Morning Wire

‘Follow the Money’ - Dark Money Pipeline Uncovered Behind Minnesota Riots? | 2.21.26

17 min
Feb 21, 2026about 2 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

The episode investigates an alleged network of nonprofits and dark money groups funding immigration, election, and protest operations across blue states like Minnesota and California. Government Accountability Institute researchers claim to have uncovered a coordinated pipeline connecting welfare benefits fraud, voter mobilization, and organized riots, with funding traced to organizations linked to George Soros, the Arabella network, and foreign actors.

Insights
  • Welfare benefits fraud in blue states may be strategically overlooked by political leadership to maintain reliable voting blocs among immigrant communities
  • A coordinated three-part operational model exists: migrant resettlement funding, election mobilization infrastructure, and protest/riot deployment by the same nonprofit networks
  • Census apportionment of non-citizen populations directly translates to increased congressional representation and political power for states like California
  • Bail fund mechanisms enable rapid re-deployment of arrested protesters, suggesting organizational continuity in protest operations
  • Foreign actors, particularly those linked to Chinese Communist Party networks, are allegedly funding domestic U.S. political and protest infrastructure
Trends
Coordinated dark money funding of immigration, election, and protest operations across multiple statesStrategic use of welfare benefits as political leverage to maintain voting bloc loyaltyNonprofit networks functioning as integrated political operations across migration, voting, and protest activitiesForeign-linked funding sources (CCP-connected actors) infiltrating U.S. domestic political infrastructureFederal enforcement escalation targeting funding mechanisms and organizational networks behind protest movementsCensus-based political power accumulation through non-citizen population counting in apportionmentBail fund networks as operational tools for maintaining protest movement continuityState-level political leadership allegedly enabling systemic fraud for electoral advantageRICO investigation frameworks being considered for complex nonprofit funding networksIncreased Treasury Department tracking of dark money flows in political operations
Topics
Immigration Fraud and Welfare Benefits AbuseDark Money Funding Networks and Nonprofit OperationsBorder to Ballot Box Political PipelineFederal ICE Enforcement and State-Level ResistanceNonprofit Funding Transparency and AccountabilityElection Infrastructure and Voter MobilizationProtest Movement Organization and FundingCensus Apportionment and Political RepresentationForeign Interference in Domestic PoliticsBail Fund Mechanisms and Criminal JusticeState-Level Fraud InvestigationsRICO Investigation FrameworksSoros Network and Arabella Funding Network OperationsAnti-ICE Protest CoordinationGovernment Accountability and Oversight
Companies
Government Accountability Institute
Research organization conducting investigations into nonprofit funding networks and alleged coordination between immi...
Arabella Funding Network
Nonprofit funding network alleged to finance migrant resettlement, election mobilization, and protest organizations a...
Tides Network
Nonprofit funding organization alleged to support migrant resettlement and protest-related groups through grants and ...
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA)
Los Angeles-based nonprofit involved in migrant resettlement, mobile ballot deployment, and anti-ICE protest organiza...
Democratic Socialists of America
Organization alleged to provide training to protest participants on resisting arrest and interfering with law enforce...
People
Seamus Bruner
Director of Research at Government Accountability Institute; primary investigator discussing dark money networks and ...
John Bickley
Daily Wire Executive Editor and podcast host conducting interview on dark money funding and protest coordination
Peter Schweitzer
Colleague of Seamus Bruner at Government Accountability Institute; co-briefed White House on foreign elements and Chi...
Tim Walz
Minnesota Governor alleged to have covered up systemic welfare benefits fraud affecting Somali voting bloc communities
Gavin Newsom
California Governor whose $20 billion homelessness funding allegedly redirected toward migrant resettlement rather th...
George Soros
Philanthropist whose funding network is alleged to support migrant resettlement, election mobilization, and protest o...
Neville Roy Singham
Funding network operator alleged to have Chinese Communist Party links and to finance domestic U.S. political and pro...
