Ilhan Omar lashes out at ‘sick’ Republicans for investigating her alleged marriage to brother
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., called those concerned about whether she married her brother “sick” after the far-left lawmaker was approached by Fox News Digital about border czar Tom Homan, signaling that federal officials have started digging into records pertaining to the matter. Homan said last week that records and files related to Omar’s potential immigration fraud were being pulled and looked at after President Donald Trump revived the years-old scandal amid an ongoing debate over the Somali Medicaid fraud scandal taking place in Omar’s state of Minnesota. While Homan suggested that fraud likely took place, he also signaled that the crime’s statute of limitations could present a problem when it comes to prosecuting Omar for any potential violations. “Any response to what [Homan] is saying? And the public?” Fox News Digital asked Omar as she was walking through the halls of Congress. “I have no response because I don’t know what they’ll be investigating,” Omar shot back. ILHAN OMAR CLAIMS ICE PULED OVER HER SON DURING ‘RACIAL PROFILING’ SWEEP AMID TRUMP’S CRACKDOWN IN MINNESOTA “So you don’t think they would find anything?” she was asked. “Absolutely not,” Omar responded. “Why do you think they keep bringing this up?” Omar was then asked before she walked onto an elevator and out of sight. “Because they’re sick!” she exclaimed. But, according to a top Senate Republican, if the allegations against Omar – that she married her brother to enter the U.S. – were true, she’d be breaking several laws. “If this is true, then Omar faces criminal liability under three different statutes,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. REP OMAR’S GOP CHALLENGER UNLOADS ON HER ROLE IN MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL Cruz has argued that Omar could have committed federal marriage fraud, which makes knowingly entering into a marriage to evade immigration laws illegal, and could result in up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and deportation. Omar was born in Somalia and came to the U.S. in 1995 after her family was granted asylum. She became a naturalized citizen in 2000. In 2002, Omar entered a religious marriage with Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi, while, in 2009, she legally married Ahmed Elmi, a British citizen, despite maintaining her religious union with Hirsi and continuing to have children with him. Omar and Elmi separated in 2011 and did not legally divorce until 2017, according to reports. In 2020, Omar married political consultant Tim Mynett. In addition to marriage fraud, Cruz said Omar could also be breaking Minnesota’s state incest law, a felony in the state punishable by jail time up to 10 years. Cruz also indicated Omar could be liable for tax fraud, specifically if joint tax returns were filed while she was not legally married, a violation that could lead to a $100,000 fine and up to three years in prison.
DHS arrests ‘worst of the worst’ illegal migrants, including murderers and pedophiles, in weekend operation
FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed a list of 17 illegal migrants who were previously convicted of an array of charges, including murder and sexual exploitation of a minor, who were arrested over the weekend and are currently being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). DHS released the names as part of their “worst of the worst” campaign which exposes illegal migrants who have been convicted of serious felonies and crimes. “While Americans were at Christmas parties and celebrating the first night of Hanukkah, the patriotic heroes of ICE law enforcement were selflessly risking their lives to arrest the worst of the worst,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital in a statement. “This weekend, ICE arrested murderers, pedophiles, and drug traffickers. This holiday season, Americans can rejoice these monsters are out of their neighborhoods.” Some convictions included second-degree murder by Thai Lor, an illegal migrant from Thailand, sexual exploitation of a minor by Benevenuto Walter Lopez-Alonzo, an illegal migrant from Guatemala, lewd act with a child under 14 years old by Yovanny Dominguez-Herrera, an illegal migrant from Mexico, money laundering by Chi Ying, an illegal migrant from China, and pimping a minor over 16-year-old by Patricia Judith Diaz-Angel, an illegal migrant from Guatemala, DHS said. DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN CLAIMS TRUMP’S ICE IS ‘PRIMARILY GOING AFTER INNOCENT PEOPLE, INCLUDING US CITIZENS’ All 17 illegal migrants were convicted of their respective crimes while residing in the United States. The arrests come just days after the agency announced it had arrested over 10,000 illegal migrants in Los Angeles despite “violent rioters who assaulted our law enforcement, threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at them, and attempted to obstruct lawful arrests of criminal illegal aliens,” as reported by Fox News Digital. Immigration officers and agents were met by rioters across Los Angeles over the summer, and many Democrats have been staunchly critical of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and the Trump administration’s approach to deporting illegal migrants. DHS SWEEPS TWIN CITIES, ARRESTS 400 AS FEDS BLAST WALZ FOR ‘FAILING TO PROTECT MINNESOTA’ Noem and the Trump administration have stood firm in their campaign commitment to return the millions of migrants who crossed the border under President Joe Biden back to their home countries. “Follow the law and you’ll find opportunity. If you break it, you’ll find consequences,” Noem said in a recent DHS advertisement. DHS has not held back from boasting about the capture of dangerous illegal migrants, and even recently created an arrest database available to the public. The agency announced a “worst of the worst” website, which was launched last week, to provide details about convicted violent criminals and pedophiles that are living in the United States illegally.
