Trump Administration Puts Mississippi On Notice About Welfare Fraud Penalty

In a letter obtained by HuffPost, the administration tries to show it’s not just cracking down on blue states.

President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday warned the state of Mississippi that it could still face stiff penalties for misspending millions of welfare dollars.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last year rescinded the $100 million penalty, which was originally imposed by former President Joe Biden’s administration, after the state said it could justify some of the allegedly fraudulent spending in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

In a letter sent Tuesday, the Administration for Children and Families at HHS, which administers the program, serves as a reminder that Mississippi could still face a substantial penalty. It’s likely also an effort to show the administration isn’t giving favorable treatment to a Republican-led state while it cracks down on alleged fraud in blue states.

“As noted previously, the misuse of federal TANF funds is a very serious concern to ACF and the federal government in general,” ACF’s Deborah List wrote to the Mississippi Department of Human Services in the letter, which was obtained by HuffPost. “Although the December 2024 penalty notice was rescinded for the limited purposes described above, MDHS will be subject to a future penalty based on ACF’s assessment of the amount of TANF funds that were misused.”

As HuffPost reported earlier this month, the Trump administration had seemingly left Mississippi off the hook for a massive welfare fraud scandal as it cracked down aggressively on Democratic states. The administration has flooded Minnesota with militarized immigration agents and announced an unprecedented suspension of TANF and other federal programs in Minnesota, plus four other Democratic-led states, in response to fraud in Minnesota.