In today’s rapidly evolving world, staying informed about the intricacies of current events is more crucial than ever. This episode of Sekulow brings you up-to-the-minute information on the massive FBI raids currently unfolding in Minnesota. Listen in as Logan Sekulow delves into the intersection of fraud, immigration, and political fallout, providing a critical lens on how these developments are reshaping the legal and social landscape. This isn’t just old news resurfacing but a fresh look at a story that remains as relevant as ever.
SPEAKER 04 :
we’ve got a breaking update coming out of minnesota massive coordinated fbi raid is underway keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is seculo we want to hear from you share and post your comments for call 1-800-684-3110
SPEAKER 03 :
And now your host, Logan Secula. Welcome to Secula. Look, I’ve been saying, what happened to this news story? For weeks, I feel like I couldn’t escape what was happening in Minnesota. Whether that was the fraud, whether that was ICE, whatever was going on in Minnesota, it felt like it was top story for a very long time. And look, this isn’t the number one story today. The number one story of the day seems to be President Trump hosting King Charles. However… At the same time, we have actually some real updates out of Minnesota. This is on more of the fraud situation than it is the ICE situation. They’ve actually tried to say these are very distinct, that this has nothing to do with each other, but we know they kind of have some connective tissue. And of course, we were talking about these sort of massive raids that are now happening as we speak, a coordinated FBI raid that’s underway in Minnesota, going after some of these businesses that were clearly fraudulent or at least alleged to be fraudulent. This includes some of those heavy hitters, the learning centers, some of those ones that were exposed through YouTube, all of that happening right now. So look, as much as it felt like this had become an old story, That maybe the American people and not only the American people that may be under after you had Kristi Noem relieved of her duty. And then you had Tom Holman step in also during this that maybe not only did it quiet down, maybe they just said, hey, let’s just slowly phase this out. Clearly, that’s not true. Clearly, there was still a team working on this as so much so that they’re doing this now.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. The FBI, in coordination with Homeland Security Investigations, HSI, has rated or is in the process of rating 22 locations in Minnesota related to fraud investigations from the Department of Justice. This is one of those things that you start to look at and you’re like, oh, was anything going to happen?
SPEAKER 01 :
Everyone saw it.
SPEAKER 08 :
but then yes for law enforcement to take these actions they have to do preliminary investigations they have to get warrants and what you see now happening is the raids in the furtherance of those investigations then we will find out if they are able to at least allege enough to bring charges of fraud against individuals we’re in the raid phase right now we have seen Footage of FBI agents going in and out of places like the Quality Learing Center, you may remember, for most of the morning. Meaning they are going in, they are seizing documents, seizing things that could be used as evidence in a fraud investigation. This is a big uptick in what we saw all the news talking about. And we even saw people in the government. We saw J.D. Vance. We saw everyone saying this has got to stop. But then it kind of did go quiet. And we did see that the president tasked the vice president with that very important role of leading a task force into fraud. And then we saw some things in California get uncovered. But Minnesota kind of went away until today.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, we’re going to dive a lot more into that when we get back. And look, there’s only two days that remain in our Double the Difference drive. This week, we’ve been focusing on faith under fire. Again, two days. It’s the end of the month. It’s not even a full week of this. And I want you right now. If you can, to support the work of the ACLJ, and when you do, your donation goes twice as far. We are currently focusing so much on our fight for those who are street preachers, for those that are involved in really preaching the gospel and are being shut down nationwide. These are issues that we’ve been dealing with in the 40 years almost the ACLJ has existed, but somehow in the last 12 months or so, They seem to have creeped back in. So many of these are settled law. The Supreme Court has ruled on it because the ACLJ was there. But sometimes you got to reinforce it. You got to remind a whole new level of law enforcement of what they’re dealing with here and what they’re dealing with is in the American Center for Law and Justice. And none of that happens without you. So I’m going to encourage you today. To make that donation and have your donation doubled right now. There is somebody out there ready to unlock a pledge to match your donation. Stand with believers who are risking it all right now. Your support is critical. That’s worldwide, by the way. Whether that’s a street preacher or those that are literally being jailed and persecuted for their faith. Go to ACLJ.org. Right now, phone lines are also open. Give me a call. Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take your calls and comments on this. And look, a lot of you are tuning in just this second. I see the numbers spiking right now on our YouTube stream, on our Rumble stream. So right now, if you’re joining us, you want to know what is going on in Minnesota. No, this is not a replay. No, this is not old news. We are finally getting back to what was going on with that massive fraud that was going on in Minnesota. The fraud scandal that ended with Tim Walz stepping down from his re-election. campaign remember it was a big deal for a few weeks there but then we moved on war happened in iran yeah we’ve had an assassination attempt there has been so many other topics That took the American people’s eyes off of what was going on right here. So much so that I kind of assumed, and look, they had to do a lot of cleanup. I think a lot of people had combined this and the ICE situation in Minnesota. And I think a lot of us said, you know what, they need to really take a look at what’s going on with the ICE. Because those things, I’m glad they’re