DC police accused of manipulating crime stats as federal probe finds thousands of misclassified cases
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Monday that a months-long federal investigation uncovered widespread misclassification of crime reports by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), making crime statistics across Washington, D.C. “artificially lower.” Pirro said the findings were based on a review of nearly 6,000 reports and interviews with more than 50 witnesses, showing that D.C.’s crime numbers were significantly understated. “It is evident that a significant number of reports had been misclassified, making crime appear artificially lower than it was,” Pirro said in a statement. Pirro said MPD’s conduct “does not rise to the level of a criminal charge,” but added that it is up the department to “take steps to internally address these underlying issues.” PIRRO TEARS INTO PRITZKER AFTER DEADLY WEEKEND IN CHICAGO: ‘HE SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF’ Pirro’s office began investigating reports of deflated crime statistics last August, as President Donald Trump initiated a federal crime crackdown in the district. Trump issued an executive order addressing the “epidemic of crime” in the nation’s capital and deployed federal law enforcement personnel, including the National Guard. “The uncovering of these manipulated crime statistics makes clear that President Trump has reduced crime even more than originally thought, since crimes were actually higher than reported,” Pirro stated. “His crime fighting efforts have delivered even more safety to the people of the District.” TRUMP SAYS CHICAGO CRIME HAS FALLEN DRAMATICALLY DESPITE ‘EXTRAORDINARY RESISTANCE’ FROM LOCAL DEMOCRATS The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment and further information on its investigation into the MPD. Pirro’s statement came after the House Oversight Committee released an interim report on Sunday claiming that outgoing MPD Chief Pamela Smith, who announced her resignation on Dec. 8, oversaw an unprecedented system of intervention in crime reporting. The Republican-led committee alleges that Smith pressured commanders to lower classifications of crime and retaliated against those who reported spikes, according to the congressional report. MPD did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.
AOC’s luxury spending binge in Puerto Rico reignites questions about ‘socialist’ brand: ‘Peak hypocrisy’
After dropping nearly $50,000 in Puerto Rico on luxury hotels, upscale dining and a venue rental where musical artist Bad Bunny was performing earlier this year, critics of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., are questioning whether her socialist persona is more branding than belief considering she is living like the elitists she claims to fight. “This is not new for her, she’s a hypocrite,” former White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said of the revelations about AOC’s campaign spending. “Remember the dress that she wore to that famous MET Gala, where it said ‘Tax The Rich’ – it wasn’t exactly ‘off the rack,’ if you will, it was a designer dress made for her.” Spicer slammed AOC and her other “squad” lawmakers who he argued love to rally against capitalism, but certainly don’t mind benefiting from it. “These people know no bounds. They love to tell everyone what they should do about their carbon footprint, and then they fly private. They love to talk about the excesses of the rich and then they benefit from it, they trade stocks, they get rich in Congress. I’ve pretty much had it with these guys, but at the end of the day it’s great they are being called out on it because the hypocrisy knows no bounds.” DEM HOUSE CANDIDATE’S LUXURIOUS LIFESTYLE CLASHES WITH ‘WORKING-CLASS’ CAMPAIGN MESSAGE Last week, Fox News Digital revealed that in AOC’s latest campaign filings she spent nearly $50,000 in Puerto Rico, around the same time she was known to have traveled there and attended a Bad Bunny concert. Videos that emerged on social media from the August trip show AOC visiting a housing development to rail against gentrification, while other footage from social media showed her dancing in what appears to be box seats at a Bad Bunny concert on Aug. 10 alongside Rep. Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y. Between August and September, Bad Bunny held a 31-show “Residency” tour at the popular “El Choli” Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan, which was attended by a slew of celebrities like LeBron James, Iggy Azalea, Penelope Cruz and Austin Butler, among others. Meanwhile, a campaign finance report from the third quarter, which records campaign expenses for members of Congress between July 1 and Sept. 30, shows that AOC’s campaign spent over $15,000 at two luxury hotels in San Juan, where Bad Bunny was holding his “Residency” tour. The campaign also spent over $10,500 on meals and catering services, the filings show. FAR-LEFT FIREBRAND ‘REFUSED’ TO PAY HIGH-END CONDO PAYMENTS DESPITE SPENDING SPREE ON LUXURY HOTELS “AOC wouldn’t be a proper socialist if she wasn’t irresponsibly spending someone else’s money,” GOP political strategist Matt Gorman said. “Whether Mamdani, or her, these people claim to advocate for the working people, yet don’t mind treating themselves to the spoils of other people’s money.” “AOC rails nonstop against ‘the rich,’ yet drops tens of thousands in campaign cash on luxury hotels, upscale catering, and elite venues on a Puerto Rico trip,” GOP Florida congressional hopeful Michael Carbonara said in response to AOC’s campaign spending uncovered by Fox News Digital. “Socialism for you, first-class living for her. The hypocrisy writes itself.” Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) called the move “peak hypocrisy from a walking scam.”
Ex-Trump DHS official sounds alarm over national security threat within critical US industry
President Donald Trump’s former Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, is sounding the alarm about China infiltrating America’s healthcare systems. Concern about China’s ability to infiltrate United States technology was underscored by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed last week between four state attorneys general and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, aimed at ramping up protections against Chinese infiltration of communications equipment and services utilized by the United States. On Monday, the Protecting America Initiative (PAI), a conservative nonprofit aimed at fighting the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts “to sabotage America,” launched a campaign to highlight the nation’s vulnerability to China as it relates to medical technology. Earlier this year, both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) both warned of a “backdoor” in a popular brand of patient monitoring devices. CISA found the so-called backdoor allowed the device to download remote files and send them to an IP address associated with a Chinese university. All schools in China operate under a law requiring them to support national intelligence work when called upon. CHINESE DOCTOR ACCUSED OF ATTEMPTING TO SMUGGLE CANCER RESEARCH FROM US TO CHINA “Americans rely on their doctors who take an oath to keep us safe, and first, do no harm. But when critical medical devices are made by Chinese companies, that puts our safety at risk. Chinese medical devices open the door for the CCP to access sensitive health data. President Trump and his administration always put America First and will safeguard our patients and our privacy from Beijing’s infiltration,” PAI Senior Advisor Chad Wolf told Fox News Digital. “It’s time to remove Chinese medical devices from U.S. hospitals and close the data backdoor, because patient privacy and national security are non‑negotiable.” In June, Florida’s Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier took legal action against the Chinese medical device manufacturers probed by the FDA and CISA, accusing the company of selling “compromised” medical devices that allegedly include a “backdoor” that bad actors can manipulate. In addition to patient data and privacy concerns, Uthmeier was also concerned about the medical device manufacturer, and those distributing its products, selling patient health monitors as approved by the FDA and other international standards, even though they were not. CONGRESS UNVEILS $900B DEFENSE BILL TARGETING CHINA WITH TECH BANS, INVESTMENT CRACKDOWN, US TROOP PAY RAISE China’s expanding presence in American medical supply chains has also been a concern among experts. “China’s growing role within the U.S. medical device supply chains is largely due to the combination of Beijing’s industrial policy and the shifting landscape of American healthcare,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. focusing on foreign affairs and national security, wrote in an October report. “The National Institute of Health (NIH) estimated that in 2019, 9.2 percent of U.S.-imported pharmaceuticals and medical equipment came from China — a percentage that ‘likely understates’ American reliance on China for medical products, NIH warned,” the report continues. “This understatement is in part due to the complex nature of medical supply chains — China is both a supplier of raw materials used in medical products and the final point of assembly for goods bound for the United States, obscuring its reach into the American medical system. This percentage also does not account for the value-add or criticality of these goods, particularly those related to biodefense and managing long-term acute health issues.” FDD claims that China has “exploited” the United State’s “reliance” on it by selling and exporting deliberately compromised technology, leading to doctors “unwittingly and unwillingly” playing “Russian roulette with patient treatment plans.”
