GOP lawmaker moves to award congressional medal for journalist who exposed Minnesota fraud

Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., will introduce a bill to give independent journalist Nick Shirley the Congressional Medal of Honor for his work in exposing alleged fraud schemes involving members of the Somali community in Minnesota.

“I want to thank and acknowledge the independent reporters Nick Shirley and Dave Hock, who broke this story wide open,” Crane said at an Oversight Committee Hearing on Wednesday.

“I’m introducing a bill to award Nick Shirley with the Congressional Medal for his explosive work in exposing astronomical fraud in Minnesota.” 

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Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., arrives for the House Homeland Security Committee markup hearing in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, Jan. 30, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Shirley, a video journalist who posts his work to social media and YouTube, has visited several daycare, medical and benefits facilities in the North Star State in recent weeks, uncovering scores of providers that had bare bones setups and were largely devoid of activity despite receiving millions in government funding.

Many of the programs actively turned Shirley away when he asked if he could sign up to receive services from them.

While Shirley’s work only covered a handful of cases, it highlighted what the schemes looked like on the ground amid congressional probes about how the state had racked up mountains of losses to fraud.

According to recent investigations, Minnesota could have lost as much as $9 billion through fraud operations like the ones uncovered by Shirley.

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Nick Shirley upended the news cycle last month with a 42-minute video investigating Minnesota daycare centers that appeared inactive despite receiving millions of dollars in government funding.  (Nick Shirley)

Crane said Shirley’s video footage had exposed unique insights into Minnesota’s lack of oversight and how easy it had been to expose some of the schemes’ operations.

“The reason I’m doing this is because the American people are sick and tired of this, and they’re sick and tired of mainstream media not covering any of it,” Crane said.

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Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., speaks to the press during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 13, 2023. (Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)

Crane said the work started by Shirley would have to continue. In his view, it posed bigger questions. 

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“The biggest question that most Americans have is this: is this incompetence at the executive level with the governor and attorney general — or are they involved?”