Young journalist Nick Shirley, exposing billions in alleged fraud, asks Senate to protect America 

Independent journalist Nick Shirley urged lawmakers to “crack down” on massive fraud schemes occurring across the country and “put America first.”

“If we as Americans do not stand up to protect our country, we will lose our country,” Shirley said told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week. “Fraud is so rampant in the United States. I could go to all 50 states and uncover millions of dollars of tax dollars being defrauded, wasted and abused. It’s my wish while sitting in front of you guys today that you take action. Help Americans by cracking down on all the fraud, and to simply put Americans first.”

Shirley first made headlines in December when he released a documentary video alleging massive fraud schemes at daycare centers in Minnesota.

“When I first started making journalistic-style videos, I made it my mission to ‘show the world the reality of things as they really are,’” he said in a recent post on X. “Nothing was ever meant to be right or left, it was simply to show people what was happening from the source.”

In Minnesota, Shirley reported that 10 daycare centers allegedly stole millions of taxpayer dollars, and multiple investigations are now underway. The CEO of one daycare center pleaded guilty last week to defrauding the state of more than $4 million. Despite the guilty plea and ongoing investigations, Minnesota’s Department of Human Services and numerous other state officials have refused to acknowledge fraud is ongoing at these centers, according to multiple reports.

‘They knew all about it,’ Hawley says

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, praised Shirley’s work.

“To have elected officials like the Democrats in Minnesota, like Keith Ellison, the [attorney general] there, who tried to tell me that he just didn’t know anything about the fraud, and yet you got guys like Nick Shirley, who at 24 years old, no training, all he had was a phone camera and a list of public records, and yet he was able to uncover this fraud,” Hawley told Heartlander News in an interview Thursday.

“But yet, Keith Ellison and the Democrats who were elected said they didn’t know anything about it,” he continued. “Please, they knew all about it. They were getting paid. That’s why they didn’t look. They were getting bought off and paid.”

The rampant fraud in America that is “funneled to illegal terrorist groups” and “stuffed into the hands of criminals” is “absolutely unconscionable,” Hawley said.

Shirley also reported billions of dollars in alleged fraud involving New York City’s government-funded personal assistance programs in a video released last week. Spending on the programs has grown from $2.5 billion in 2019 to $12 billion in 2025, Shirley reported.

He visited Flushing, Queens, where, in the span of several blocks, “organized Korean and Chinese mafias” run more than 70 adult daycare centers, Shirley said.

“In New York City, government-funded adult daycares pay for elderly Koreans and Chinese to play ping pong and do tai chi at the taxpayers’ expense,” Shirley told the Senate. “An impossible number of patients are registered, and those patients receive kickbacks for attending and signing up their friends. Over $2 billion has gone to these fraudsters at the taxpayers’ expense.”

Fraud should be a bipartisan issue, Shirley said, but Democrats across the country have criticized him, labeling him a “white supremacist” and introducing legislation such as the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” in California.

“When we talk about fraud, we are talking about money that is being stolen from hardworking, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens,” Shirley said at the Senate hearing. “This issue has nothing to do with political parties. No dollar says Republican or Democrat on it. When a fraudster commits fraud, he or she steals from all of us.”

Hawley blamed the political system.

“We need to go after corrupt politicians. We need to go after all of this fraud, and we need to return that money to the American people,” he told Heartlander News.

Shirley said his coverage of Minnesota “unleashed a war on fraud across the country,” something President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are continuing.

“Our administration owes a debt of gratitude to Nick Shirley for exposing one of the most egregious cases of fraud this country has ever seen,” Vance said in a post on X. “If the media was worth their salt, they would take notes from Nick and other citizen journalists who care about investigating stories that affect the American people instead of trying to silence them.”