Donald Trump
President who received briefings from Government Accountability Institute on dark money networks and directed informa...
Josh Hawley
Senator demanding answers from organizations like CHIRLA regarding protest coordination and funding mechanisms
Kash Patel
Official who received briefing materials from Government Accountability Institute regarding dark money and foreign-li...
Quotes
"It's a pipeline. It's not random fraud. It's part of a big system."
Seamus BrunerMid-episode
"The real thing here is like, it's not about the people who are committing the fraud. I mean, obviously they should be prosecuted. It's the fact that the political leadership in these blue states looks the other way because they know that benefits are, as long as the benefits flow, the communities receiving those benefits will be reliably in their corner."
Seamus BrunerMid-episode
"There are 10 million, 20 million, maybe non-citizens living in California who, through the apportionment, that leads to more political power in the form of more representatives in Congress."
Seamus BrunerMid-episode
"It's hard to say that you didn't know that they were violent criminals after they've been arrested for, you know, throwing Molotov cocktails into a police car."
Seamus BrunerLate-episode
Full Transcript
Federal immigration crackdowns and fraud investigations in deep blue states, including Minnesota and California, have been met by protests, some of which have devolved into violence and riots. Rather than organic, the Trump administration says that many of these protests are not only highly orchestrated, but funded by dark money groups. And now investigative researchers say they've uncovered an elaborate network of non-profits linking left-wing immigration, election, and protest efforts. In this episode, we follow the money with the head of the Government Accountability Institute's Research Division, Seamus Bruner. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. When was the last time you stayed up until four in the morning? For me, it was packing last minute for a trip. And yes, I did book the trip well in advance, and yes, still chose to pack last minute. 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Head over to HelloFresh.com slash MorningWire10FM to get 10 free meals and a freeze-willing knife, a $145 value on your third box. Offer valid while supplies last. Free meals applied as a discount on the first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. Joining us to discuss what's behind the wave of anti-ice protests, what his team calls Migrate Inc., Election Inc., and Riot Inc., is Seamus Bruner, the director of research at the Government Accountability Institute. Seamus, great to have you back on. Always happy to. Thanks, John. So President Trump won at least twice in large part because of his illegal immigration agenda. His team has been warning all along that there's interconnectedness between illegal immigration, mass migration, and government fraud, which they've also been looking into. We're seeing this play out in Minnesota in a way that's very dramatic. GAI has researched how this is taking place, not just in Minnesota, but California, Maine, other states. Let's start with Minnesota. What have you guys learned so far? Yeah, sure. So Minnesota is a perfect test case, a perfect example of showing what we've been calling the border to ballot box pipeline and how benefits welfare benefits really fuel this whole system Because Governor Walz he covered it up There many whistleblowers from inside the executive branch of Minnesota saying that he has been covering up this systemic fraud and the numbers are astronomical into the billions of dollars stolen from hardworking taxpayers by what turned out to be constituents of Governor Walz. And that's not us saying it, the New York Times reported that Governor Walz kind of covered this whole situation up, the fraud situation up, because a, quote, voting bloc, mostly Somalis, are a key voting bloc of Governor Walz and of the Democrats in Minnesota. So that really, you know, caught our eye and we looked into it even, you know, even more. We looked into it and the more we found, one is that this kind of benefits fraud is happening all over. Yeah, you mentioned Maine. California, of course, is a huge example of this. But then it's really connected with the voting block. I mean, as the New York Times reported, is the voting blocks are fueled by these welfare benefits, and that keeps them reliably in the corner of people like Governor Walz or Governor Newsom. And so it's really a pernicious pipeline from the border to the ballot box. Yeah, one of the big fears always with an over-generous welfare system is exactly this, that you can buy votes. And so what you're saying is you guys have seen a correlation here. And this truly looks like buying votes with key demographics, particularly in Minnesota, where the Somali vote really does determine who wins the state. You're seeing this also in other states like California. What have you found there in Newsom's state? Yeah, well, I mean, California, famously, Governor Newsom put $20 billion