YouTube views since it debuted Friday, right wing influencer Nick Shirley alleges that a group of day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis have misappropriated “upwards of $100 million.”

In 2024, the program — which provides financial assistance to help low-income families pay for child care so parents can work — cost $306 million.

Despite registering concerns about the accuracy of the report, state regulators responded by sending inspectors to each of the centers featured in the video to see if there were licensing issues or other problems.

Tikki Brown, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families, said at a Monday afternoon news conference that two of the Minneapolis centers closed this year, including Quality Learning Center in Minneapolis just last week. Quality featured prominently in the video.

“While we have questions about some of the methods that were used in the video, we do take the concerns the video raises about fraud very seriously,” Brown said.

The video has amplified national scrutiny on Minnesota over Medicaid fraud, which federal investigators say has swamped state programs, while also raising concerns that fraud has continued to proliferate in a program flagged for issues 10 years ago.

Shirley’s video prompted a response from Vice President JD Vance and FBI Director Kash Patel over the weekend. On Monday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X that ICE agents were knocking on doors in a “massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud.”

The video shows Shirley and a man identified as “David” as they visit 10 day care centers that allegedly received public funding to see whether the businesses are actually taking care of children.

In most cases, Shirley and his partner are either unable to get anybody to answer the door or are refused entry. A few employees or clients of the centers challenged their claims, but it’s not clear if any of those individuals were the facility owners.

Brown said it is hard to draw solid conclusions from the video because it’s not clear whether Shirley visited the daycare centers during the week, when they would likely be full of children, or on a weekend or holiday, when they would likely be empty.

Brown said each of the centers has been visited in the past six months, but none of those unannounced visits turned up evidence of fraud. She said the department has not yet found problems that warrant pausing payments to any of the centers.

Brown declined to provide information about the recent closings of Quality Learning Center on Nicollet Avenue or Mako Childcare on 25th Avenue South.

“We generally don’t disclose information if we have a current, open investigation,” she said.

Shirley’s video provoked a fast response from Minnesota Republicans, including several candidates who are running for governor.

“The amount of attention and outcry that you are seeing is a direct result of the massive frustration from Minnesota taxpayers who are tired of being ripped off by fraudsters,” said Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who’s among those vying to unseat Gov. Tim Walz in his bid for a third term. “The Walz administration had years to address these issues but has frequently ignored or downplayed the issues at every turn.”

A spokeswoman for Walz said he “has worked for years to crack down on fraud and asked the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action.”

“He has strengthened oversight – including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed," spokeswoman Claire Lancaster said in a statement to the Minnesota Star Tribune, adding that he shut down a high-risk program and hired an outside auditor and a new statewide program integrity director.

House GOP Floor Leader Harry Niska said it’s hard for Republicans to trust what the Walz administration says about fraud after the issue has continued to fester.

“We have a governor and an administration that has totally broken its trust with the people of Minnesota,” Niska said.

---

Zak Osman is manager of the Minnesota Child Care Center, which Shirley visited last on his video. He said the doors are always locked for safety, and the staff was on high alert due to the Trump administration’s actions against Somalis for the past month.

He said they don’t do “walk-in appointments” but there were children inside at the time and their cameras prove it. “You cannot see anyone from outside,” Osman said.
Shirley was there for about 40 seconds before a shift supervisor heard what he was saying and tried to close the door but Shirley was holding onto it, so she had to pull it shut hard.

Since the video went viral, the center has been bombarded with phone calls from across the country, with people talking about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and saying things like “give us our money back,” he said.

State workers visited the center Monday, in what Osman said was the fifth audit this year.

But the new allegations are raising questions about whether fraud has proliferated in a program that was flagged for deficiencies a decade ago.

One of the first major scandals involving fraudsters in the Somali community started in 2015 when three Minneapolis day care centers were raided by police and accused of overbilling the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP).

The program was aimed at helping low-income families with child care costs, but investigators discovered some day care operators billed the state for more children than were actually present.

By 2017, investigators filed charges against 10 day care operators, but the penalties were modest compared to the more recent fraud cases involving a meals program overseen by the state Education Department.

Though some of the individuals convicted in the Feeding Our Future scandal have received federal sentences of up to 28 years, none of the people convicted in the daycare scheme were sentenced to more than five years in prison, according to a Star Tribune review of the cases. Two of the convicted fraudsters received sentences of 30 days or less.

In half of the cases, records show, nobody was sent to jail. Prosecutors either dismissed the charges when the owners agreed to repay the stolen funds or never pursued criminal charges against individual owners after the companies pleaded guilty and were ordered to make restitution.

The cases drew public outrage after a Fox 9 report alleged in 2018 that as much as $100 million annually was being misappropriated and possibly diverted to terrorist groups in East Africa.

A 2019 report from the Legislative Auditor found “no evidence” to support those claims. State and federal prosecutors filed charges over $5.4 million in misappropriated funds, but the auditor concluded the actual amount of fraud was likely higher.

But investigators also concluded that internal controls at the state DHS were “insufficient to effectively prevent, detect, and investigate fraud.”
Temporary DHS Commissioner Shireen Gandhi told a panel of state lawmakers in February that Minnesota has about 1,800 licensed child-care centers and about 5,800 licensed family child care providers.