Senate advances $901B defense bill as Congress races into year-end legislative sprint
The Senate advanced the annual defense policy bill on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote on Monday, teeing up final passage later in the week. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2026 is one of the must-pass legislative packages that Congress deals with on an annual basis, and it unlocked billions of dollars in funding for the Pentagon and several other defense-related items. Lawmakers pushed the colossal authorization package through a key procedural hurdle on a 76-20 vote. Senators will get their chance to tweak the package with several amendment votes in the coming days. SENATE ADVANCES 2026 DEFENSE BILL AFTER WEEKS OF DELAY AS SHUTDOWN DRAGS ON The roughly $901 billion package, which is about $8 billion over what President Donald Trump requested earlier this year, typically acts as a bookend for Congress, capping off the year as one of the few must-pass items on the docket. And, given that there is no government funding deadline to contend with, the NDAA is getting primetime treatment in the Senate. Still, there are myriad items that lawmakers hope to tackle before leaving until the new year, including a fix to expiring Obamacare subsidies, confirming nearly 100 of Trump’s nominees, and a potential five-bill funding package that, if passed, would go a long way toward warding off the specter of another government shutdown come Jan. 30. Scattered throughout the colossal package’s roughly 3,000 pages are several provisions dealing with decades-old war authorities, strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, Ukraine, lifting sanctions, and Washington, D.C.’s, airspace. This year’s NDAA would scrap the 1991 and 2002 authorizations of use of military force (AUMFs) for the Gulf War and Iraq War, respectively. Lawmakers have found rare bipartisan middle ground in their desire to nix the AUMFs, which have been used by previous administrations to engage in conflicts in the Middle East for decades. CONGRESS MOVES TO BLOCK PENTAGON FROM CUTTING US TROOPS IN EUROPE AND SOUTH KOREA Then there is a policy that includes several requirements to fulfill the Pentagon’s travel budget, one of which would force the agency to hand over all unedited footage from the Trump administration’s strikes against alleged drug boats. It’s a pointed provision that underscores the bipartisan concern from Congress over the administration’s handling of the strikes, particularly in the wake of a double-tap strike on Sept. 2 that has seen several lawmakers demand more transparency and access to the footage. There is also a provision that has stirred up controversy among Senate Republicans and Democrats alike that would roll back some safety standards in the Washington, D.C., airspace. It comes on the heels of the collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and passenger jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport earlier this year. CONGRESS RACES AGAINST 3-WEEK DEADLINE TO TACKLE MASSIVE YEAR-END LEGISLATIVE AGENDA Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chair Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the top ranking Democrat on the panel, are pushing to have the provision stripped with their own amendment, which would codify the safety tweaks made after the midair collision. Cruz said alongside family members of the victims of the crash, which killed 67, that the provision didn’t go through the ordinary clearances.” “Normally, when you’re adding a provision to the NDAA that impacts aviation, you would request clearance from the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee,” Cruz said. “No clearance was requested. We discovered this provision when the final version of the bill dropped out of the House and it was passed.” There are also several provisions that deal with Ukraine, including an extension of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which would authorize $400 million each year to buy weapons from U.S. defense companies. There’s a provision that would prevent the U.S. from quietly cutting off intelligence support to the country by requiring at least 48-hours notice detailing why, how long it would last and the impact on Ukraine. There’s also a provision that would beef up reporting requirements for all foreign aid flowing to Ukraine from the U.S. and other allies supporting the country in its conflict with Russia.