towards solving homelessness. And so just pick an issue that the left proclaims they care about in the case of California homelessness. That $20 billion disappears. Of course it goes to various constituent groups and a lot of NGOs that receive money to solve homelessness. We actually found that – and by the way, homelessness is – a lot of the money dedicated towards homelessness has been redeployed towards illegal migrants and facilitating the resettlement of migrants because they don't have homes when they come here. And so true homeless people in America, American homeless, are getting sort of, you know, their funds, the funds that should be helping them, getting them rehabilitated or off of drugs or whatever the case may be. That's being redeployed to bringing more migrants in. So that's certainly the case in California. $20 billion, not a whole lot to show for it, except for a bunch of resettled migrants. And California is a great example of this border to ballot box because even if the migrants don't end up on voter rolls yet, eventually they do. legally or illegally, through the process of apportionment in the census, because the census, you know, they don't have a box for whether you're a citizen or not. There are 10 million, 20 million, maybe non-citizens living in California who, through the apportionment, that leads to more political power in the form of more representatives in Congress. And so, So some estimates a dozen more. There are members of Congress, representatives, who would not be representatives if the non-citizens weren't counted. So that certainly helps a state like California out big time. And what about in Maine? What have you guys uncovered there? Yeah, in Maine, it's kind of the same case as Minnesota. It's a large Somali community there. They're kind of, you know, and my colleague Peter Schweitzer, I mean, he found in his book, I mean, there's a lot of places all over the world, Islamic places that decide you know it sort of part of you know it a jizya it a tax on the non to exploit welfare systems And so the New York Times reported this that you know Somali has kind of this culture of corruption So very similar numbers are not as eye as Minnesota But nonetheless, the real thing here is like, it's not about the people who are committing the fraud. I mean, obviously they should be prosecuted. It's the fact that the political leadership in these blue states looks the other way because they know that benefits are, as long as the benefits flow, the communities receiving those benefits will be reliably in their corner and in the New York Times' words, a key voting block for those in power there. So that's really, to me, the travesty is that the leadership, the political leadership has looked the other way as taxpayer dollars are being just stolen hand over fist and all for political power. Now, again, the interconnectedness of this we've seen more clearly now in Minnesota. The second the nation's eyes were on that state because of the fraud once the Trump administration sent federal agents into the state. What we saw was this massive orchestrated backlash through these anti-Ice protests. I know you guys have dug into some of the groups, the dark money groups that are funding these protests. How does that work together in regard to the political operation and the ideological agenda that's going on there? What's obvious, I think, to people increasingly is that this fraud is not isolated and Minnesota shows it perfectly. It's a pipeline. It's not random fraud. It's part of a big system. So we called it Riot Inc. I mean, months and months ago, we put out a report. I was at the White House talking about Riot Inc. and how these large NGOs, things like the Soros Network, the Arabella Funding Network, the Tides Network, they are funding all of these groups that are on the ground causing chaos. And then what we found as we dug a little deeper is, of course, we've kind of known for a long time about Soros, but the same groups, the Tides groups, the Arabella groups, they are funding migrant resettlement efforts and actually helping, you know, there's a ton of NGOs that receive Soros money, Tides money, Arabella linked money that work on getting the migrants hooked up to benefits programs. And so we called that Migrant Inc. And so it works kind of like a, you know, three division company. Migrant Inc. gets them here hooked up to benefits. Then the get out the vote we call Election Inc. That's all of these ballot chasing policy groups, things that get as many either non-citizens or eventual citizens hooked up to a political machine, election apparatus, and they mobilize for that. And then we kind of told the first part of the last part of the story first with rioting. It's like when that system is disrupted or threatened, whether it's by ICE activity, law enforcement, all lawful enforcement activities by the federal government. But when this is sort of jeopardized, that's when the shock troops, the storm troops get deployed by these same NGOs. I mean, we've found it's not just what happened in Minnesota. It's happened in L.A. There was a group that we talked