separating them in the way they’re talking about this right now, are not the same thing. You can have massive fraud that’s happening. And you could also have an issue with maybe some of the extreme nature that happened with ICE. So much so that you’ve got to remember, because you may go, well, it wasn’t extreme. We didn’t have a problem with it. Well, clearly the president did, because you have a different Department of Homeland Security head. You have maybe a Tom Holman step in. You have a lot of changes since then, different Department of Justice. You have a lot of people who have swapped places, new people, because maybe that one went too far. But at the same time, and maybe that’s why, they needed to give it a little bit of a gap. They needed to give you time to kind of forget about the ICE raids and move on to having these new raids in Minnesota, which most people… are in favor of, which is we’re people scamming and frauding a state to the tunes of billions of dollars. Nobody likes that. Nobody wants that. Even Tim Walz said, we’re trying to step up our game here. We’re trying to make things better. The pressure got so hard on him that he could not run for reelection. That is what happened in Minnesota. Time moved on. And now you have the FBI once again doing their job, stepping in and saying, look, some of those ones, specifically those learning centers that were spelled wrong, the ones that were shut down, that clearly weren’t actually operating, were just fleecing the government for money. We are doing our job here and trying to take care of some of that business.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and when you look at what’s going on, 22 locations, including child care centers in Minnesota, were raided by the FBI as well as Homeland Security investigations. It was a coordinated effort. We also see that J.D. Vance, the vice president, he responded to a report from Bill Mellugian at Fox News on X saying the task force and the DOJ will be relentless in exposing these fraudsters wherever they may be hiding information. as well as you’re seeing a lot of other movement. It’s not just Minnesota. And I see comments on here, and this is a part of that conservative nihilism that nothing will ever happen, that woe is the world, nothing can get better. I see this, and I say, one, it’s why we have to keep pointing out that this is something that the American people care about, because you get movement. Also, These are court-ordered warrants. So court-approved warrants to go in on these raids. It wasn’t just they walked by and the FBI decided to break down the door and go in. They did it through the proper channels, which means they are building a case so that it’s done properly. If they go to court, they can get convictions against fraudsters. But there’s a lot more here to break down too, Logan.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, true. And I want to actually take this call because it is a question that we’ve answered, but I think a lot of you who are just tuning in are having this question. Robert in Maryland, go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I wanted to ask, what are some of these raids taking place in Minnesota? Are these raids concerning fraud or specifically also dealing with the fraud concerning some of the Somali immigrants that were taking place in the state of Minnesota? The other question I had was, how much information do they have on the would-be assassin of President Donald Trump?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, let’s start with a couple different topics there. A lot of these are Somali businesses. We know that this is where it’s going. Now, these aren’t ICE-related raids. These aren’t specifically. They made a pretty big deal by saying, this is not immigration. We are dealing with just fraud. Now, it happens to be that a lot of that fraud was coming from the large Somali-American population that is in Minnesota. Hopefully, we can kind of see past maybe that side of it and go, this is fraud is fraud. If you have billions of dollars being wasted, that goes beyond any sort of racial or ethnicity that needs to be taken care of. I know Will has a little bit more details on that. To give you an answer about the would-be assassin, I think there is quite a bit of information. We have more information on this guy publicly than we ever did about… the actual shooter from Butler. We have probably a little bit more than even from the previous one in Florida. There’s a lot of details that are coming out. And again, they’re not necessarily red flags or that salacious. They are sadly what a lot of the American people who have become deranged about this administration are saying.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. And to that point as well, he was formally charged yesterday. He was arraigned in federal court. And there was another charge that wasn’t reported in the news that morning. They actually did charge him with an attempt to assassinate the president. So that was an extra charge. And I think a lot of that stemmed from the information they already had from whether it be his manifesto of sorts that he sent his family and other things. I know he did speak with law enforcement, according to reports, for a little bit before deciding to stop speaking with them. So they felt like they had enough to bring that charge as well, the attempted assassination of the president himself. Now… Judge Jeanine, who is the U.S. attorney there, has also said the more they go into his digital footprint, the more they will find out there very well could be a superseding indictment that will bring even more charges against this individual. But as of right now, we know a lot more, like you said, than we knew about the Butler, Pennsylvania assassin, would-be assassin that was killed in that situation.
SPEAKER 03 :
We know more about him now.
SPEAKER 08 :
right you know a few days in i mean that is still one of the weird ones like i’m not a conspiracy theorist in general but there’s like no we know the information well i did see that there was some posts from the social media of this uh this individual who’s now in custody where he was questioning the validity of both the uh the butler assassination attempt yeah i think it was that one specifically because he was pointing out that oh he had no scar etc that the irony of of a would-be assassin of the president was questioning the validity of a would-be assassin of that same individual. Just what a bizarro, sick, twisted world we’re living in.
