Country's biggest fraudster gets a pass in Ernst fraud fight
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, talks about making D.C. squeal, but Donald Trump keeps fleecing America
It took a while to think about Sen. Joni Ernst’s newsletter from last Wednesday.
“Dear Friend – Is enough being done to stop fraud? Let me know what you think:” (her use of bold, not mine.)
The Grift that Keeps on Giving
Fraud-fluencer and Serial Fraudsters Have Made Fleecing Taxpayers a Lifestyle
Image from Sen. Joni Ernst May 20, 2026, newsletter.
This nation’s biggest frauds are being committed in the U.S. White House, and Ernst, the Republican who is retiring after her term expires at the end of this year, doesn’t give two extinct pennies’ worth of hog spit.
“When Americans send their tax dollars to Washington, they deserve to know their hard-earned money will be carefully safeguarded and responsibly spent,” Ernst’s newsletter continues. “Yet, fraudsters are ripping off $1.4 billion of taxpayer money every single day. That’s a lot of money to go missing without anyone noticing.”
Hear them squeal? This reads like she finally might have had enough of taxpayers footing the bill for Trump’s beloved ballroom, golden ornaments honoring himself, and a crazy government lawsuit filed against Trump that Trump — as head of the government — is ready to settle and dismiss in his favor.
“Like I’ve always said, if you can’t find waste, fraud, or abuse in Washington, there can only be one reason: you didn’t look,” Ernst says in the newsletter.
People are looking, she said. But guess where?
They are looking at Minnesota’s vacant child care centers, Los Angeles’ phony hospices and Ohio’s bogus home care services, Ernst’s newsletter states.
Call it a deflection from Trump’s alleged fraudulent behavior if you wish. Ernst isn’t, but it is.
Ernst wrote about inviting Minnesota Department of Health whistleblowers to testify before the Senate on Thursday, May 20, about being bullied and subjected to retaliation for calling out suspicious use of taxpayer money. She also referred to 94 companies located at one address in Ohio that have been billing Medicaid.
SHE IS NOT WRONG ABOUT THE FRAUD
Federal prosecutors estimate that $300 million worth of fraudulent claims involving feeding children at child care centers have been made in Minnesota since 2022. Sixty-five people had been convicted of fraud-related charges in that time as of the end of April, prosecutors estimate.
The child care centers were run mostly by people of Somali descent, leading to Trump’s broad-brush accusations of Somali crime that preceded his deadly winter Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown in blue-city, blue-state Minneapolis.
Worth noting, as media reports have pointed out, is that the alleged ringleader, Aimee Bock, is white. She was sentenced Thursday, May 21, to 42 years in prison in her $250 million fraud case after being convicted in 2025 on multiple conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery charges.
In blue-city Los Angeles, blue-state California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced in May that 21 suspects had been charged with defrauding the state out of $267 million. The suspects are part of an alleged ring. Their arrests came after the California Department of Public Health revoked 280 hospice licenses over the last two years. More are being reviewed, state officials said.
In Ohio, indictments filed in early May accused five Medicaid providers of stealing more than $540,000 in Medicare payments, while three more people are accused of stealing payments from nursing home residents. Two of the providers are accused of billing Medicare for in-home services while traveling in the Caribbean, the Daily Wire reported.
Of note, Ohio is run by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and a Republican-led Statehouse, which includes executive offices and the Legislature, so Ernst is spreading the blame across party lines here.
Joni Ernst "Squeel Reel" from April 24, 2026. (From Sen. Joni Ernst congressional web site)Worth saying — though it should not be necessary — is that cheating Medicare is illegal, wrong from a taxpayer standpoint and flat-out immoral. All fraud involving taxpayer money is bad and should be exposed. Moreover, members of Congress should focus on fraud, and stop it.
RELATED: SENATOR GRASSLEY COULD PUT A STOP TO THIS NONSENCE, by Dave Busiek
SO, WHY FUSS ABOUT THE NEWSLETTER?
One quote in Ernst’s newsletter stands out, perhaps because of the most recent news about Trump’s behavior:
“Folks, the fleecing is occurring in plain sight.”
Yeah, we know. We would like you to see it and call it out.
She conveniently ignores:
Trump reneging on his promise that taxpayers would not have to pay for the large ballroom he wants attached to the White House. Senate Republicans removed the Secret Service’s end-around $1 billion funding request for the facility because of a parliamentarian error and waning support from some Republicans — none of them Ernst or Iowa’s senior Republican senator, Chuck Grassley — for the spending plan.