about, and Senator Hawley has been demanding answers from them called CHURLITS, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles. They're sort of involved in all three parts. They help migrants get resettled. They have mobile ballot boxes that they would deploy throughout California, mostly to migrant neighborhoods. And then they were instrumental in the anti-ice riots in Los Angeles. They were among the key organizers of the events that turned into burning Waymos in the streets. So time—and by the way, that group received a ton of Arabella money, a ton of actually Neville Roy Singham money, the Singham network who we've been tracking, which is Chinese Communist Party-linked groups. And so all three of these parts work in concert together, the migrant, the election, and when threatened, the riot portion of it. Now you mentioned Senator Hawley He raising the alarm about this trying to get some more eyeballs on this problem and encourage federal resources to investigate What do you guys know about ongoing investigations from the federal government into this the dark money funding of these operations Yeah I mean they are, it's really ramped up in recent weeks. I, like most people, are kind of like sick of the sternly worded letters, but I, you know, I got to give credit to Congress. They don't get handcuffs. They're not allowed to do it. So it really falls to the DOJ and the enforcement agencies to actually bring criminal charges. And I would say probably the FBI and DOJ haven't done a great job of really highlighting the successes that they're having. I mean, there have been many arrests. I was shocked to learn, you know, thousands and thousands of arrests. You just don't really see it. But nonetheless, I would say the Treasury Department has been huge in terms of they are tracking the money flows. And we expect, especially on the foreign-linked actors, the Neville Roy Singham types, as well as, you know, some of these, the Democratic like Socialists of America and these groups that, you know, support anti-ice and they're training people to do crazy things like resist arrest and try to like assault law enforcement. It's like, that's not going to go well if you're giving out trainings on how to like break a police officer's hold on someone who's under arrest. So yeah, so I would say that it's ramping up in terms of enforcement. And yet at the same time, it's like, you know, it's a powder keg. A lot of places are, you know, all they're seeing is the mainstream media coverage and saying that innocent people are getting shot. And it's like, you know, those people are being fed into, they're being propagandized and told that you should go interfere in lawful enforcement activities. That's not a recipe. That is a recipe for disaster. Final question. As you mentioned, you've personally gone to the White House and briefed the president on some of the information you've uncovered. How has that been received by the White House. Yeah, President Trump was, you know, shocked at some of the things that we showed him. Again, I was with Peter Schweitzer, and we showed him some of the stuff on the foreign elements, on the invisible coup in the Chinese Communist Party-linked efforts, as well as, you know, back in October, when I met with him, he said, get all this to the Attorney General and Secretary Noem and Kash Patel. And I got it to him, and they've been very responsive. And it's just, It's a very hard case to build about the funding. I mean, we believe in every American's first, we strongly believe in every American's First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble. And when those things turn into violence, I mean, nobody's saying that, certainly we're not saying that George Soros is like instructing people to get violent. They certainly take steps to like make sure their grant recipients are told, hey, don't use this for violence. The case we would make is that when you continue to fund groups that are continuously engaging in violent and criminal activity. And that's a problem, what the charge would be. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I know that President Trump has talked about RICO investigations. And those are very complicated investigations. It takes a lot of time to build such a case. But the other thing I would just say about the continuously funding violent activity is the bail funds. These same NGOs, the Tide, Soros, Arabella-linked network, you know, they fund bail funds to get these violent Antifa types back onto the streets as quickly as possible. And so it's like, it's hard to say that you didn't know that they were violent criminals after they've been arrested for, you know, throwing Molotov cocktails into a police car. And like you said, encouraging them to do things like resisting arrest that leads to the kinds of tragic incidents we saw in Minneapolis. us. Hard to see that there's not some culpability there for some of these organizations. Seamus, thanks so much for joining us. Always great to have you on. We appreciate your work. Thanks so much, John. That was Seamus Bruner, Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.