Democrats openly inciting violence during their shitshow protests.

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1908681793013678298

Trump War Room

@TrumpWarRoom

MUST WATCH breakdown of how America Last trade policy gutted U.S. industry:

@StephenM: "The original sin was that we created a tax system that punished you for making something in America and rewarded you for making something in China or a foreign country."

@Taylor47: "The political class didn’t do anything about it—they allowed it to happen!"

@USTradeRep: "The goal very clearly was to remove U.S. tariffs and trade barriers to make it easier for people to outsource to China."

https://x.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1908318952838594601

Oliya Scootercaster 🛴

@ScooterCasterNY

NOW: ICE Homeland Security cars left defaced and with a flat tire, after 'March on ICE' Pro-Palestine protest rallied outside demanding Mahmoud Khalil be freed. Washington DC

https://x.com/ScooterCasterNY/status/1908622812660851024

Mario Nawfal

@MarioNawfal

🚨ELON: UNFETTERED MASS IMMIGRATION WILL DESTROY ANY COUNTRY—IT’S JUST MATH

“A country is not its geography. A country is its people. This is a fundamental concept that is truly obvious.”

https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1908559777136849152

Ex-lawmaker George Santos faces 7-year prison sentence for federal fraud, identity theft

Disgraced former Rep. George Santos could face more than seven years in prison if New York prosecutors get their way.

Santos, 36, who became just the sixth House member to be expelled from the chamber and the first Republican, pleaded guilty to federal fraud and identity theft charges in August as part of a plea deal after having been indicted on felony charges.

The former lawmaker stole from political donors, used campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses, lied to Congress about his wealth and collected unemployment benefits while actually working.

"No matter how hard the DOJ comes for me, they are mad because they will NEVER break my spirit," Santos posted on X Friday in the wake of a court filing by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Santos has already agreed to serve a minimum of two years in prison and was expected to be sentenced in February but asked the court to postpone sentencing until he can make enough money from his podcast to pay the nearly $600,000 he owes in restitution and forfeiture.

Prosecutors alleged he had raked in around $800,000 from appearances on the Cameo app, with previous reports suggesting he was charging $350 a pop for videos featuring his drag alter ego Kitara Ravache. Santos previously denied ever dressing as a drag queen or associating with drag queens.

Prosecutors argued in the filing Friday that Santos warrants a significant sentence because his "unparalleled crimes" had "made a mockery" of the country’s election system.

"From his creation of a wholly fictitious biography to his callous theft of money from elderly and impaired donors, Santos’s unrestrained greed and voracious appetite for fame enabled him to exploit the very system by which we select our representatives," the office wrote.

They wrote that he had been unrepentant for years and blasted investigations into his crimes as a "witch hunt."

They also said his claims of remorse after pleading guilty "ring hollow" and suggested he has a "high likelihood of reoffending" given he has not forfeited any of his ill-gotten gains or repaid any of his victims.

The lawyers maintain such a sentence is in line with those handed to former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and other political figures facing similar financial crimes.

Santos' legal team asked for a two-year sentence in a Friday court filing. His lawyer, Andrew Mancilla, said prosecutors were selling a false narrative to the court.

"The government wants headlines, not justice. This vindictive 87-month demand ignores sentencing norms for similar cases," Mancilla said.

The freshman lawmaker was expelled a year into his first term in the House in the wake of a damning House Ethics Committee report that found he misused campaign funds on luxury items and OnlyFans, among other things. He had not been convicted of a crime at the time.

During his campaign, Santos claimed that he attended New York University, that he had worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and that his grandparents had fled the Nazis during World War Two. None of those claims were true.

Santos was once touted as a rising political star after he flipped the suburban district that covers the affluent North Shore of Long Island and a slice of the New York City borough of Queens in 2022.

Last year he failed in an attempt to relaunch his political career by running as an Independent in a neighboring district to re-enter the House.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ex-lawmaker-george-santos-faces-7-year-prison-sentence-federal-fraud-identity-theft

Senate passes budget resolution that will be critical to advancing President Trump’s legislative agenda

Senate Republicans voted early Saturday morning to pass a budget resolution that will be critical to advancing President Trump’s legislative agenda, but the measure breaks with House Republicans on several big issues, setting the stage for a showdown between the two chambers later this year.