SPEAKER 03 :
Like you said, you brought that up. It’s the same people that would honestly be probably calling for this are the same people that are going to say it’s fake. Right. And it’s a very odd situation to be in. Obviously, very disturbed. I look very disturbed American people right now. And we do need to figure out some sort of path back. Of course, there’s a situation with Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel then went on air last night and said that wasn’t the joke. The joke I was making was their age gap. had nothing to do with any sort of assassination attempt. You can take that for whatever you want. If you want to believe that, that’s fine. You had George Clooney coming out saying, look, I don’t think what he was saying was a joke. I thought what he was saying was a joke. And I thought Carolyn Leavitt saying the shots fired was a joke. But in general, how about we just bring it all down? And he even said, as a Democrat, a proud Democrat, someone who’s loud and proud talking about it, that he thought it was time to see that happen. And that you have a robust journalist who, sure, you’re going to have journalists who are always going to poke back. You have comedians that are always going to poke back, make jokes. And sure, a joke can be a joke. And I understand that. I’m not in any form of censorship. But I do think there is a bit of read the room right now and what’s happening. And we’ll see societally if anything changes. I don’t expect it to. I expect you to be as expected within hours. Things had really adjusted.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, when the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, the days after the attempted assassination on a room full of journalists and people that were unaffiliated, even with the government. says that we are declaring maximum warfare on Republicans as the leader in the House. And then when people call you out, you double down on it and say, well, someone, an anonymous source to the New York Times in the White House said something similar. when you’re trying to equate yourself to an anonymous White House source, when you are the named leader of the Democrats in Congress, yes, maybe, as Logan said, maybe you both shouldn’t be saying maximum warfare on each other at this point, but you’re going out and owning it, unlike someone who would do that anonymously. I think that there are some issues that we should maybe parse out there. But I have more information on fraud we can get to later. We also have C.C., Heil coming up in the next segment about an update from one of our clients in Pakistan as we continue this Faith Under Fire campaign as we talk about the ways that the ACLJ defends religious liberty both here and around the world. But there’s some really interesting stuff because I’m seeing questions in the YouTube chat that say, well, OK, maybe this is too little too late. It’s just small potatoes. If you’re only going after Minnesota, there’s a lot of other interesting things that are also happening today that to me say this is a much bigger operation than just these raids in Minnesota. We’ll get to that. Stick around.
SPEAKER 03 :
If you have those type of questions, I want to hear from you. And phone lines are. Let’s just be honest. We’re having big numbers on social media. Tons of you are watching on YouTube right now. We appreciate that. If you’re on YouTube and you’re brand new, by the way, hit that subscribe button. We do this show every day. If you’ve been here a while, let me know where you’re watching also in the chat. I appreciate it. If you’ve been here a while, You know, give me a call. I got a bunch of lines open right now. I want to hear from you on this. 1-800-684-3110. And if you’ve also been here a while, I want you in the next two days to think about supporting the work of the ACLJ. Before the month is up, that is the deadline for our Double the Difference Drive. Be a part of it today. Again, at ACLJ.org. Have your donation, your tax-deductible donation, go twice as far in our efforts. That’s at ACLJ.org. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Secula. We have some phone lines still open. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. CeCe Howell is joining us in studio. But if you are calling about Minnesota, if you’re watching about Minnesota, we are going to get right back to that. So don’t worry. But I did want you, as we are only two days away from the end of our Double the Difference drive, you got to hear about the work of the ACLJ that our team is doing. And some of these, like I said, we’re talking about persecuted Christians. We’re not talking about just Obviously, the cases, and they’re very important, like Street Preacher in Chicago, wherever it may be, those are no small potatoes, if you will, but there is a difference between that and what is happening in different countries. In some of these different countries, you legitimately have people on death row just because of their faith. We have an update, and it is a pretty gripping, chilling update, so just fair warning.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. And Cece, before we get to this, because we receive something that we don’t generally get. And this is a letter from one of our clients who is on death row in Pakistan. And I’ll read that for everyone. But I want you to give us a little bit of a background. Who are these brothers, Amun and Kaiser Ayub, who are on death row in Pakistan? What were they accused of? And just the tireless work that our attorneys are doing for these individuals.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, and I’ll tell you how this came about. We have an office in Pakistan, obviously, and we have four clients that are on death row right now for false blasphemy charges. And wonderfully, actually, one good thing is they’re all together in one prison, and we actually petitioned the prison because they do not allow visitors other than family members and we petitioned the prison when our attorney Shariar Gill who oversees the Pakistani office he’s Pakistani and he went over there just at the beginning of this month and got permission to actually go and see our clients and actually have a meal with them and so at this time he was able to encourage them give them updates on And this is where this letter has come from. But Amun and Kaiser Ayub, one of our false blasphemy cases, it was involving a website that actually the court has never proven. The prosecution has never proven, never shown any evidence. But these poor young men have been in prison for 11 years. And Kaiser, the older brother, actually then wrote this letter. And you think about that.
