AG Blanche unveils federal charges against 160 defendants in pandemic relief sweep
One hundred sixty arrests. Two hundred forty-five million. Twelve daycares that billed kids who were not there.
Summary
- Fox News reports Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the Rose Garden that from mid-June through September, federal prosecutors charged 160 defendants in COVID-era fraud, including about 80 new cases in Missouri and neighboring states, with more than $245 million in alleged losses.
- Southern California prosecutors the same day charged 12 defendants who ran at-home childcare sites and collected more than $10 million in government childcare payments with few or no children attending. All 12 are naturalized citizens from Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, and Somalia.
- Prosecutors said some defendants were not even in the United States when they billed. Turkiya Alawad, 63, was outside the country from January 1 to January 30, 2024, yet still submitted and collected childcare payments for those dates, according to charging details reported via AP.
- Fox, citing AP, said the California daycare case is larger than Minnesota's Feeding Our Future Child Care Assistance claims of about $4.6 million. Vice President JD Vance chairs the administration fraud task force that Blanche said has driven arrests nationwide.
Commentary
A shop dad still smells motor oil on a lunch bag and knows a daycare check is supposed to buy a crib, not a ghost roster. He did not pay the levy so a house with no kids could draw $10 million.
160 defendants. $245 million. A woman billing January from overseas. The honest household already paid the payroll tax. The linoleum in that empty playroom still waits.
Look every working father who still writes a childcare co-pay in the eye and answer this: if a house with no children can cash a federal check, who still owns the next subsidy that never met a kid?
Comments
160 charged. $245 million. 12 daycares. Keep that order.
I stood a line so a benefit still meant a child in a chair. A ghost roster is not care.
Blanche. Alawad. $10 million. Feeding Our Future $4.6 million. Print the four.
Allied treasuries still treat an empty classroom as fraud, not a cultural program.
Mid-June to September. Missouri cluster. California twelve. File the map.
I still pay the tax after a graveyard shift. I want the next check tied to a real kid.
A billed child who was never there is not a paperwork error. It is a warning the street already paid.
A subsidy paid from overseas is a second border around a Treasury window.
Fox printed 160, $245 million, and the empty daycares. Argue those nouns.
Charge the roster. Claw the money. A crib that never existed is not a program.
