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

Summary

Morning Wire | “Follow the Money” – Dark Money Pipeline Uncovered Behind Minnesota Riots? (2.21.26)

Podcast: Morning Wire
Hosts: John Bickley, Georgia Howe
Guest: Seamus Bruner (Director of Research, Government Accountability Institute)
Release Date: February 21, 2026

Overview

This episode investigates the allegation that recent violent protests and riots—especially those in Minnesota—are not grassroots movements but orchestrated events funded by “dark money” networks. The hosts and guest explore the interplay between government welfare systems, immigrant communities, orchestrated protests, and the role of large non-profit networks in driving political outcomes. Seamus Bruner introduces the concept of a “border to ballot box pipeline,” examining how benefits and fraud serve as both a political and social lever in blue states.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The “Border to Ballot Box Pipeline” in Minnesota (03:36)

• Seamus Bruner details how Minnesota exemplifies the interconnected relationship between welfare systems, immigration, and political outcomes. He alleges that state leadership, particularly Governor Walz, has knowingly allowed welfare fraud “into the billions of dollars” for political gain, relying on reliably voting immigrant blocs.

  “Governor Walls, he covered it up... the numbers are astronomical, into the billions of dollars stolen from hardworking taxpayers by what turn out to be constituents of Governor Walz.” (03:36, Seamus Bruner)

• Media coverage: NYT reports are cited to reinforce the idea that these immigrant voting blocs are deliberately cultivated through welfare.

2. Expansion to Other States: California and Maine (05:33, 07:25)

• California: Bruner points out that Governor Newsom’s $20 billion allocation to homelessness is being redirected to migrant resettlement. He emphasizes that noncitizens are counted in Congressional apportionment, amplifying political power even if they do not vote.

  “That $20 billion disappears... has been redeployed towards illegal migrants and facilitating the resettlement of migrants because they don’t have homes when they come here.” (05:33, Seamus Bruner)

• Maine: Similar patterns observed, particularly with Somali communities, echoing Bruner’s claims of welfare exploitation and political leadership turning a blind eye.

  “…the political leadership in these blue states looks the other way because they know that as long as the benefits flow, the communities receiving those benefits will be reliably in their corner…” (07:25, Seamus Bruner)

3. Orchestrated Protests & “Riot Inc.” (09:02)

• Bruner outlines a theory of coordinated operations, likening nonprofit-funded protest networks to a corporate structure:
  • Migrant Inc.: NGOs facilitate migration and connect new arrivals to benefits.
  • Election Inc.: Mobilizes new arrivals and their communities for voting/ballot initiatives.
  • Riot Inc.: Activates protest and riot activities when the system is threatened.
• He names networks like Soros, Arabella, and Tides Foundation as key funders and cites “CHIRLA” (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles) as an example active in all three areas.

  “We called it Riot Inc.…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.” (09:31, Seamus Bruner)

• Points to evidence of Chinese Communist Party-linked funding (Neville Roy Singham network).

4. Federal Investigations & Political Reaction (12:06)

• Senator Josh Hawley is leading congressional calls for further investigation.
• Bruner states enforcement is ramping up—especially in the Treasury Department, tracking flows of foreign-linked money—but laments a lack of publicized law enforcement successes.

  “…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.” (12:21, Seamus Bruner)

• Describes the situation as a “powder keg” fueled by media narratives and activist propaganda, resulting in escalating confrontations with law enforcement.

5. Reaction in the Trump White House (14:09)

• Bruner recounts briefing President Trump and senior officials, reporting that Trump was “shocked” and highly responsive, directing swift follow-up by legal and policy teams.

  “President Trump was, you know, shocked at some of the things that we, we showed him. Again, I was with Peter Schweitzer and we showed him some of the stuff on the foreign elements, on the…the invisible coup in the Chinese Communist Party linked efforts...” (14:09, Seamus Bruner)

• Raises issue of “bail funds” used by NGOs to release violent protesters and recidivism concerns.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the use of benefits as a political lever:

  “It's not about the people who are committing the fraud... it's the fact that the political leadership in these blue states looks the other way because they know that as long as the benefits flow, the communities... will be reliably in their corner.” (07:25, Seamus Bruner)

• On the scale of arrest activity:

  “There have been many arrests. I was shocked to learn, you know, thousands and thousands of arrests. You just don’t really see it.” (12:21, Seamus Bruner)

• On encouragement of direct action:

  “They’re training people to do crazy things like resist arrest and try to, like, assault law enforcement... giving out trainings on how to, like, break a police officer’s hold on someone who’s under arrest.” (12:21, Seamus Bruner)

• On the legal challenge:

  “…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.” (14:09, Seamus Bruner)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Introduction and context: 00:04–00:32
• Minnesota “border to ballot box pipeline” explained: 03:36–05:09
• California and Maine cases: 05:33–08:48
• Mechanics of dark money NGOs (“Migrant Inc.”, “Election Inc.”, “Riot Inc.”): 09:02–12:06
• Details on ongoing investigations and legislative response: 12:06–13:53
• White House reaction and RICO discussion: 14:09–15:50
• Closing remarks: 16:05–16:06

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Tone and Closing

The episode maintains an investigative, sometimes alarmed tone, underscored by skepticism toward both media narratives and the apparent lack of public enforcement action. The conversation is laced with political observations but grounds its claims with references to mainstream media coverage and government reports.