Ilhan Omar claims ICE pulled over her son during ‘racial profiling’ sweep amid Trump’s crackdown in Minnesota
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said that her U.S.-born son was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minnesota on Saturday, raising concerns about “racial profiling” as federal authorities ramp up immigration enforcement across the state. Omar said her son was stopped outside a Target store and released after showing his passport, an encounter that came just days after President Donald Trump defended ICE operations in Minnesota. “Yesterday after he made a stop at Target, he did get pulled over by ICE agents and once he was able to produce his passport ID they did let him go,” Omar said Sunday during an interview on WCCO-TV, CBS’s Minnesota station. Omar told the station that her son routinely carries his passport because he fears being mistaken for an illegal immigrant. BORDER CZAR TOM HOMAN FIRES BACK AT CNN HOST IN DEFENSE OF ICE TACTICS: ‘THEY’VE BEEN SHOT AT’ “I had to remind him just how worried I am because all of these areas they’re talking about are areas where he can possibly find himself in and they are racially profiling,” she said, adding that ICE is “looking for young men who look Somali.” Minnesota Gov. Walz reacted to the incident on X, writing that Omar’s son was pulled over even though he was following the law. “This isn’t a targeted operation to find violent criminals, it’s racial profiling,” he wrote. CONVICTED ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CHILD KILLER WHO MURDERED INFANT SON ARRESTED IN TWIN CITIES ICE SWEEP The Minnesota representative’s comments came after ICE announced on Friday it has arrested more than 400 illegal immigrants as part of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, including “pedophiles, rapists and violent thugs.” President Donald Trump also told reporters Friday that Omar is “very bad for our country.” The president called Omar and a bloc of Somali migrants in Minnesota “garbage” during a cabinet meeting earlier this month, adding that Somalia “is barely a country, where they run around killing each other.” OMAR COMPARES STEPHEN MILLER’S MIGRANT RHETORIC TO NAZI DESCRIPTIONS OF JEWISH PEOPLE “When they come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but b—- — we don’t want them in our country. Let ’em go back to where they came from and fix it,” Trump said. Last week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz wrote a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem asking her to “reassess” her enforcement strategy, stating that multiple U.S. citizens have been arrested by ICE agents across the state. DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN CLAIMS TRUMP’S ICE IS ‘PRIMARILY GOING AFTER INNOCENT PEOPLE, INCLUDING US CITIZENS’ “Reports indicate that some citizens were documenting federal activity, while others were going about their daily lives,” he wrote. “This troubling pattern raised serious questions, not only about due process and the rights of U.S. citizens, but also about trust between Minnesota communities and federal authorities,” he added. In response to the letter, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital that Americans “who assault and obstruct law enforcement have been arrested.” she said. Fox News Digital has reached out to ICE for comment. Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
Trump urges capture of ‘animal’ gunman in Brown University shooting, says no motive yet
President Donald Trump said no motive has been identified for the suspected gunman who remains at large after opening fire inside a classroom at Brown University in Rhode Island Saturday. Although police originally detained a man in a Rhode Island hotel in connection with the fatal shooting that took the lives of two students, authorities announced Sunday that they had released the man and the hunt for the suspect resumed Monday. “We’re going to see what happens,” Trump told reporters Monday. “Hopefully they’re going to capture this animal.” When asked why the FBI, who is supporting local law enforcement in Rhode Island with their investigation into the matter, had struggled to identify the shooting suspect, Trump said that doing so is always difficult and that the issue lies with the school. BROWN UNIVERSITY WAS ‘SOFT TARGET’ FOR SHOOTER WHO REMAINS AT LARGE, CRIMINAL PROFILER SAYS “This was a school problem. They had their own guards,” Trump said. “They had their own police, had their own everything. But you’d have to ask that question really to the school, not to the FBI. We came in after the fact, and the FBI will do a good job, but they came in after the fact.” Two students died in the shooting, and another nine were injured. One of the victims of the shooting was identified as Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama who served as vice president of the Brown University College Republicans, according to authorities. The other victim was identified as Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, authorities said. Umurzokov and his family are naturalized citizens from Uzbekistan now living in Virginia, according to The New York Times. Fox News’ Stephen Sorace and Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.
