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Government Corruption
Playing Smashmouth: AgSec Rollins Taking the Blue States' SNAP
2025-12-03
[Hot Air] Either you follow the rules or you don't get any money. Prepare for another shutdown theater @end of January.
If there is one thing you can say as a blanket statement about the Trump cabinet, it's that you know exactly where each of them is coming from and where they are going. There is none of the previous administration's gentle pats on concerned heads and assurances of no ill intentions, usually as they were in the process of planning and executing the exact opposite.

No. Trump cabinet members are nothing if not a remarkably unfiltered group of bureaucrats who go about their business and have no problems explaining exactly what it is when asked.

It's quite refreshing.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has been one of those who dove into her role, as opposed to merely occupying a desk. From jumping into a long-simmering international water dispute, to something as seemingly inconsequential as (successfully) saving a small family farm from eminent domain seizure, Rollins has been popping up and making an impact everywhere.

So it might have behooved the blue states which are deepest into the Trump resistance movement to be a bit more accommodating when the newly sworn-in Secretary of Agriculture sent around an unambiguous request for their state's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) data in order to comply with the president's executive order. The records were due by COB 30 July.

July 9, 2025

Dear SNAP State Agencies,

On March 20, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14243, Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos. This Executive Order required agency heads to "take all necessary steps, to the maximum extent consistent with law, to ensure the Federal Government has unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs that receive federal funding, including, as appropriate, data generated by those programs but maintained in third-party databases." The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is committed to effectuating this Executive Order with respect to all programs in its purview.

The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) at USDA works in partnership with state agencies to provide nutrition assistance to Americans in need through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). It is imperative that USDA eliminates bureaucratic duplication and inefficiency and enhances the government's ability not only to have point-in-time information but also to detect overpayments and fraud. As noted in the May 6, 2025, announcement of the Department's plan to request these data from EBT processors, USDA is committed to ensuring appropriate and lawful participation in SNAP.

On June 23, 2025, pursuant to the provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974 and Office of Management and Budget (0MB) Circular No. A-108, USDA published a notice in the Federal Register that the department proposes to create a new system of records (SOR) entitled USDA/FNS-15, "National Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Information Database." This system is owned, administered, and secured by FNS, and the system's primary purpose is to strengthen SNAP and government program integrity.

In accordance with 5 USC 552a(e)(4) and (11), this system of records notice becomes effective upon publication in the Federal Register, except for the routine uses, which will become effective on July 23, 2025. To ensure efficient implementation of this system, and to ensure USDA has a complete and accurate database, we are requiring collection of SNAP data from EBT processors or state agencies beginning on July 24, 2025, with submissions to USDA no later than the close of business on July 30, 2025. The required data are listed in the notice section, "Categories of Records in the System."

Thank you for your continued work to help address the needs of vulnerable Americans and safeguard taxpayer dollars. If you or your staff have any questions, please have your staff contact the FNS Governmental Affairs Team at fnsgovaffairs@usda.gov.

To date, only 28 states have sent their information to the USDA, most of them red states, and in point of fact, besides refusing, blue states filed suit over the threat of withheld funds.

The bleeding hearts at NPR called Rollins' request for data on how federal dollars were spent at the state level 'unprecedented.'

In other words, how dare the federal government politely ask for some accounting of where their (aka our) money went once it hit state coffers.

Of course, the recipient data had to be 'personal' because 'personal' is how one qualifies for SNAP to begin with, but let's not let such quibbles ruin a good outrage, shall we?

...Earlier this year, the USDA made an unprecedented demand to states to turn over personal data of SNAP recipients. Most Democratic-led states refused, and a federal judge in San Francisco blocked USDA from withholding funding from states that did not comply and found the federal agency's data demand was likely unlawful.

But 28 states and Guam did turn over data, according to a USDA spokesperson, and Rollins has been citing statistics from that data in several media appearances in recent weeks as evidence that the food assistance program needs to be overhauled.

The agency sent a letter to states that have not complied with an updated data demand last week.


With what data she'd received, and her department had parsed, Rollins went on a tear about the waste and fraud in those available statistics. It was enough to make one wonder what horrors were hidden in data being purposefully withheld by notoriously lax welfare states like California, Illinois, and Minnesota.

As events concerning the fraud under Governors Tim Walz and Gavin Newsom become more widely exposed, the concern grows, and the impetus to crawl into that fetid blue oubliette of corruption is ever more justified, chorus of 'BUT HUNGRY CHILDREN' be damned.

Rollins' first shot across the bow came mid-month in November, thanks to the government shutdown. The USDA had had time to crawl through what they'd received and come to a decision. Rollins announced that they were going to 'deconstruct' the entire program, rebuild it from the ground up,and SNAP beneficiaries would be required to reapply in person.
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