Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the Treasury Department was investigating reports that Minnesota taxpayer funds “may have been diverted to the terrorist organization” Al-Shabaab.
In a post on X, Bessent said the agency was “investigating allegations that under the feckless mismanagement” of former President Joe Biden’s administration and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), taxpayer money in the state was ending up in the hands of terrorists.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sits for an interview with Breitbart News’s Alex Marlow and John Carney on November 21, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
Bessent also praised President Donald Trump for his leadership, and said the agency was “acting fast to ensure” that American citizens’ taxes were not going to “funding acts of global terror.”
“At my direction, @USTreasury is investigating allegations that under the feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz, hardworking Minnesotans’ tax dollars may have been diverted to the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab,” Bessent said. “Thanks to the leadership of @POTUS @realDonaldTrump, we are acting fast to ensure Americans’ taxes are not funding acts of global terror.
Bessent’s post comes after a report from the City Journal revealed that “federal counterterrorism sources” confirmed to the outlet that “millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia” by the Somalian community in Minnesota. The funds were reported to be landing “in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab”:
In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal counterterrorism sources confirm that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab. As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”
The City Journal went on to report that Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) program — which was created to “help seniors, addicts, the disabled, and the mentally ill secure housing,” saw its “costs quickly” get out of hands as the program paid out millions of dollars in claims:
If you were to design a welfare program to facilitate fraud, it would probably look a lot like Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program. The HSS program, the first of its kind in the country, was launched with a noble goal: to help seniors, addicts, the disabled, and the mentally ill secure housing. It was designed with “low barriers to entry” and “minimal requirements for reimbursement.” Nonetheless, before the program went live in 2020, officials pegged its annual estimated price tag at $2.6 million.
Costs quickly spiraled out of control. In 2021, the program paid out more than $21 million in claims. In the following years, annual costs shot up to $42 million, then $74 million, then $104 million. During the first six months of 2025, payouts totaled $61 million.
Since the report from the City Journal, Trump has announced that he is terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) amnesty for Somali migrants.
“Minnesota, under Governor Waltz, is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, adding that he was “terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota.”
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