SPEAKER 08 :
That they were young men on death row spending now probably close to a majority of their life on death row in Pakistan. And Pakistan, once you get to the higher courts, has a fairly modern legal system. But they have these blasphemy laws where you can say you heard someone say something about the prophet. And you can get put on death row, sentenced to death for something as simple as relaying information or even not even saying anything at all and someone falsely accusing you. But here’s what the letter from Kaiser Ayub says. It says, greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord who is providing all of our needs through you all. All the efforts you all are doing to make us free and to make our life easier means a lot to us. There is no doubt that promise of crown of life is certainly for people like you all. What else you deserve for such good deeds, keeping pain of being imprisoned away from us and to be the voice of voiceless. Life in prison is not easy. but you all and love of our Jesus Christ keep us happy and satisfied. Me and my younger brother Amun have spent almost 11 years behind bars. Still, our morale is high and our faith in our Lord is firm because we know it does not matter how big and strong is our enemy. If we believe in God is on our side, who could stand against us? We are satisfied that by the grace of our Lord and with the help of our brave soldiers of Christ that are you all, we will soon win our freedom from the hands of unjust world. Thank you again for all your miraculous help. and efforts, your brother in Christ, Kaiser IU. It just goes to show that when you support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice, you are supporting the fight for Kaiser IU. That’s why I wanted to read that for you. And we’ll get back to the other talk of stuff that’s going on in the United States. But some things are just bigger even than a fraud investigation. These are two young men who were sitting on death row in a prison in Pakistan, CC. And you read that in the almost brings tears to your eyes that they’re they as young men, how strong their faith is sitting on death row. And knowing that there are people, the tireless attorneys like yourself that work for them, as well as the supporters here in the United States that prop up this organization that keep us going, keep our fight going to try and save them from their death. while they’re sitting there languishing in prison.
SPEAKER 02 :
And the prayers of the people. I know people who listen to this radio program and follow the ACLJ. We know that you pray for our clients. And just the fact that brings so much hope to them, that they’re not forgotten. And like you said, here they are 11 years in prison. but they remain hopeful because of the prayers and support of our listeners. And, you know, it also shows to Shahzad. Masih is one of them that’s in prison with him. And you’ve heard about that young man who was arrested falsely, again, accused of blasphemy. And he’s been given actual chores to do in the prison, like Joseph. He’s been given favor in the prison. So these Christian young men are, their testimony is even flourishing in the prison. On death row. On death row, yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
So again, that’s the work of the ACLJ. Hard at work, our team. This is nothing to laugh at. These are no joking matters. These aren’t even things that even compare, as Will said, to what… some of the struggles we have in the United States of America. Sure. There’s a lot of unrest for Christians. There’s a lot of unrest for Jewish people in the United States of America right now. And look, some of them have lost their lives. I’m not going to say that’s not happening, but it’s not sitting in prison. The government hasn’t said yet, at least that, you know, being a Christian is something that is punishable by death, but that is happening in other places in the world. And that’s why when we talk about the ACLJ’s worldwide efforts, I know it can get lost in translation a bit, and I try to bring it up, and sometimes it clicks, and sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes the audience wants to hear it, and sometimes they go get back to what we’re talking about. Look, we’re going to get back to Minnesota here in the next segment. But this worldwide reach, this worldwide effort, and remember, when you’re watching on something like YouTube or Rumble or wherever it may be, you’re talking about ACLJ.org. We are talking to the world. though America is probably 95% of our viewing base, we still get calls from all over the world. The ACLJ exists. So hopefully this message gets out there. If you’re in need and you’re somewhere else, you’re not just in America, go to aclj.org slash help as well. or somehow reach out to our teams. There’s the European Center. There’s ACLJ Jerusalem. We have an office in Pakistan. We have all of these places where the ACLJ is hard at work, and the efforts don’t stop. And they are 24-hour, not taking off a lot of holidays when we’re talking about people on death row.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right. We don’t stop, and we keep fighting, and we do that. And there’s a time change, so we do work around the clock. We’ve done that when we had clients in Turkey, in India, in Pakistan. We do, and we fight for justice, and we don’t stop until we get it.
