Trump Creates $25 Million Fund to Pay Bounties to Whistleblowers Who Alert the Government of Fraud

If you want to stop foreign pirates, issue letters of marque and reprisal.

This isn't quite that but it's good to incentivize people to report fraud.

President Donald Trump is putting cash behind his crackdown on taxpayer fraud, offering Americans rewards for tips that help bring fraudsters to justice.

Speaking alongside Vice President JD Vance and independent journalist Nick Shirley in the Oval Office, Trump unveiled the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program and said qualifying tipsters would receive a 1% commission, subject to applicable laws and rules.

A 1% commission. That could be huge.

"If you turn somebody in and you, let's say report, and you find $1 billion, we are giving a commission to that person of 1%," Trump said.

Fox News Digital exclusively reported plans for the program ahead of Tuesday's announcement. A White House official initially described a $25 million initiative administered by the Justice Department, with rewards of up to $30,000 for tips leading to a successful fraud conviction or significant federal enforcement action.

Trump's remarks outlined a different payout structure. He said journalists could also participate, subject to applicable rules and approval from their employers.

Americans can report suspected theft of taxpayer dollars through fraud.gov, Trump said.

I'd like to report Ilhan "Omar" and her entire foreign pirate "family," please.

Hooboy, I'm lookin' for a new home on Easy Street!

...

Vance said the initiative grew out of a conversation with Trump about recruiting Americans to help investigators uncover fraud.

"If you want to help us stop it, you get to share in the rewards," Vance said.

Shirley drew national attention in December 2025 after publishing a video questioning whether several Somali-run Minnesota daycare centers were operating as legitimate businesses. His video showed apparently empty facilities and included people who said they had not seen children at the locations.

The White House credited Shirley's reporting with helping spur a surge of FBI and Department of Homeland Security resources into Minnesota, followed by investigations, arrests and new charges.

This is genuinely huge. Trump is offering potentially millions of dollars for a little bit of research and detective work.

Nick Shirley is going to be a rich man. He can't collect a bounty retrospectively, but he knows how to find the fraudsters and will be collecting in the future.

Markwayne Mullin praised Nick Shirely and pointed out that "everyone knew" about the Learing Center but not a single media company reported on it.

He also says the DOJ's fraud task force is moving to seize an entire half-block of Minneapolis which he said was purchased with SNAP fraud.

Gunther Eagleman
@GuntherEagleman

BREAKING: The feds just moved to seize half a city block in Minneapolis, reportedly bought with stolen SNAP money.

Per the White House fraud task force, DOJ's new National Fraud Division filed yesterday to take back property that was fraudulently bought with food stamp dollars meant for hungry Minnesotans.

Then the speaker turned to the press in the room: "None of your outlets reported it. It took one brave kid and a camera."

That learning center was cited hundreds of times, and the legacy media sat on it for years.

There is a lot of fraud in the SNAP program. Bums sell their EBT cards for cash and drugs and then fake "stores" ring up hundreds of thousands of dollars in "food sales" and charge the government for non-existent food.

And then there's stuff like this -- Minnesota is sending EBT cards to people who say they never even signed up for one.

What's going on there?

The thing is, this is the kind of detective work a very average citizen can do. These scam-stores have to deal with the general public. So anyone coming in with an EBT card bought from a bum can run the scam with the scam store. If it's recorded on your phone's audio note program, you can collect evidence of fraud.

And then collect a bounty.

Now, with a bounty system in place, the scam stores will have to be more careful, but there's a limit to how careful they can be. Like drug dealers, they still have to interact with strangers to make money or else they're out of business.

They could get violent, like drug dealers, when they sense someone is setting them up in a sting, so collecting the bounty is a bit risky.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:30 PM

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