Trump admin will recruit 1,000 technologists for elite ‘Tech Force’ to modernize government
The Trump administration launched a new initiative Monday aimed at recruiting top-tier technical talent to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) at the federal level. The hiring program, known as “Tech Force,” plans to recruit roughly 1,000 early-career technologists for a two-year service term across various federal agencies. “The main objective of this program is there’s a ton of technology modernization work that needs to get done across pretty much every agency in the government,” Scott Kupor, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), told Fox News Digital on Monday. The initiative was announced four days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order outlining a national policy framework designed to strengthen U.S. leadership in AI. WAR DEPARTMENT REFOCUSES ON AI, HYPERSONICS AND DIRECTED ENERGY IN MAJOR STRATEGY OVERHAUL “President Trump has made clear that securing America’s leadership in AI is the paramount national challenge of this generation,” the OPM said in a press release. “The president’s AI Action Plan focuses on unleashing private sector innovation while also recognizing the federal government must have the technical talent to lead in technology modernization. Recruits can be placed at agencies such as Departments of War, State, Homeland Security or Health and Human Services, where they would work on AI implementation, software development, data modernization and generally move federal operations off aging systems. The new program has partnered with more than 25 leading technology companies to help guide government modernization efforts. Those private-sector partners include Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon Web Services, Google Public Sector, Uber, Zoom, Adobe, NVIDIA, Dell Technologies and Palantir. TRUMP SAYS HE WILL SIGN ‘ONE RULE’ EXECUTIVE ORDER TO FEDERALIZE AI REGULATION Recruits can expect annual salaries ranging from $150,000 to $200,000, Communications Head McLaurine Pinover told Fox News Digital. Participants will also gain substantial career development opportunities spanning both the public and private sectors, Kupor added. “At the end of the program, we’re also going to run a very, very comprehensive job fair with all those private companies coming to meet all these thousand engineers and give them the opportunity if they decide they want to go into the private sector,” Kupor said. “We’re trying to demonstrate that people can come to government, even for a short period of time, even for two years, do great work, and ultimately, that work will present tremendous career opportunities for them.” The initiative is primarily designed to increase the number of early-career professionals, those with five to seven years of work experience or less, in the federal government, Kupor said. He noted that while roughly 22 percent of the private-sector workforce is made up of early-career employees, that figure is closer to 7 percent in government. Once participants complete their two-year term, they can choose to remain in government or pursue career opportunities elsewhere, he said.
One chart lays bare the sprawling fraud network Minnesota officials missed
What had been a modest stream of taxpayer dollars to Feeding Our Future suddenly became a flood, surging 2,800% in a year, an abrupt spike now at the center of mounting scrutiny and oversight concerns. The explosive growth occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the organization exploited a federally funded children’s nutrition program run by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), siphoning off money intended to feed low-income kids. It now stands as the nation’s largest COVID-19 fraud case. MINNESOTA’S ANTI-FRAUD SPENDING HAS QUIETLY BALLOONED, LEAVING TAXPAYERS TO PAY FOR FAILURE TWICE Data from the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor sheds light on how the scheme went unchecked for so long, finding that the MDE oversight was “inadequate” and that its failures “created opportunities for fraud.” State records chart the rise in payments and reveal how the fraud ballooned in plain sight. According to data from the state audit, payments to Feeding Our Future began in 2019 at $1.4 million. That figure rose to $4.8 million the following year before topping out at $140.3 million in 2021, a staggering 2,818% increase. Even before the pandemic, Feeding Our Future was already an outlier. READ ADDITIONAL FOX NEWS COVERAGE OF THE MINNESOTA FRAUD EXPOSE By the end of 2019, it sponsored more than six times the number of Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) sites as its peers. When federal nutrition dollars surged during COVID-19, that gap only widened. While funding to all meal sponsors increased, Feeding Our Future’s growth far outpaced the rest of the system. According to the legislative auditor, in 2021, nearly four out of every 10 dollars sent to nonprofit meal sponsors in Minnesota flowed to Feeding Our Future alone. Taken together, the numbers show that Feeding Our Future was expanding faster, adding more sites and collecting a vastly larger share of federal meal funds than any comparable organization, long before state regulators intervened. And the oversight failures were just as striking. Flawed applications sailed through, complaints were never investigated, and the nonprofit kept expanding despite repeated red flags. What’s more, in the wake of a years-long $250 million welfare fraud scheme, Minnesota taxpayers will now finance a pricey state-level cleanup effort, effectively paying for the failure twice after state officials missed warnings. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota has said in the past that he is ultimately accountable for the fraud that took place under his administration.