https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/us/nonprofit-leader-convicted-federal-food-aid.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5U4.pEAv.Y-tWy6yDsAK2&smid=url-share (gift)

«At least 70 people were charged in the scheme, and more than 40 have already pleaded guilty or been convicted.

…

The fraud scheme targeted two programs meant to feed hungry children, which were funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture but administered by the state of Minnesota. [Hey, Farenthold, would be nice to know the total spent on such programs, for perspective, ya know? Looks like around $400 BILLION in cash in 2020 ($600 bil cash in ’21), based on https://www.urban.org/features/six-charts-about-federal-spending-children-during-pandemic?&utm_medium=urban_newsletters&utm_source=news-UIU&utm_term=URBAN, if my figgerin’ is right. So, $240 MILLION is a drop in the bucket.] The system relied on nonprofit groups called “sponsors” to be its watchdogs. They were supposed to oversee individual kitchens and feeding sites and make sure they were not inflating the number of children they served.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the federal government flooded money into the program — trying to reach children who were out of school and therefore unable to rely on school lunches. The government also relaxed oversight, putting even more trust in the watchdogs.

In this case, prosecutors said, one of those watchdogs went bad.

…

Many of the fake operations submitted invoices for implausibly large numbers of children: Mr. Said’s operation, for instance, said it had fed 6,000 a day, more than all the children in its ZIP code. In another instance, a man said he was feeding 5,000 children a night — from a location that turned out to be a second-floor apartment.

…

The state of Minnesota had grown suspicious of Ms. Bock’s network in 2020 and tried to stop payment to some of the sites. But she sued the state government, saying officials were discriminating against her network because it served many African immigrants and their children.»

Trump/Musk will, of course, seize on this.

[Edit: this is what built-in auditing and inspectors general are meant for, and it appears to have worked as designed. The sort of stuff Trump/Musk have eliminated.]