One year ago, President Donald J. Trump and his administration took office with a resounding promise to remove waste, fraud, and abuse from our government. That mindset has driven a whole-of-government effort across every agency to restore basic accountability to our government. Instead of looking the other way, the Trump administration has put a spotlight on some of the massively mismanaged and abused funding streams at the taxpayers’ expense.
At President Trump’s direction, his all-star cabinet is zeroing in on Minnesota, taking dramatic and measurable actions to root out the fraud in our government. At least 10 federal agencies are investigating the state of Minnesota, and the Trump administration created a new Department of Justice division for national fraud enforcement. This new division will be responsible for leading a nationwide effort to investigate, prosecute, and remedy fraud affecting the federal government, federally funded programs, and private citizens.
For years, Minnesota’s taxpayers have been taken advantage of by Somali criminals who have no respect for our laws, our culture, or our way of life. The result has been devastating — strained welfare programs, higher housing costs, lower wages for working Americans, and communities put at risk.
Who is to blame? Look no further than Tim Walz, Keith Ellison, Jacob Frey, and the failed DFL that has controlled our state for decades.
Thankfully, President Trump is cleaning up Walz’s mess and ending this insanity. He is restoring law and order, securing the border, cracking down on fraud, and putting American citizens first — because our generosity should never come at the expense of our safety, sovereignty, or hardworking taxpayers. In his relentless effort to dismantle the massive fraud empires, he has exposed an epicenter of fraud, aided and abetted in Minnesota. Somali criminals in Minnesota have defrauded the government of nearly $9 BILLION in taxpayer-funded benefits under failed Gov. Walz’s leadership.
To date, the DOJ has charged 98 defendants in Minnesota fraud-related cases — 85 of whom are of Somali descent. Sixty-four defendants have already been convicted while the DOJ has already issued over 1,750 subpoenas, executed over 130 search warrants, and conducted over 1,000 witness interviews as part of its ongoing investigation.
The FBI is also conducting investigations into dozens of Minnesota’s health care and home care providers accused of fraud, while the Department of Homeland Security has sent roughly 2,000 agents to Minnesota and is conducting targeted, door-to-door investigations at locations suspected of fraud.
But this recent effort is just the latest in a long line of work the Trump administration has taken to root out fraud in our federal government over the past 365 days. Earlier this month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed that up to 10% of the United States budget is stolen each year due to waste, fraud, and abuse.
The Trump administration is fighting back against the swamp and the status quo. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) located 20 billion in tax dollars within the agency that the Biden administration reportedly “knew they were wasting.” The Department of Agriculture has exposed rampant fraud in the SNAP program, announcing the department found 186,000 deceased individuals receiving benefits and 500,000 people receiving SNAP benefits in more than one state. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) found that more than 2.8 million people were double-enrolled in two or more Medicaid or ACA exchange plans — with the potential to save taxpayers approximately $14 billion annually. These stories and findings are not outliers; they have been the status quo for Washington, D.C. for far too long, but we now have an administration that’s willing to confront this mismanagement head-on.
Republicans in Congress are working in lock step with President Trump. We passed the Working Families Tax Cut Act to restore integrity to SNAP and Medicaid and to prohibit future fraud and abuse of these programs. Together, we signed two multi-billion-dollar rescission packages that defunded the leftist propaganda of NPR and PBS as well as $400 million per year for global climate grift projects, $60,000 for listening tours on local development in Timor-Leste, and $13.4 million for civic engagement in Zimbabwe — to name just a few examples.
Instead of endless press conferences and strongly-worded statements that never materialize, this administration and Republicans in Congress have taken strong, measurable actions to prevent improper payments, recover taxpayer dollars, and prosecute those who abuse the system.
Every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar stolen from working families, veterans, workers, seniors, job creators, and the most vulnerable in our society who truly depend on these programs.
As we celebrate the first anniversary of the return of the Trump administration, every American, especially those in the great state of Minnesota, can be grateful that we have an administration actively working to defend taxpayer dollars against waste, fraud, and abuse.
U.S. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer represents Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not represent an official position of Alpha News.
Tom Emmer
U.S. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer represents Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District.