She said about 3,600 providers are enrolled in the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). Every year, Gandhi said, state licensers make unannounced site visits to child care providers.

They report any violations or conditions that could be suggestive of fraud to CCAP investigators, she said.

Since 2021, the Child Care Audits and Investigations unit has referred about five cases a year to law enforcement for criminal investigation. She said the unit also stopped payments to 79 child care providers since 2021.

In response to previous questions from the Star Tribune, DHS said that it has taken numerous steps since 2019 to beef up anti-fraud efforts, including using data to flag improper billing requests, enhanced attendance requirements, increased use of video surveillance, a formal system for fraud referrals and more frequent inspections of new providers.

However, the department has not implemented one of the Legislative Auditor’s chief recommendations: replacing handwritten sign-in sheets with an electronic attendance system.

The auditor noted that most child care fraud involved providers who submitted inflated attendance records to obtain extra money, similar to what federal authorities have documented in the meals program.

In 2019, 22 states required some automated way of collecting attendance, while eight other states were developing those systems, according to the legislative auditor.

Trust me when I say I view you as a "rational" liberal.   They're fewer and further in between.  I'm glad that you clarified.  I was able to read the second one without mumbling to myself.  lol

[purplefaithful]

Trust me when I say I view you as a "rational" liberal.   They're fewer and further in between.  I'm glad that you clarified.  I was able to read the second one without mumbling to myself.  lol

Momma always said, god gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason! I wanted to add a local angle to the Op. It was on the local CBS news broadcast as well. 

I probably shouldn't be posting the last couple days lol! I'm still foggy and recovering from Covid this Xmas season. Wife and I are both on Paxlovid (which now costs way too much $ under medicare). I'll save that for a separate thread.

We're all good and I hope you and yours have a healthy & happy new year...

There is definitely smoke with these day care centers. Now whether they caught a bunch of them on a weekend? Something else? Remains to be seen. 

But I am not skeptical overall of the story and there has to be much more over-sight on-going with these funds. Waltz needs to take even more ownership of the buck stopping with him than he has. 

Will it cost him the gov election? Remains to be seen, I have my doubts. Team red hasn't won a statewide election here in 20 years. 

Usually they have weak and/or niche candidates (i.e Jensen, Lindell? etc) I'm not sure their line-up of candidates this year gets em over the hump. Denmuth had a good relationship with the Hortmans and she is reasonable/rationale. Black, female gov in MN?

[Waterboy]

Momma always said, god gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason! I wanted to add a local angle to the Op. It was on the local CBS news broadcast as well. 

I probably shouldn't be posting the last couple days lol! I'm still foggy and recovering from Covid this Xmas season. Wife and I are both on Paxlovid (which now costs way too much $ under medicare). I'll save that for a separate thread.

We're all good and I hope you and yours have a healthy & happy new year...

There is definitely smoke with these day care centers. Now whether they caught a bunch of them on a weekend? Something else? Remains to be seen. 

But I am not skeptical overall of the story and there has to be much more over-sight on-going with these funds. Waltz needs to take even more ownership of the buck stopping with him than he has. 

Will it cost him the gov election? Remains to be seen, I have my doubts. Team red hasn't won a statewide election here in 20 years. 

Usually they have weak and/or niche candidates (i.e Jensen, Lindell? etc) I'm not sure their line-up of candidates this year gets em over the hump. Denmuth had a good relationship with the Hortmans and she is reasonable/rationale. Black, female gov in MN?

Pump the Vitamin D now and in the future my man.  Knock on wood, but I haven't had as much as a cold in two plus years.  Most people are crazy low on Vitamin D and it's truly the one that helps ward off stuff, more so than Vitamin C.   You know how I feel about the Covid stuff.  lol  I truly hope you and the wife feel better soon.  

I'm going to start studying Minnesota politics a little more.  It seems like there's something up there that allows Dems to stay in control by a small majority in the statewide races.  And I'm not above suspecting fraud as you know. lol  I don't know anything about Denmuth, but I always worry about moderate Dems becoming crazy left as soon as their survival depends on it.

[purplefaithful]

Pump the Vitamin D now and in the future my man.  Knock on wood, but I haven't had as much as a cold in two plus years.  Most people are crazy low on Vitamin D and it's truly the one that helps ward off stuff, more so than Vitamin C.   You know how I feel about the Covid stuff.  lol  I truly hope you and the wife feel better soon.  

I'm going to start studying Minnesota politics a little more.  It seems like there's something up there that allows Dems to stay in control by a small majority in the statewide races.  And I'm not above suspecting fraud as you know. lol  I don't know anything about Denmuth, but I always worry about moderate Dems becoming crazy left as soon as their survival depends on it.

Good call on Vit D..

I was on 5000iu/day and doc says 5000/iu twice a week

Its usually not small majority win for team blue on the state wide races. The last gov race wasn't that close (Walz 52% vs Jensen 44%.)

Honestly, I think team red in MN is one of the weaker run chapters of the party in the union. They havent tapped into the zeitgeist here in the state for decades.

[AGRforever]

Honest question. Why is Walz still in office? How has he not resigned over this?