SPEAKER 03 :
We appreciate you. Thank you so much, CeCe, for joining us. Look, we got one minute left in this segment. Some of you lose this if you’re on Terrestrial Radio. If you’re not, stay tuned. If you’re on SiriusXM, if you’re watching on Salem News Channel, if you’re watching on ACLJ.org, YouTube, Rumble, you get the full hour. Some of you on Terrestrial Radio don’t get the full hour. If you don’t, find us on any of those platforms, the ACLJ app, ACLJ.org, YouTube, Rumble. You can find us on all of those, wherever you get your podcasts, where they’re archived. And watch and listen to the full hour of this show. We’re going to dive back into what’s happening in Minnesota, that big coordinated FBI raid that’s happening right now as we speak on a lot of the fraud and abuse that was happening within that state. And we’re going to take it to how that affects other states as well in the next segment. So don’t go anywhere. That being said, 20 seconds left. If we do lose you here, two days remain in our double the difference drive. And I really need your support today. This is the last two days where you can have your donation doubled for a very long time. So now you need to do it. ACLJ.org. Scan the QR code you see. We’ll be right back. Less than a minute. Short break coming up.
SPEAKER 04 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to Sekulow, second half hour. We are talking about the current FBI raids. Again, this is not a rerun. This is what’s happening live right now. Minnesota finally is getting some accountability for the fraud scandal that broke out just a few months ago. And of course, as we said, news moved on. But what it looks like is even the new people in charge of the Department of Homeland Security or the FBI, they did not move on. This is not… specifically related to immigration. I want to be very clear about that. They’ve made it very clear about that. This is not ice. This has to do with fraud. Yes, a lot of these do come from Somali-run businesses, Somali-Americans, and we know that money was flowing in a very interesting way. However, this is not related to the immigration issues that were also happening in Minnesota. Remember, those were two things that happened almost simultaneously within a week or two of each other had broken out. But remember, this scandal was big enough to where Governor Tim Walz, former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, had to suspend and end his run for reelection. So the people in Minnesota have a lot to say about this. We got a call coming in from an ACLJ champion. Let’s go to Mike in Minnesota. Mike, go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, you know, I’m so glad that the FBI is really getting me involved in Minnesota. One of the things that I’m really concerned about, though, is what is the punishment for these people that are stealing billions and trillions of dollars from us, and the leaders and the governors are involved in this stuff, and, you know, the… The Democrats are just stealing us blind and then using the funding for their campaigns and remaining in power. I believe that they ought to have such a punishment that’s so severe that it stops. Now, if they sent these people to prison in South America, I guarantee you this stuff would stop immediately. So what do we need to do to create the punishment necessary to stop the fraud, the theft, the assassination attempts on our president and everything else? Our country is going to pieces and we need to stop it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Mike, I think one of the the key things here is that we’ve seen for so long how the system was working that it was these bloated budgets and and government bureaucracies that were funding these things with little oversight and not a lot of accountability that allowed for this fraud to get so rampant And now you’re seeing it being paid attention to. You’re seeing these raids on the places in Minnesota. I’m going to bring up in the next segment what the Secretary of Agriculture pointed out. This is Brooke Rollins, who oversees the SNAP program. That’s under the Department of Agriculture. Some of the fraud they’re seeing there, some of the questions that are being raised. So I think that one thing is clear, though. This is rampant and needs to be dealt with. We also need to make sure that things are done under the Constitution. that the people that are held accountable, that due process exists, that they go through the proper channels to seek a conviction of people that are guilty of fraud so that it preserves the system and makes it stronger, not that it further deteriorates our judicial system and our rule of law here. Remember, even President Trump, he ran on the rule of law. So we cannot abandon our principles that are constitutional principles and legal principles just because we want an expedient result. And that’s one thing we point out here all the time. Our legal system oftentimes will not get you the expedient result. But if we are going to be, as we say, believers in law and order, we cannot abandon those principles, even if it’s so frustratingly slow sometimes. We still have to stick to it.
SPEAKER 03 :
With that being said, we do want to hear from you. We have three lines open right now, so give me a call. 1-800-684-3110. I’m looking on YouTube right now. We have some big numbers right now. Thousands of you are watching just on that platform alone. If you’re brand new to us, we know when we have numbers like this that often about 50% have never seen us before. So I’m going to ask you to hit that subscribe button. And if you don’t mind, hit that thumbs up. And one more ask. Let me know what you’re watching in the comments. We’re a worldwide broadcast. which is amazing. So let me know where you’re watching from in the chat. I’ll read them during the break. Look, if you’re not new to us, these breaks are very short. They’re about a minute, two minutes. So just stay tuned. We’ll be right back. And I want to hear from you. Phone lines are open. Welcome back to Secula. We do have one line open right now, 1-800-684-3110. We’re going to take your calls throughout the rest of the show, so keep calling because we know this topic. A lot of you have some big thoughts, some big questions, but we also, Will, wanted you to hear from some of the people who are running this, some of the people who are in charge of this, and who do you want to hear from?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and this is what’s interesting, too, because I’ve seen a few comments. One, there is the typical nothing will ever happen. And I think this is proof that at least it’s moving towards something happening. But two is that it’s not just this raid in Minnesota. There’s been several things that have happened today. And one, I’m going to play for you in a moment because it’s incredible when you hear the numbers. But we’re also seeing that out of the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Bill Assele, that they have seized two million dollars in assets from a business expert wound care in Pasadena that they was believed were committing this Medicare fraud through false billing so they are cracking down around the country today and they even posted a picture of the warrant seizing these assets two million dollars so that’s in LA now We have the Secretary of Agriculture who went on television, on Fox Business, and was talking about recipients of SNAP benefits. Now, most of you may not think of immediately that SNAP is under the Department of Agriculture. So this is under her purview, Brooke Rollins.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I didn’t realize that.
