'It makes me want to knee someone in the groin,' Senator says of $1B Somali fraud scheme
WASHINGTON (TNND) — Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican who represents Louisiana, described the $1 billion Somali fraud case in Minnesota as "a clown world on steroids" and "deeply disgusting."
Kennedy made the comments on Thursday during a Senate floor speech when speaking about the "Feeding Our Future" fraud scandal, with prosecutors uncovering the defrauding of the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"For the last five years, there has been massive welfare fraud in the great state of Minnesota. Over one billion dollars of American taxpayer dollars has been stolen -- just stolen. They can call it fraud, but a better term would be stealing. And this fraud has been centered in the Somali community in Minnesota," he said, adding that he gets "angry" when he finds out people take advantage of taxpayer money."
"It makes me want to knee someone in the groin," Kennedy said, slamming state leaders and demanding accountability. "It just makes me furious and I think the American taxpayers feel the same way."
Kennedy said he has no interest in criticizing the 80,000 members of the Somali community who live in the state. But he added that "it is a fact that this one billion dollars in welfare fraud occurred almost exclusively in the Somali community."
Citing law enforcement officials, the New York Times was the first to report that the fraud erupted in sectors of Minnesota’s Somali community, with many individuals profiting by establishing companies that invoiced state agencies for millions in unprovided social services.
Several people involved were affiliated with Feeding Our Future, a false charity said to be providing meals, given $250 million under the Federal Child Nutrition Program.
"Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating. That is more than Minnesota spends annually to run its Department of Corrections," the Times previously reported.
Peter Schweizer, who is the president of the Government Accountability Institute, called the evidence overwhelming.
"Hundreds of millions of dollars were diverted again by several dozen Somali nationals, who took the money they were supposed to be using to feed children. And in fact, we're pocketing for criminal instances," he said during an interview with The National News Desk on Thursday. "It was 125 million meals that this charity claimed that they were providing to children that were not provided at all."
The White House said the fraud involved "a massive, complex network of nonprofits and affiliates" linked to the Somali community, with nonprofits claiming to be helping thousands of hungry children, providing services to homeless people, as well as providing therapy for autistic Somali children.
"Kickbacks were paid, lavish lifestyles were funded, and money was sent overseas -- some of it even allegedly funneled to a terror group," according to the White House.
President Donald Trump recently called Minnesota "a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” and announced he was terminating Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota, a legal safeguard against deportation for immigrants from certain countries. He also said he did not want immigrants from the war-torn East African country to stay in the U.S.
“We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” he said, adding that Minnesota has become a “hellhole” because of them.
“Somalians should be out of here,” he told reporters. “They’ve destroyed our country."
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz later denounced Trump for calling Minnesota’s Somali community "garbage" and dismissing the state as a "hellhole."
Walz said Trump slandered all Minnesotans and that his expressions of contempt for the state's Somali community -- the largest in the U.S. -- were “unprecedented for a United States president."
"We’ve got little children going to school today who their president called them garbage," Walz said.
Republican legislative leaders stopped short of accepting the governor's invitation to join him in condemnation, and countered that the dispute wouldn’t have erupted if Walz had acted more effectively to prevent fraud in social service programs.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: The National News Desk's Kristine Frazao and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
