This Is Not About Fraud
It’s about power, spectacle, and who gets punished when standards are applied selectively
I want to open this year by grounding something that too many people are pretending is negotiable. There was real fraud in Minnesota. The Feeding Our Future case was not imagined, exaggerated, or invented by political enemies. It involved roughly $250 million in federal funds intended to feed children during a national emergency. Dozens of people have been charged. Convictions are underway. The harm is documented, and it deserves condemnation without hesitation.
What it does not deserve is to be repurposed as a weapon.
At the center of that case is Aimee Bock, the former executive director of Feeding Our Future. Her personal political affiliation has never been publicly confirmed, and I will not invent one. What is known is that her nonprofit operated within Minnesota’s political and administrative ecosystem, dominated by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. That establishes proximity to power, not ideological guilt. Proximity demands oversight every time.
I am on the left. That does not exempt my side.
If oversight mechanisms failed under DFL leadership, then that failure belongs to the DFL administration. If warning signs were missed, ignored, or deprioritized, that is not a Republican talking point. It is a governance failure. Accountability that only flows outward is not accountability. It is branding, and I reject it.
But what followed was never about fixing systems.
In late 2025, Nick Shirley released a viral video alleging widespread daycare fraud in Minnesota. The video did not present audited financial trails or reconciled licensing data. It relied on confrontation, implication, and absence framed as proof. Workers were put on camera. Silence was treated as guilt. Viewers were encouraged to “make their own conclusions” after being led, deliberately, toward one.
I do not consider that journalism. I consider it spectacle.
What matters more than the lack of verification is where Shirley chose to stage it. He confronted staff at active daycare facilities, including spaces where children were present. That crosses a hard ethical line. Children are not props. Care spaces are not stages. Even if fraud were later proven at a specific facility, escalating confrontation in front of minors is reckless. No serious investigative standard defends that choice.
As scrutiny followed, the narrative cracked. Some facilities were filmed outside operating hours. Others were later shown by mainstream reporters to have children actively arriving. Instead of correcting the record, Shirley dismissed context as performance. Absence remained proof. Criticism became complicity. That is not investigation. It is outrage maintenance.
And the right seized it instantly.
This was never just about fraud. It was about targeting.
Minnesota’s Somali American community did not become central to this story by accident. The right flattened a complex, administrative crime into a cultural suspicion that could be aimed at immigrants. Somali-run daycares were treated as collectively suspect. Workers were harassed. Families were stigmatized. Broad funding freezes punished providers who had nothing to do with criminal activity.
This is not new. It is the continuation of political warfare against immigrants, repackaged as fiscal concern. Allegations first. Verification later or never. Collective suspicion as policy. Cruelty disguised as accountability.
What makes this especially obscene is the hypocrisy.
Donald Trump is not an anti-fraud crusader. He has been found liable for civil fraud in New York for systematically misrepresenting asset values to obtain financial benefit. That is not an allegation. That is a court ruling. He has also been criminally charged in 37 felony counts related to falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments. While those charges are not labeled under fraud statutes, they involve deliberate deception for personal and political gain.
And it goes further.
The Trump Organization, through the Trump Foundation, was found by the New York Attorney General to have illegally diverted charitable funds, including money raised for children battling cancer. The foundation was ordered dissolved. Donald Trump admitted wrongdoing as part of a settlement. He was required to pay damages, and his children were barred from serving as directors of New York charities for a period of time.
Funds raised in the name of sick children were used for business expenses and personal benefit. That is fraud. It was adjudicated as such.
So when the right suddenly claims moral outrage over public funds allegedly being misused in the name of children, I reject the premise. Fraud involving children did not disqualify Trump. Fraud involving charities did not disqualify Trump. Fraud involving deception did not disqualify Trump.
What disqualifies, in this ecosystem, is proximity to immigrants, not proximity to crime.
The hypocrisy is reinforced by policy behavior.
During the pandemic, Republican officials loudly condemned public assistance while quietly benefiting from it. Republican members of Congress whose PPP loans were forgiven include:
Matt Gaetz (R-FL) — $476,000
Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) — $180,000
Greg Pence (R-IN) — $79,441
Vern Buchanan (R-FL) — $2.8 million
Kevin Hern (R-OK) — $1,070,000
Roger Williams (R-TX) — $1,430,000
Brett Guthrie (R-KY) — $4.3 million
Ralph Norman (R-SC) — $306,520
Ralph Abraham (R-LA) — $38,000
Mike Kelly (R-PA) — $974,100
Vicki Hartzler (R-MO) — $451,200
Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) — $988,700
Carol Miller (R-WV) — $3.1 million
Most of these loans were legally forgiven. That is not the argument. The argument is standards. When relief flows upward, it is framed as business support. When aid flows to immigrant communities, it becomes suspicion, investigation, and collective punishment.
That double standard is not accidental. It is structural.
I don’t defend institutions.
I defend standards.
Fraud should be exposed, prosecuted, and punished wherever it occurs. Oversight failures should be owned wherever they happen. Children should never be used as props. And entire communities should never be placed on trial because they are politically convenient targets.
What Remains When the Noise Is Removed
Fraud occurred and was real.
Oversight failures under Democratic leadership deserve accountability.
Aimee Bock’s political affiliation is not established and should not be invented.
Confrontational spectacle is not investigation.
Children must never be used as props.
Somali Americans are being collectively targeted as part of an immigration warfare strategy.
Donald Trump was found liable for civil fraud and charged with felony deception.
The Trump Organization illegally diverted charitable funds, including money raised for children with cancer.
Trump pardoned multiple convicted fraudsters.
Republican officials benefited from forgiven public loans.
Justice collapses when standards are selective.
This is where I stand.
This is what survives scrutiny.
That is my ledger.
Receipts
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/nyregion/trump-fraud-ruling.html
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-judge-orders-trump-pay-fraud-penalty-2024-02-16/
[3] https://www.justice.gov/storage/US-v-Trump-Indictment.pdf
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/nyregion/trump-foundation-lawsuit.html
[5] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-foundation-idUSKCN1OI1LU
[6] https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2018/attorney-general-james-secures-dissolution-trump-foundation
[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/23/us/politics/trump-pardons.html
[8] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-pardons-idUSKBN28X2HR
[9] https://www.propublica.org/article/ppp-loans-forgiven-congress-members
[10] https://www.businessinsider.com/republican-lawmakers-ppp-loans-forgiven-list