SPEAKER 08 :
And so when you’re because at first, why are you playing a bite from the secretary of agriculture? Now they’re starting to look at fraud within the SNAP system. And here’s what she had to say on Fox Business bite one.
SPEAKER 01 :
Previously, no data was shared. We had no idea where the taxpayer dollars were spent. Just one red state, the recent dump of data, we found SNAP recipients had more than 2,000 Tesla owners, 200 Alfa Romeo owners, more than 144 that were receiving food stamps were driving Porsches. Again, this is the data dumps we’re getting because before we had no accountability on any of these programs. we now are requiring accountability the blue states are suing us they don’t want to share the data and can you imagine this was a red state where there is actually some taxpayer accountability imagine what’s happening in the blue states if that’s happening in the red states so when you hear that from the secretary of agriculture
SPEAKER 08 :
and and she’s saying that the data they received in just one state in her her post on x that shared the clip actually gave more information maybe too much information so much in one state and this is a red state and remember and this kind of goes back to where i was saying the bureaucracy created a system where there weren’t a lot of oversight and accountability because they weren’t getting data back the federal government giving the dollars for the states to run these programs We’re not getting data back from the states about where the money was actually going.
SPEAKER 03 :
Before Will reads off this, I’m just going to say this for the chat because we’re not going to speculate. I want to know what state you think he’s talking about. Let’s just take some guesses here. Look, nothing against any of those states, but you know it’s a red state. This is like some sort of mystery. You know it’s a red state, and then let’s hear some of the data. And I just want to know where you think this may be from because I think it’d be fun to speculate, and then maybe later on it will be revealed.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. So this is one state. 14,000 individuals receiving SNAP benefits were driving luxury vehicles. SNAP, that’s the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Food stamps. Food stamps. So 14,000 receiving food stamps, driving luxury vehicles. Here’s a breakdown of some of those vehicles. Three Bentleys. Three Ferraris, 11 Lamborghinis, 59 Maseratis, 141 Porsches, 244 Alfa Romeos, 306 Land Rovers, 2,098 Teslas in one state. And then she goes on to say, we need to defend our nutrition programs for those most in need, not for scammers gaming the system. And she also says, together with the vice president’s task force to eliminate fraud, this ends now. But just those numbers alone, I mean, some of those cars cost more than half a million dollars for one of the vehicles. Three Bentleys, three Ferraris, 11 Lamborghinis, and they’re getting food assistance programs. They could have been used. Okay, Logan.
SPEAKER 03 :
They could have been 20-year-old models. We don’t know this. It does make sense so many Teslas. Well, you know, you get the tax credit. It’s electric. The paper trail feels tight, but only internal. See, one person said they think it’s California, but remember, it’s a red state. Oh, no, I see. There’s two trends here. That I could see in there. I’m not going to say which ones, but there are two states. One’s very large. One’s also very large. Both of those are the ones people think. I don’t know if… Look, I’m a proud… former and current property owner in one of those states. I feel like I’m being targeted by our chat right now.
SPEAKER 08 :
It would make sense, especially also sharing the data with the federal government.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s the other key. And they want to get it taken care of.
SPEAKER 08 :
Who knows how long this has been going on? Well, I do. A long time. Because they haven’t been sharing the data.
SPEAKER 03 :
And it’s like, I know. I have an Alfa Romeo.
SPEAKER 08 :
And food stamps. not true that’s a terrible joke Logan. Then when you look at this though and that as she even said the blue states are suing saying no you have to give us the money we don’t have to give you the data that shouldn’t be how this works but those blue states know that the current system is good for them so I see a lot of people that are like we want the leadership of these states to be criminally charged And while what they’re doing is egregious and gross and unethical, because if they know this is going on and letting it continue, or even if they speculate it’s going on and letting it continue, it has to be brought to light so those individuals can no longer be leaders. I don’t care what state they’re in. But… We also don’t want all of a sudden a witch hunt to take place and say, this leader, this governor, because this was happening, because of laws that were put in place by administrations from long ago that made these rules so loose, that made it so comfortable for people that would allow this to continue to remain in power, that doesn’t necessarily mean they broke the law. It means they benefited from a very, very corrupt system.
