The Trump administration is intensifying its pressure campaign on Minnesota with a multiagency law enforcement effort, seizing on fraud allegations to scrutinize a Democrat-led state that has long been a punching bag for President Trump.
The probes into the misuse of federal funds in Minnesota follow months of growing ire from the Trump administration over allegations of widespread fraud involving the state’s social safety net programs. About 100 people have been charged in schemes that law enforcement officials say involved Minnesota’s Somali diaspora enriching themselves by billing state agencies for millions of dollars of services that were not provided. Trump administration officials have fanned speculation of an even deeper scandal that includes the theft of billions of dollars of federal funds.
This week, the White House released a fact sheet saying it was “unleashing a relentless assault to dismantle the massive fraud empires” in Minnesota. That document detailed efforts by nearly every major federal agency, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Labor and the Department of Agriculture, to root out fraud.
“Rest assured, this is an all-hands-on-deck effort to get to the bottom of this,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday of fraud in Minnesota.
But Mr. Trump is not stopping with Minnesota. He and his top officials have made clear that the administration is preparing to investigate potential fraud in other large blue states, such as California, Colorado and Illinois. The administration has already moved to freeze funds for anti-poverty programs in those states, claiming, without evidence, that those states are rife with fraud.
“We’re going to come to you, Gov. Newsom, and we’re going to arrest every single individual that has ties to this kind of stealing of taxpayer dollars, and we will hold them accountable,” Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said on Tuesday in an interview on Fox News.
In recent days, the Department of Homeland Security has sent agents door to door in the Minneapolis area to investigate potential immigration fraud. The F.B.I. has dispatched forensic accounting and data analytics teams to probe dozens of health care and home care providers for links to terrorist financing. And the Department of Housing and Urban Development is conducting a “wide-ranging” investigation into possible public housing assistance fraud in Minnesota, according to the White House.
And Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Tuesday saying that the agency would begin auditing Medicaid receipts from the state.
The spotlight on Minnesota led to its first political casualty this week as Mr. Walz, a Democrat, announced that he would drop his re-election bid in order to protect the state’s residents. Mr. Trump has signaled that he intends to broaden the scope of investigations into how states are using federal funds, telling reporters on Air Force One over the weekend that he would also be looking at California and Illinois. Both states are led by Democrats — California by Mr. Newsom and Illinois by Gov. JB Pritzker — who could be presidential candidates in 2028.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced plans to freeze $10 billion in funding for child care subsidies, social services and cash support for low-income families in five states controlled by Democrats, claiming widespread fraud.
Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois and Colorado will be cut off from around $7 billion in funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash assistance to low-income households with children.
The five states will also lose access to nearly $2.4 billion for the Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes child care for working parents, and around $870 million for social services grants that mostly benefit children at risk of neglect and abuse.
“Families who rely on child care and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purpose,” Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement on Tuesday. “This action reflects our commitment to program integrity, fiscal responsibility and compliance with federal requirements.”
Top Trump administration officials from across the government have been fixated on Minnesota and suggest that they intend to expand the scope of their scrutiny.
Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, said he thought the operation in Minnesota was just the “tip of the iceberg.”
“I think we’re going to find a hell of a lot more in Illinois, New York, California. We’ll see,” Mr. Homan said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday. “This operation is going nationwide.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has been tracking illicit funds that have been sent from businesses in Minnesota to Somalia, plans to travel to the state on Thursday to give a speech at the Economic Club of Minnesota.
If the Trump administration follows through with freezing federal funds, it will most likely face legal challenges from the states. By Tuesday, states were preparing their responses and legal challenges.
Mr. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, said that the Trump administration’s moves were putting the lives of children and parents at risk.
“This is wrong, it is cruel, and we will take every step possible to defend the kids and families depending on all of us right now,” Mr. Pritzker said.
Mr. Newsom’s press office defended him in a post on X, saying that the California governor had blocked over $125 billion in fraud and calling Mr. Trump a “deranged, habitual liar whose relationship with reality ended years ago.”
The White House acknowledged that it plans to expand the model of scrutiny it has applied to Minnesota to other Democrat-led states and insisted that it would not ignore fraud in any state.
“Unfortunately, states led by incompetent and corrupt Democrat politicians — who make no effort to address fraud — create ideal environments for these scammers to flourish,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman. “That can’t be allowed, and the administration will continue addressing fraud in all states where it exists.”
The Trump administration has frequently pointed to the need to reduce waste and fraud as a way to reduce federal deficits. However, its strict focus on blue states has prompted criticism that the scrutiny is motivated by politics rather than economics.
“We’ll be having a litigation strategy,” Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said on Tuesday. “We’ll fight this with every fiber of our being because our kids should not be political pawns in a fight that Donald Trump seems to have with blue state governors.”
Chris Edwards, a scholar at the right-leaning Cato Institute, noted that improper payments are also widespread in other programs, such as farm subsidies, that are concentrated in Republican-led states.
“If the Trump administration wanted to be fair in its fraud crackdown, which I support, it should also go after the substantial fraud in Republican states and Republican-supported programs,” Mr. Edwards said.
In Minnesota, Mr. Walz said this week that he opted not to run for a third term in part to shield residents from the wrath of Mr. Trump and suggested that the president’s motivations were political.
“I don’t think any governor in history has had to fight a war against the federal government every single day,” Mr. Walz told reporters. Mr. Walz was the running mate of Mr. Trump’s 2024 presidential rival, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
For Mr. Trump, Minnesota has been a state that escaped him in all three of his presidential bids. Speaking at a retreat for House Republicans on Tuesday, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that he won Minnesota, before correcting himself and suggesting that election fraud was also a problem in the state.
“I did great there three times,” Mr. Trump said. “I was surprised three times. Those elections are corrupt.”
Madeleine Ngo and Tony Romm contributed reporting.
Alan Rappeport is an economic policy reporter for The Times, based in Washington. He covers the Treasury Department and writes about taxes, trade and fiscal matters.
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