Free Republic

Charges against former Assistant U.S. Attorney Carmen Mercedes Lineberger carry more than 20 years in prison. Article Dig Deeper In less than a week, the U.S. attorney in Miami supervising the probe of Obama-Biden era government weaponization secured indictments against Cuban communist dictator Raul Castro and an alleged money launderer for Venezuelan strongarm man Nicolas Maduro. But it was Jason Reding Quinones’ indictment against one of his own former federal prosecutors for trying to steal a sealed, classified report from Jack Smith’s investigation of President Donald Trump that may have sent the loudest shockwaves through government. The charges against former...

When it comes to policing New York’s sprawling Medicaid program, Attorney General Letitia James has some explaining to do. As AG, James runs the state’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which is charged with prosecuting those who rip off the taxpayer-funded program or neglect and abuse its vulnerable patients. It ought to be a busy place, considering New York spends far more per capita on Medicaid than any other state. Yet on her watch the unit has been posting metrics that range from lackluster to surprisingly low, especially when measured against the scale of a $119 billion social program. **SNIP** As...

CBS News said there was no evidence of fraud. The NYT said the Somali community was being targeted CNN said there was "little evidence." Tim Walz said it was “white supremacy” to expose fraud Today: $90M busted and 15 charged. IT WAS ALL FRAUD AND THEY KNEW.

A woman is wanted after using sleight of hand to steal an expensive watch off of a man's wrist at Parx Casino, according to the Pennsylvania State Police. Troopers say that the woman was sitting next to the man at the slot machines when she took his Rolex watch off of him on April 25, 2025, around 6:54 p.m. at the Parx Casino on Street Road in Bensalem. The woman was able to take the watch by using distractions and sleight of hand techniques, officials said. After stealing the watch, the woman ran out of the casino and jumped into...

When a state starts floating an exit tax, it is telling you something more important than any campaign slogan: the people running the place know their model is not working. They may not say it that way. They will call it fairness, responsibility, or making the wealthy “pay what they owe.” But the meaning is the same. If families, entrepreneurs, and investors are leaving, the state can either ask why its policies are pushing them out, or it can try to tax them for escaping. An exit tax chooses punishment over reform. I understand why these proposals resonate with some...

🚨🚨 Today - 15 individuals have been indicted for over $90 million in an alleged massive healthcare fraud scheme in Minnesota, after a sweeping FBI investigation with @TheJusticeDept and our Interagency Partners. These charges involve the two LARGEST Medicaid fraud cases ever charged in this district and first-of-their kind charges involving 7 additional Medicaid programs. As alleged, the defendants defrauded Minnesota public healthcare resources for tens of millions, targeting programs such as Housing Stabilization Services, Child Care, Medicaid programs, Individualized Home Supports (IHS), and more. In one case, defendants even developed a scheme worth over $40 million to target the...

🚨 BREAKING: The mastermind behind the Feeding Our Future fraud scam in Minnesota has just been sentenced to 41.5 YEARS in prison Holy CRAP! Aimee Bock orchestrated the $250 MILLION scam during COVID, billing taxpayers for fake meals for children. She deserves every single day of this sentence! MORE OF THIS! 🔥

Oakland director and hometown hero Boots Riley’s new film, “I Love Boosters,” pays homage to a complicated folk hero: the booster, a neighborhood figure who sells shoplifted goods at a steep discount. The topic feels particularly poignant in the Bay Area, where high-profile smash-and-grabs make headlines and drugstores put toothpaste behind lock and key.

A former Justice Department attorney in Florida has been indicted for allegedly transmitting sealed government records, including a confidential report tied to the investigation into President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents, to her personal email. The case underscores concerns about the security of sensitive DOJ materials and potential violations of court orders governing sealed records.

Sequence of events: 1. last October, a report was filed with JPM Chase that a customer's contact info was compromised after someone called pretending to be from Chase, and spoofing one of their branch phone numbers - supposedly, a note was placed on the account as a flag. 2. late last month the customer's debit card info was stolen; the debit card is ONLY ever used at two specific Chase branches, and ATMs (and is otherwise kept at home); people have been observed loitering in the bank's lobby, near the ATMs, and after hours - could these people be there,...

If I didn't have my garage radio tuned to NPR (my early warning system) I never would have known about the stealth plan to build yet another "professional sports complex" with a price tag of $2.3 billion in Hillsborough County. I don't even know which sports team this one's for. The article featured Tampa's Mayor exclaiming they still had a lot of work to do on it but she hoped the "Commission" wouldn't need to "raise taxes" (hint, hint) to get it done. Excuse me, Ms. Mayor but where the hell have you been? In 2024 the County Commission got...