SPEAKER 03 :
A broken system. let’s actually restate i see so many of you are just joining us who are asking about what’s going on in minnesota i know maybe you’re just getting served this content so let’s reset just a little bit here take it back there are grades going on currently a lot of these again don’t have to do with immigration but they do have to do with that fraud that was come out of a lot of them were somali american run businesses that we know we’re taking funding and putting it elsewhere not actually into the programs of which they were supposed to benefit again This is not a commentary on SNAP benefits. This is not commentary on child care. All of those things, I think, have a place in society. I think they have a place for if you’re going to be spending federal or state dollars on programs, I think those are good programs for them to be spent on. What happened was you had so many businesses that were being created to get this funding that weren’t actually doing what they said they were doing. Many of those were child care centers, learning centers, remember, that were spelled wrong. All of those big red flags that weren’t being caught, well, they were caught, And they ended up becoming kind of one big story with what was going on in Minnesota with ICE. Now we know the ICE situation in Minnesota is much calmer. It’s much different. New leadership. In the same instance, we kind of thought that maybe the FBI had moved on. from what was going on in Minnesota. We found out that’s not the case and a series of raids were happening, actually are happening right now.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. 22 locations have been raided today in Minnesota by both the FBI in coordination with Homeland Security Investigations. A large number of these locations are Somali-linked businesses. One of them was the Quality Learing Center. Remember, that was the famous Quality Learning Center daycare that had the sign misspelled, which kind of became the poster child, if you will, for the entire system in Minnesota. Now, the FBI and the Department of Justice, they got court ordered search warrants. They are moving forward with this investigation. They are doing this, what appears from the outside, in the proper way. And I think that is key because we cannot get to a place where also mob rule of saying, hey, we see this do something government, they will do it, but they have to do it the proper way. And it’s encouraging to see that this story didn’t go away with the news cycle for those in the Department of Justice and the FBI and Homeland Security. They are taking action. They are taking evidence. They are building a case against people that a case needs to be built against. And so we look forward to more information coming from this. But this is a big deal because it’s not just happening in Minnesota. You see the assets were seized in California. You also saw that just a few weeks ago, the government of California, the attorney general had to conduct a big bust up of a Medicaid fraud ring. for hundreds of millions of dollars this is getting results and it’s because of you making it clear this is important but also the administration continuing to put pressure to root out fraud in our system
SPEAKER 03 :
Listen, we got one minute left in this segment. We get back. I want to hear from you. We got four lines open right now. I want you to call in 1-800-684-3110. Can you do that for me? Can you call in? Can you ask a good question? Maybe you got a good statement to make. Maybe it has to do with this. Maybe it has to do with ACLJ’s work, what we talked about in Pakistan, what’s going on with pastors and street preachers, whatever it may be. Because look, we’re two days away. Maybe you’re an ACLJ champion. Maybe you’re just a supporter. We want to issue a good word of thanks or maybe you want to encourage our team, which I appreciate that as well. Whatever it may be, give me a call at 1-800-684-3110 because only two days remain. Two days in our Double the Difference drive. And it’s Faith Under Fire week. We’ve been discussing this. And look, we know that name. We’ve discussed it after the events this weekend and said, do we need to change that? And I said, no. It’s actually more important than ever because you’re seeing what’s happening in America and around the world. Be a part of it today. Have your gift doubled at ACLJ.org. We’re going to be back with your calls and comments coming right up. Welcome back to Sekulow. Two lines still open. If you want to call in, we’ll do our best to get you. No guarantees, but try 1-800-684-3110. You got a lot of questions. You got a lot of comments. So many of you are joining us. Let’s just go to the calls right up front. Rob’s been on hold for over a half an hour in Utah. Rob, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
31 minutes and 50 seconds, to be exact.
SPEAKER 03 :
There you go. Actually, have it longer than that, so you know what? Good for you. Go ahead, Rob.
