Federal officials seek an injunction to require state agencies to provide five years’ worth of documentation.
The Department of Justice has filed lawsuits against Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota for failing to submit Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) data to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The request for information is to ensure that SNAP eligibility of residents and household benefit levels are being properly administered and enforced by state agencies.
The Justice Department stated, “When USDA requested this data last year, these states and several others refused to comply. Twenty-eight other jurisdictions, however, promptly provided their data. Data received from the compliant 28 states indicate there are billions of dollars per year in SNAP funds going to overpayments and fraud.“
The four states again refused to provide the data when the agriculture department again requested it in May of this year.
“USDA has worked constructively with the majority of States to ensure criminals, fraudulent activity, and other waste, no longer plague a program meant to serve the most vulnerable households and communities among us,“ said USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins. She added that the legal action is being taken to “protect the generosity of the American taxpayer.”
“Stopping the rampant theft of taxpayer money demands a whole-of-government response, including strong participation at the state level,” said Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division. “These states are happy to take hundreds of millions of federal tax dollars—much of which is exploited by fraudsters—but want zero transparency over how those tax dollars are spent.“
As the Lord Leads, Pray with Us…
- For Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to be led by the Lord as he heads the Justice Department.
- For Secretary Rollins and USDA officials as they seek to ensure the eligibility and benefit levels of SNAP applicants.
- For Assistant Attorney General McDonald as he fulfills his role in the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division.
Sources: Department of Justice, Townhall,