Trump demanding at least $10 billion from the Internal Revenue Service for failing to protect his income tax information from being leaked, while his Justice Department reached an out-of-court settlement — without appearing in court — with Trump (!) to place $1.8 billion of taxpayer money into a fund to compensate people who claim previous presidential administrations targeted them.
Those “people” are Trump allies.
Trump and his administration would be exempt from being responsible for payouts. Republicans fearing voter backlash over this boondoggle — not to mention giving money to Jan. 6 criminals whom Trump released from prison through a mass pardon — are balking and holding off on approving a budget with this plan. Ernst and Grassley are not among those objecting.
In fact, none of Iowa’s congressional delegation appeared to oppose the fund coming out of the Memorial Day weekend.
“Everybody knows that the forces of the federal government should not be used for political weaponization against your political enemies,” Grassley said during a Thursday, May 21, press gaggle for Iowa news outlets. Grassley says he needs more information on the fund and plans to ask questions.
Hopefully, Cassidy Hutchinson knows about this — oops, the fund is for alleged political persecution from previous administrations, not the current one. What’s good for one is good for, well, one.
Spending around $15 million in taxpayer-provided National Endowment for the Humanities money on a 250-foot-tall triumphant arch approved Thursday, May 21, by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were appointed by Trump.
Going $12 million over budget on renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
“Not including the $1.4 billion White House ballroom, Trump’s major projects would cost a total of $162.5 million, though many are already over budget and the estimated price of others is likely to grow,” a May 13 Forbes story by Sara Dorn reported.
Sure, the newsletter’s theme was Welfare fraud, but Ernst has nothing to lose by pointing out Trump’s bloated spending, Pete Hegseth’s spending spree at the Department of Defense or Congress’ blind willingness to let the national debt bolt to $31.27 trillion at the end of April. That debt, by the way, exceeds the gross national product (GNP) for the first time since World War II.
Wasteful military spending has existed a long time, way before Hegseth was around, but his efforts to curb spending have been akin to finding the key to a liquor cabinet. Ernst’s ethically challenged romantic relationship with a general who oversaw lobbying at Capitol Hill was made public by ProPublica, so no danger exists of that being used against her if she challenges defense spending.
She is not seeking re-election, so she does not have to be tied to Trump, although she remains a staunch supporter. In fact, her strident support led her to deliver the line that kicked her to the nearest graveyard’s curb — “We all are going to die.”
And still, she carries Donald Trump’s water. She and Grassley enable, in the Senate, the White House’s current tenant to make billions of dollars in investments while his followers blindly brag about how much he is giving away to the United States.
SPENDING OVERSIGHT AS AN IOWA TRADITION
Iowa has a congressional tradition of questioning federal spending. There was a time when Grassley bucked his own party and the Pentagon over defense spending. Fifty years ago, Rep. H. R. Gross, the Republican born in Arispe, Iowa, was known for voting against spending bills proposed by either political party. His nicknames included “the Abominable No-Man,” “conscience of the House” and “reigning curmudgeon.”
You would hope that Gross would object to Trump-ordained projects honoring Trump’s vanity, but especially Trump’s attempt to line his own pockets with American taxpayers’ money.
Trump. What a guy. Sue himself in order to settle out of court with himself so he can award his pals — rioters who tried to stop the lawful election of a U.S. president, built a noose-equipped gallows to accompany threats to hang a U.S. vice president, threatened sitting members of Congress and desecrated congressional chambers — $1.8 billion you paid the federal government in taxes.
Another potential notch while collecting another cool $4 billion, give or take a few thousand here or there, in his first year of his second term in office, The New Yorker reports. The New York Times Editorial Board reported a smaller amount — at least $1.4 billion. Most of the income came from cryptocurrency investments tied to the Trump family name and position, reportedly bringing in at least $867 million, much of it from people seeking access to Trump for something. Some came from settlements in media company lawsuits.
Ernst said it best in her newsletter:
“It’s the grift that keeps on giving.”
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I do not vote in Iowa’s primary elections. I am a no-party registrant and, since 2024 and find that encouraging all eligible voters who want to cast a ballot to be more rewarding than what people who campaign for public office candidate go through. Head to the polls for whichever party in which you vote on Tuesday, June 2.
Most of the fraud Ernst complains about stems from Covid spending. And she voted for all those policies auditors warned in 2020 would lead to this fraud.
I couldn’t care less about the bank president who promises to get depositors money back when she’s the one who let the thieves into the vault in the first place.
Remember, Joni will be looking for a job soon. She will not burn any elite employment opportunities.