SPEAKER 07 :
Rob, you there? The protocol. Yeah, I’m here. What’s the protocol for these people to be taking our tax dollars from us and then giving it to other people? I mean, isn’t there some sort of, there’s no oversight. There’s no director of contracting that should be overseeing this stuff, especially in the Department of Agricultural with the SNAP program. I mean, this Medicaid and Medicare fraud has been going on for decades. I’ve seen it. I’ve heard about it. It’s been going on forever. And so when you’ve got somebody in Minnesota applying for four times what the amount was the year before, shouldn’t that have raised a flag to one of these federal employees that hands out this money? Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Rob, I guess inevitably, eventually it did. It just took some time and a lot of people’s eyes off the ball and a lot of people likely involved in this scheme, if you will. So, look, I think there are protocols. There are certainly people in those positions, by the way, Rob. It’s not like it just went to that because, look, if you’re in a blue state, let’s say you’re in the state and in Minnesota, you are excited about these programs probably being supported, being funded. But if you’re not doing the actual homework to see if these are legitimate, you’re probably getting a request. And maybe even during times when COVID era and that kind of thing, they were just getting blindly struck checks, it feels like.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and Rob, to that point, we know that in Minnesota, there were actually people that were Democrats that worked in the administration or worked in the government. of Minnesota that are saying, we were calling this out to the governor’s office repeatedly and nothing was happening. I think there is a lot more to dig into there. I think it’ll be very interesting what comes out, what, who knew in what positions in the Wallace administration. So I think to that point as well, We have this system where a lot of these programs are administered by the state, but funded by the federal government. So already you have a disconnect because it’s the federal government sending a check to the state and then the state dishing it out. And then you have a disincentive. by states and then federal agencies to spend less, to have less people on their rolls, because then the budgets shrink when it goes to Congress for a new budget. So that’s across the entire government. There’s always a disincentive to spend less than you are allowed to spend. But here’s the other odd thing. And remember, the Democrat Party, 30 years ago, 1996, Bill Clinton passed welfare reform. That used to be not a taboo thing. Now, when that red state that we were talking about, that we don’t know what it is, but when they kick off the 14,000 individuals receiving SNAP benefits that are driving Bentleys, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis, and Maseratis, you can bet that the left will run ads saying people lost their benefits under Republicans. 14,000 people lost their benefits. Yeah. because it’s no longer about sound uh welfare policy or economic policy you cannot have this debate anymore it’s just whether or not welfare is should be expanded or released economically in a conservative ideology versus a progressive ideology because it’s so out of control yeah i want to try to get a couple more calls before we wrap up let’s go to elizabeth in pennsylvania go ahead elizabeth
SPEAKER 10 :
hi i’m a senior citizen i graduated from high school in 1965 and in civics class we were taught that we could not say we were going to kill the president or something like that, that if we did that, we could be arrested. Were we taught incorrectly or is this true?
SPEAKER 03 :
Elizabeth, you can’t make threats like that. None of that is legal. I think what you’re having right now is the rhetoric has gotten so commonplace that that you are talking about determining what threats are authentic, because sadly, that kind of rhetoric has become fairly mainstream. And it is really sad that that is where we’re at. I think there are a lot of fingers that can be pointed to what has caused this rise. But Elizabeth, no, you’re not wrong. There should be repercussions. There often are repercussions. We know people have been arrested for these kind of things. But I do think you have an overwhelming amount with the rise of social media as well. where people don’t necessarily know, or maybe they’re egging it on. Maybe that’s what they want. Maybe that’s their end game, is to become some hero by being arrested for this.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and Elizabeth, it’s 18 U.S. Code Section 871, threats against president and successors to the presidency. Yes, it’s a federal law. And I think to that point as well, it is so commonplace and so overrun because so many more people have access to a platform.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
that it may be impossible to charge everyone and police this at this day and age.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t disagree with you, though. I don’t disagree with you. There are a lot more calls coming in. We only got a couple minutes. We’ll try. Look, I’m looking at them right now. All of them have to do with the snap situation that we discussed. Let’s go quickly, Charles, in Kentucky. Charles, go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, I used to be a social worker. I’m a senior citizen now, I’m 83, but I don’t understand why everything moves so slowly. It’s like herding turtles.
SPEAKER 03 :
Charles, I like that someone in their 80s is calling in and going, why are things moving so slowly? That shows you how slow the federal government, sometimes the state government can run. But here’s what I want to give you a little bit of reassurance. What was going on, and look, sorry, Celia and Russ, I’m just not going to be able to get to you today. You weren’t holding on that long, but I do appreciate you calling. The news cycle makes everything feel like things happened months and months and years ago. Remember, the Minnesota fraud scandal was this year. It was within the last two months, three months maybe. Sure, we’ve had a war since then. We have had assassinations attempts in the last week. The news cycle moves fast and everything. Your mind can go, okay, well, they forgot about that. I do think what this is good reminder is that you do have an FBI. You do have a Department of Homeland Security. You do have even Department of Agriculture. You have all of these departments and branches. that even though they’re not making headlines, and you know what? I appreciate that sometimes. They’re not making headlines doesn’t mean the work is stopping.
SPEAKER 08 :
Two quick things on that before we wrap up the show. One, yes, the wheels of justice do turn slowly. Most people forget the second part of that quote, but the grind is exceedingly fine, meaning it takes a while to get to justice, but justice needs to be precise, and that’s a good thing. Two, it isn’t a bad thing that someone that goes on YouTube and produces an expose, it isn’t immediately charges by the federal government. You can expose things as an independent journalist. That’s great. But you also want the government to do the work so that someone doesn’t do the same without data or facts, make an accusation against anyone, and then all of a sudden you have mob justice.
SPEAKER 03 :
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