Donald Trump holds himself up to his adoring base as a crime fighter and defender against fraud.
The facts say otherwise.
Take the widespread claims (sans proof, by the way) that daycare centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had stolen more than $100 million.
That claim, of course led Trump to dispatch federal officers to Minnesota which, in turn, led indirectly to the shooting death of Renee Good in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
Yet, we have right next door in Mississippi a fraud scandal of equal proportions that has drawn scant attention from der Führer Trump or any of his Repugnantcan supporters.
Just to bring you up to date on that one, the Mississippi welfare fraud scheme was a major investigation in MISSISSIPPI in which several high-profile individuals, including former NFL quarterback Brett Favre and wrestlers Brett DiBiase and Ted DiBiase, Jr., were entangled a couple of years back when the state auditor released a report identifying $94 million in questionable spending by the Mississippi Department of Human Services.
So, we have $100 million in blue state Minnesota that becomes a national scandal implicating a Democratic governor up for reelection (Tim Walz has since withdrawn from the race) and a $94 million fraud scheme in a decidedly red state that is ignored by the feds and caught only by the locals.
There’s not a lot of difference between $100 million and $94 million but Trump and the Repugs got their drawers in a wad when it was a blue state involving Somalis but were characteristically mute in condemning a similar rip-off scheme involving red state Mississippi and a few local officials who orchestrated the whole thing.
Perhaps it was just Trump’s love of wrestling, a true redneck fake sport, that kept him and his Justice Department on the sidelines.
What happened in the case of our next-door neighbor was that former Gov. Phil Bryant and some of his state government buddies diverted millions of dollars intended to help the poor (and there’s a lot of those in Mississippi). In one case, there was a text message from Favre to Nancy New, operator of the nonprofit Mississippi Community Education Center, asking, “If you were to pay me is there anyway [sic] the media can find out where it came from and how much?” Well, that’s certainly being up-front.
Favre was inquiring about the eventual diversion of $1.1 million to him in fees for speeches he never delivered at events that were never held so that a new volleyball stadium could be built at the University of Southern Mississippi, Favre’s alma mater. Coincidentally (or not), Favre’s daughter was a member of the school’s volleyball team. Favre eventually repaid the $1.1 million. Favre then did what any good citizen would do: he sued the state auditor and a couple of sportscasters, accusing them of DEFAMING HIS GOOD NAME .
But we can’t dwell on that when there’s a politically expedient scandal brewing in Minnesota.
But here’s the thing: while Trump and Kash Patel and Pam Bodi and Kristi Noem are so obsessed with fraud in Minnesota that Trump has severed childcare funding for blue states and ICE has proceeded with shooting and killing women, Trump has personally pardoned more than two dozen individuals convicted and sentenced for various fraud schemes—including the ex-CEO of the developer for a new LSU ARENA .
Trump’s honor roll also includes an individual founder of a high-profile CRYPTOCURRENCY SCHEME, trying to sell a US SENATE SEAT, CAMPAIGN FINANCE VIOLATIONS, SECURITIES AND WIRE FRAUD, BANK AND TAX FRAUD and MEDICARE FRAUD, among others.
And it’s oh-so-important to remember that when these people were sentenced, part of their sentence was to make restitution to the victims of their fraudulent schemes (kind of like when Trump was ordered to make restitution to victims of his Trump University scam).
Take Trevor Milton, the former executive chairman of Nikola. He was sentenced to four years in prison but at the same time, prosecutors argued that he should also be required to repay investors $660 million. But before the presiding judge could tote up all the damage and order restitution, Trump pardoned Milton, wiping out all financial penalties in the process. In all, Trump’s pardons have cost victims and taxpayers ABOUT $2 BILLION, including Milton’s $660 million.
And they say crime doesn’t pay.
And then there were nine pardons granted to convicted drug dealers, including, of course, the former president of Honduras, JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ, convicted and sentenced to 45 years for conspiring to distribute more than 400 TONS OF COCAINE in the US, and related firearms offenses (and you thought the invasion of Venezuela was about drugs).
As the advertisers say, keep watching this space. Later today, LouisianaVoice will list each and every one of the 26 people Trump has pardoned for fraud and the nine drug dealers he issued Get Out of Jail cards to. And it’s important to note that these 35 aren’t all his pardons he’s issued. There are all those rioters from Jan. 6, 2021. We’re only listing the fraud- and drug-related pardons because it’s so important to remember that he’s gravely concerned about fraud in Minnesota and about drugs in Venezuela.
Louisiana Voice 
What amount of fraud has actually been proven to have occurred? There’s a certain level of graft you have to expect when you farm out public services to NGOs, as our federal, state, and local governments so frequently do. This arrangement isn’t even efficient, because it requires the employment of auditors (who are, as human beings, as vulnerable to corruption as a grant recipient) to establish that the funds are being used properly. Rather than having local governments mete out resources according to the articulated intent of the community, we have this weird network of non-profits that are beholden to distant political forces (especially the feds) and which are politically neutered because of this dependency. Many community organizers and activists get drawn into this network and are de-politicized, co-opted, as they become dependent on the good graces of partisan public officials.
The withdrawal of federal funds to Minnesota is going to have a pretty immediate human toll. It’s going to make working class people a little more conscious of their precarious position. Hopefully it also makes them aware of their strength in numbers. But whatever system of provisioning for the general welfare comes after this, the resources should be coming from as close to the community itself as possible, and it should be integrated into a more democratic system, where ordinary people are consciously involved in the decisions made to fund what, in accordance with the values of the community. That’s the only way we can make these things last.