Closing Speaker:

“That was Seamus Bruner, director of research at the Government Accountability Institute. And this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.” (16:06, John Bickley)

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Summary prepared for listeners seeking a comprehensive yet digestible overview of the episode’s main arguments, supporting evidence, and the political implications discussed.

Transcript

[John Bickley]

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.

[Georgia Howe]

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 nonprofits linking left wing immigration, election and protest efforts.

[John Bickley]

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.

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[John Bickley]

Joining us to discuss what's behind the wave of anti ICE protests, what his team calls Migrant 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.

[Seamus Bruner]

Always happy to. Thanks, John.

[John Bickley]

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 a, 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?

[Seamus Bruner]

Yeah, sure. So Minnesota is a perfect test case, 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 Walls, he covered it up. You know, there's many whistleblowers from inside the, you know, 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 turn 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 block of Governor Walz and of the Democrats in Minnesota. So that really caught our eye and we looked into it even more. We looked into it and the more we found one is that this kind of benefits fraud is happening all over. You mentioned Maine. California, of course, is a huge example of this. But then it's really connected with the voting bloc. I mean, as the New York Times reported is the voting blocs are, you know, fueled by this, by these welfare benefits and they, that keeps them reliably in the corner of people like Governor Walz or Governor Newsom. And so it's really a pernicious, pernicious pipeline from the, the border to the ballot box.

[John Bickley]

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?

[Seamus Bruner]

Yeah, well, I mean with, I mean California, famously Governor Newsom put $20 billion towards solving homelessness. And so just pick, pick an issue that, that the left pro, you know, pro 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 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. In 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 noncitizens living in California who through the, you know, apportionment that leads to more political power in the form of more representatives in Congress. And so right. 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.

[John Bickley]

And what about in Maine? What have you guys uncovered there?

[Seamus Bruner]

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, in 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's sort of part of, you know, it's a jizya, it's a tax on the non believers to exploit welfare systems. And so the New York Times reported this, that, you know, Somalia has kind of this culture of corruption. So very similar numbers are not as eye popping as Minnesota. But nonetheless the real thing here is like it's not about the, 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 bloc 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. Well, the holidays have come and gone once again. But if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift. Well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now, you call it an early present for next year.

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[John Bickley]

See terms 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?

[Seamus Bruner]

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 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 group things that get as many either non citizens or eventual citizens hooked up to a political machine election apparatus and they mobilized for that. And then we kind of told the first part, the last part of the story first with Riot Inc. 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 la. There was a group that we talked about and Senator Hawley has been demanding answers from them called churlets, 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.

[John Bickley]

Now you mentioned Senator Hawley. He's 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?

[Seamus Bruner]

Yeah, I mean they are, it's, 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 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. Like that's not going to go well if you're, no, 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's, that is, is a recipe for disaster.

[John Bickley]

Yeah, they're being propagandized and told that they should go interfere in law enforcement activities. That's a real recipe for disaster. Final question, as you mentioned, you 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?

[Seamus Bruner]

Yeah, President Trump was, you know, shocked at some of the things that we, we showed him. Again, I was with Peter Schweitzer and we showed him some of the stuff on the foreign elements, on the, the invisible coup in the Chinese Communist Party linked efforts, as well as back in October when I met with him, he said, get all this to Attorney General and Secretary Noem and Kash Patel and I got it to him and they've been very responsive. And it's a very hard case to build about the funding. I mean, we believe in every American's first, 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 you know 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 in order to those are very complicated investigations. 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, they fund bail funds to get these violent antifa types back onto the streets as quickly as possible. And so it's hard to say that you didn't know that they were violent criminals after they've been arrested for throwing Molotov cocktails into a police car.

[John Bickley]

And like you said, encouraging them to do things like resisting arrest, that leads to the kinds of tragic incidents we saw in Minneapolis. 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.

[Seamus Bruner]

Thanks so much, John.

[John Bickley]

That was Seamus Bruner, director of research at the Government Accountability Institute. And this has been a weekend edition of morningwire.