The lies Nick Shirley is telling about fraud in Minnesota

The first fraud charges against 47 defendants in Minnesota were filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in September 2022 (during the Biden administration). Since then, a total of 92 people have been charged, while 62 have been found or pleaded guilty. The latest charges were filed a week ago.

At first, the whole scandal was mentioned in the national press, but nobody except Minnesotan's paid much attention. Even during the 2024 presidential race, when the state's governor was on the ballot, MAGA folks were more into the lie about "Tampon Tim" than they were about the fraud allegations. 

All of that changed when Donald Trump decided to focus on the fraud as a way to go after Somali immigrants - calling them "garbage." 

Given that this whole scandal is now over three years old, it's been fascinating to watch MAGA influencers line up behind their leader and act like they've just uncovered some kind of bombshell. The latest to do so is a guy named Nick Shirley -  a YouTuber with over 1 million followers.

Last week Shirley posted a video of himself (and fellow sleuth David) traveling around to several Somali-run daycare centers pointing out that there were no children at any of them. It has gone viral on social media platforms like YouTube and X, garnering millions of views. Vice-President Vance reposted it, commenting that Shirley had "done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 [Pulitzer] prizes." And of course, Nick's efforts won him a spot of Fox News.

I doubt that it will come as a surprise to anyone who's actually been paying attention, but the whole video is nothing but lies. It only took me a couple of hours digging into the facts to uncover them. 

The funding Shirley focused on comes from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and goes to states as a block grant. Fifteen years ago, the Government Accountability Office investigated its use in five states that each received more than $100 million in CCDF funding (Illinois, Michigan, New York, Texas, and Washington). They found that "the five states GAO tested lacked controls over child care assistance application and billing processes...leaving the program vulnerable to fraud and abuse." I'm sure HHS Secretary Kennedy will get right on that one...not!

Back in 2019, the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor published a report assessing fraud allegations in the state's CCDF program. Going back five years, they chronicled two federal and thirteen state prosecutions of fraud. 

In January 2025, local news reported that 62 investigations were underway involving federally funded Minnesota childcare centers. At least one of the centers Shirley visited is highlighted in that report. Care to guess why he found no children? The state pulled its license back in 2024. 

MAGA-world is so consumed with this story that FBI Director Kash Patel felt the need to weigh in on X with this:

As noted above, the charges against Feeding Our Future were brought during the Biden administration, when the so-called "deep state" was still in charge. Patel conveniently left out one defendant - Aimee Bock - the white woman who oversaw the entire fraud scheme. Finally, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur pleaded guilty to the bribery charges in July 2024, during the Biden administration. 

Fox News claims that Shirley "exposed fraud in Minnesota," and the Vice President of the United States called his lies ""useful journalism" on par with Pulitzer Prize winners. Dave Weigel calls this a perfect example of "attention hacking." If you consume right wing media, you're being told that "Democrats bought off Somali votes with billions of dollars of fraud, it would never have been uncovered but for citizen journalism and Trump's DOJ, Tim Walz may go to prison." Not a scintilla of that is true.