USDA Sec. Brooke Rollins Reveals Number of SNAP Program Fraud, Arrest Cases
Washington, DC — U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins revealed the shocking number of fraud cases uncovered and eradicated by her agency in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News.
During a sit-down conversation Friday at her department’s headquarters, Rollins explained how the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) helped her tackle the massive black hole of the wasteful Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and unrelated grants. expenses remainder of the Biden administration.
“I can’t give enough credit to Elon Musk, who I’m still in contact with today, and the DOGE team that came,” the secretary said. “I know some of the other agencies weren’t as enthusiastic about it. I thought it was one of the greatest, luckiest things that ever happened to us.”
If President Donald Trump had not been re-elected after former President Joe Biden’s four years in office, Rollins said, “I don’t know if we would have ever been able to stop and find out — to the tune of billions of dollars.” »
“I mean, there was a grant awarded to someone in Iowa to study how racism had affected the pest industry — like that was some crazy, crazy thing,” she pointed out as an example.
Another grant discovered by the DOGE team was sent to researchers in Louisiana “studying the menstrual cycles of transgender mice,” Rollins exclaimed.
“I mean, it’s been crazy. So they’ve been extremely helpful,” she added of the team. “Then as DOGE itself, the original concept, ended in late spring, we pivoted our DOGE team. They’re still there. We pivoted them to SNAP and helped us begin to figure out how to begin to rebuild this entire program.”
Less than an hour after she was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas last year, Rollins said the first thing she did was sign a letter to all 50 governors “telling them that the days of fraud in SNAP and food programs are over — but that we need their partnership.”
“It was not at all a contradictory and antagonistic letter,” she recalls. “He simply said it doesn’t matter if you’re blue or red, Democrat or Republican. It doesn’t matter, but we have to do better by the taxpayers.”
The Agriculture Secretary blasted the Biden administration for allowing SNAP to nearly double in four years with “no accountability.”
Until Rollins’ letter to governors, she said states had never shared data with the federal government on how SNAP money was used effectively.
Republican states complied with Rollins’ anti-fraud project, allowing the DOGE team and other USDA employees to find approximately 500,000 people receiving at least two SNAP benefits, and nearly 200,000 deceased people still receiving benefits.
“So people were using Social Security numbers of people who died,” Rollins said, before revealing that USDA investigations have led to about 1,500 arrests and 125 convictions so far.
When asked what Democratic-led states told her when she asked for their help in stopping large-scale fraud and abuse, Rollins revealed that they resisted cooperating.
“The blue states have said ‘No, thank you,’ and we’re facing major litigation,” she explained, before noting that Democratic governors in Kansas and North Carolina began preparing for USDA’s fraud crackdowns “over the last couple of months.”
“But I can’t even imagine what California or New York or Minnesota looks like,” the secretary continued.
In November, Rollins announcement that nearly 700,000 people had been excluded from SNAP and that approximately 118 suspected fraudsters had been arrested.
As of March, 3.3 million people had stopped receiving SNAP benefits since Rollins took office, including for reasons of fraudulent benefit collection.
Another reason for the decline in food stamps, Rollins explained, was Trump’s success in “opening up” more wage opportunities for blue-collar workers.
“We’re actually proving that the dignity of work works and that the American dream is alive, and the American dream is not about receiving SNAP benefits every month,” she said.
Just before his interview with Breitbart News, Rollins had a closed-door meeting with Vice President JD Vance and several cabinet members to discuss continuing the fight against fraud.
“When we finally get our hands on this blue state data, I think it will be more shocking than anyone could have imagined,” she said.
Olivia Rondeau is a political reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find it on X/Twitter And Instagram.
