Right-Wing Creators Target California With Unproven Fraud Claims, Paving Way For New Federal Crackdown

One month after the Trump Administration launched a major immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis, right-wing content creators have shifted their focus to a new target for unproven fraud allegations: California.

Over the past several weeks, the same right-wing creators that helped amplify false fraud claims in Minnesota ahead of the federal immigration agent surge there have turned their sights to multiple California social welfare programs. They’ve leveled a slew of unsubstantiated fraud accusations, a move that could clear the way for an identical federal crackdown in the United States’ largest Democratic-led state. Key allies of former President Donald Trump have already thrown their support behind the effort.

Right-wing influencer Nick Shirley, whose viral YouTube video purported to expose a $100 million fraud scheme tied to Somali-owned childcare centers in Minnesota, announced his arrival in California over the weekend via Instagram. “Secrets out,” Shirley wrote in an Instagram Story set to Katy Perry’s hit California Gurls. While his exact plans remain unclear, posts shared widely on X over the weekend confirm Shirley claims he is also “investigating” Somali-operated childcare centers in California.

Shirley has partnered with Amy Reichert, a private investigator and unsuccessful political candidate who says she is probing “ghost daycares” across California. In his Minnesota “investigation,” Shirley’s method of uncovering fraud amounted to showing up unannounced at childcare centers and demanding to see the children on-site; he appears to be using the same approach in San Diego. Reichert shared a photo of the pair on X Saturday, captioning it: “California, here we come! When @nickshirlye drops the video, it’s going to be 🔥.” Notably, local Minnesota news outlets published multiple investigative reports on childcare fraud in the state years before Shirley’s viral video was ever released.

On Sunday, pro-Trump content creator and Turning Point USA contributor Benny Johnson released his own “documentary” styled after Shirley’s Minnesota project, where he claimed to expose a multimillion-dollar “homeless industrial complex” operating in California. Johnson collaborated with two Republican California gubernatorial candidates: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, a former senior advisor to former British Prime Minister David Cameron. The group says their work aims to uncover fraudulent misuse of federal funding allocated to support California’s unhoused population. Johnson went a step further, claiming the state “uses these federal dollars to rig national elections.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration pushed back on Johnson’s claims in an X post Sunday, dismissing the video as “literally the conspiracy theory meme in real life.” Johnson’s core claim in the new video is that California’s homeless shelters are disproportionately populated by undocumented immigrants, an allegation he backs only with a phone call from an anonymous, unidentified “whistleblower.” Newsom’s office jabbed back at that specific claim, noting it is “as real as our Free Unicorn for all undocumented people program.”

The same week Johnson announced his California trip to “uncover fraud,” former President Trump claimed on Truth Social that California is “more corrupt” than Minnesota. “Fraud Investigation of California has begun,” Trump wrote. Last week, Trump appointed Colin McDonald as a new Assistant Attorney General, tasking him with leading fraud investigations at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Other large pro-Trump accounts and right-wing media outlets, including Real America’s Voice, have amplified Johnson’s new video. Talk radio host and former presidential candidate Larry Elder reposted the video to X Tuesday, writing: “Fraud in California makes that of Minnesota look like a starter kit.”

Elon Musk, who Shirley publicly thanked for initially boosting his December Minnesota video, has also elevated coverage of the unproven California fraud claims. “Truly insane levels of fraud!” Musk wrote earlier this week while reposting a Fox News story about the allegations.

Last week, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz released his own documentary-style video alleging widespread healthcare fraud in California, focused on an Armenian neighborhood in the state. Oz, whose parents emigrated from Turkey, claimed the fraud ring is operated “by the Russian Armenian mafia.” Shortly after the video was published, Newsom’s office filed a civil rights complaint against Oz over the “baseless and racially charged allegations.” Last month, Oz announced CMS would withhold roughly $300 million in funding from California, claiming the cut was justified because the state was using the funds to cover “non-emergency health care for illegals.”

Back in January, WIRED reported that California and New York were “next” on the Trump Administration’s list, as the White House prepared to deploy the same playbook used in Minnesota against other Democratic-led blue states.

“POTUS loves Minnesota and the people. It’s a state where he received historic Republican support, and he has long called out [Governor Tim] Walz for his incompetence and terrible leadership,” a senior White House official told WIRED last month. “The fraud is so blatant and widespread that it’s a good place to start, but it’s only the beginning. CA and NY next.”

When asked about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) role in these fraud investigations last month, the senior official confirmed that “if the fraudsters are illegals, they are getting deported.”