Max Morley, a Democrat seeking to unseat Daniel Grossberg as Kentucky State Representative in the 30th House District, was caught on a home security camera stealing a Grossberg campaign flyer from a voter's mail box. Morley admitted to "a lack of judgment. This isn't acceptable, and it's something I'm deeply sorry for. I apologize to the homeowner. I want one thing to remain clear: voters in HD 30 deserve better than their current representative, and I don't want them to be distracted from the ultimate goal of sending him home." Louisville Democratic Party Vice Chair Rosalind Welch said "I was...

An artificial intelligence data center was running up a water bill for the ages, and local residents were the ones to point out the problem. In November, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Microsoft had a new “superfactory” named Fairwater spanning over 1 million square feet outside of Atlanta. Chief Technical Officer Mark Russinovich explained why the site is so massive. “To make improvements in the capabilities of the AI, you need to have larger and larger infrastructure to train it,” he said in a statement. The site developer, Quality Technology Services, purchased the plot in 2022 for $154 million. Ironically, Microsoft...

he Minnesota “mastermind” of the state’s massive COVID meal fraud claims “Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar was in on the $250 million scam. Aimee Bock, founder of nonprofit Feeding Our Future, was convicted in March 2025 of conspiracy, bribery and wire fraud for allegedly helping restaurant owners file fake or inflated claims during the pandemic to steal millions in child nutrition funds from the government. She spoke to The Post by video call this week from Sherburne County Jail, where she is awaiting sentencing. “I struggle to believe that she wouldn’t have known,” Bock said of Omar. Dozens of members of...

EXCLUSIVE: Vice President JD Vance's anti-fraud task force has withheld $1.4 billion in federal funding from home health and hospice providers nationwide, following a wave of suspensions enacted by an anti-fraud task force targeting operations in California, Minnesota and several other states. Approximately 90% of the suspended providers have not reached out to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency tasked with combating fraud, waste and abuse, since payments have been suspended. Trump administration officials told Fox News Digital that they believe a lack of communication between alleged fraudulent providers and CMS indicates that the providers were...

Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s point man for Medicare and Medicaid, says the billions of entitlement fraud being uncovered in Democrat states may be intentionally driven by politics rather than incompetence. “I do think it's a feature for some of these states,” Oz told Just the News in a wide-ranging interview Thursday night in which he detailed why the administration led by Vice President JD Vance temporarily pulled $1.3 billion in Medicaid funding from California and uncovered foreign fraudsters stealing taxpayer welfare monies. “Republicans always suspected there was fraud of this magnitude. Democrats feel embarrassed that it's gotten this...

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Fourteen people were arrested and millions of dollars in stolen items were recovered from a retail theft scheme after undercover detectives infiltrated the operation, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister announced in a news conference Wednesday. Last week, the sheriff’s office served several search warrants, including one at a home in Lutz, which was identified as the base of the multi-state operation. The home’s garage was packed floor-to-ceiling with stolen items, which were grouped together and arranged like a makeshift store. Chronister said “customers” would request certain items, and the group behind the scheme would take them...

Key FactsNew York lawmakers are planning the tax, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the state budget negotiations who noted the proposal would be levied at 1% of the buying price and be paid by buyers. The legislators are also considering expanding the tax to $1 million or more cash purchases in the state that would incorporate the suburbs and upstate New York, Bloomberg added. The tax in New York City alone could generate up to $160 million, according to the unnamed sources Bloomberg cited. A spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., told Bloomberg she “announced a general agreement...

A federal jury in the Northern District of Illinois has convicted an Illinois woman of unemployment insurance fraud for participating in a scheme that submitted nearly 700 fraudulent claims and caused more than $11 million in fraudulent COVID-19 relief benefits to be dispersed. Hiam Hmaidan, 54, of Orland Park, was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and five counts of mail fraud, the Justice Department announced. She is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 2 and faces up to 20 years in prison. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Hmaidan operated the fraud...

The Minnesota House fraud prevention and oversight committee released its final report following a two-year investigation into the state’s fraud crisis, concluding this week that Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-MN) administration allowed fraud to persist by protecting Somali fraudsters from state regulators out of concerns for cultural sensitivity, even accusing rank-and-file investigators of racially profiling suspected scammers. According to the committee’s 84-page report on “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Minnesota,” adopted Wednesday, when government employees flagged suspicious billing patterns to their supervisors, officials in the Walz administration ignored, demoted, and retaliated against the whistleblowers, at times accusing them of being “xenophobic”...