The Senate voted 51-48 to pass the measure after a holding a long series of votes on amendments, which kept senators pacing around the chamber for hours.

Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Susan Collins (Maine) were the only Republican to vote against it.

The resolution, which serves as a blueprint to a final measure, still needs to be adopted by the House before both chambers can begin a difficult negotiation on the bill to beef up border security, expand oil and gas drilling, increase defense spending and extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

Once both chambers agree to a joint budget resolution, it will unlock the reconciliation process that allows Senate Republicans to pass Trump’s agenda with a simple-majority vote and avoid a Democratic filibuster.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) rallied his Republican colleagues behind the budget by warning that failure to advance it would risk the expiration of Trump’s tax cuts at the end of the year.

“Let me tell you what, if you vote against this budget resolution, you will be voting for. You will be voting for a $4 trillion tax increase on our economy and on the American people,” he said on the floor before a series of votes on the measure.

During a marathon series of amendment votes that stretched past six hours, Senate Republicans, led by Thune and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), defeated every Democratic attempt to modify the resolution.

The budget debate revealed the biggest looming fight between Senate and House Republicans is over Medicaid.

House Republicans have slated the program for tens of billions of dollars in cuts, something that several Republican senators have warned they would oppose in any final reconciliation bill.

Senate Budget Committee Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) sought to avoid a fight with the House by keeping its language directing the House Energy and Commerce Committee to reduce the deficit by $880 billion, a target that policy experts say would require making deep cuts to Medicaid, in the Senate budget resolution.

That drew strong protests from other Senate Republicans, who warned that they would not support any reconciliation bill later this year that would cut Medicaid benefits.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) co-sponsored an amendment with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to strip House-drafted language affecting Medicaid from the resolution.

That amendment failed by a vote of 49 to 50.

Other Senate Republicans, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Jerry Moran (Kan.) and Collins voiced their own strong misgivings about the House language, which they said threatened Medicaid benefits.

“The House instruction on $880 billion troubles me greatly because I believe that it would inevitably lead to significant cuts in Medicaid, which would be very harmful to people in Maine and to our rural hospitals and other health care providers,” Collins said.

Senators voted along party lines, 51-48, to adopt an amendment sponsored by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) that they argued would strengthen and improve Medicaid “for the most vulnerable populations” and extend the life of the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund.

“My amendment says we’ll strengthen Medicaid and Medicare so they’re available for years to come,” Sullivan told colleagues on the floor.

Democrats claimed, however, the amendment opens the door to Medicaid cuts by failing to define who qualifies as members of the most vulnerable populations.

“He doesn’t define the people who would be covered. He basically redefines the eligibility for vulnerable people to get served,” said Wyden, the top Democrat on the Finance panel. “The word ‘vulnerable’ without any defining language is code for cutting benefits.”

Every Republican except for Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and John Curtis (R-Utah) voted for it.

The budget debate exposed other major differences between Senate and House Republicans.

Fiscal hawks in the House, for example, are balking at the Senate’s proposal to use a current-policy baseline to score an extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as not adding to the deficit.

Senate Republicans say it would allow them to make those tax cuts permanent but some House conservatives fear it would ease the pressure on their party to come up with deep mandatory spending cuts to reduce the deficit.

Critics counter that simply deciding not to count an extension of the 2017 tax cuts won’t change the nation’s future deficit projections.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) last month accused Senate Republicans of trying to avoid spending cuts by concealing the cost of extending the tax cuts, calling the current-policy baseline “fairy dust.”

The language on the budget baseline for scoring the cost of a future reconciliation bill provoked divisions within the Senate GOP conference, as well.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) has echoed Roy’s concern about the fiscal impact of extending the tax cuts, which could add an estimated $4.6 trillion to the debt over 10 years, without finding savings to offset their cost.

He warned on Friday that his support for a final bill to extend the 2017 tax cuts isn’t guaranteed if it doesn’t do enough to reduce the deficit.

Asked if he could potentially vote no on a final reconciliation package, Cassidy said: “Of course.”

“That’s what you’re hearing from the House side, too,” he said. “I’m not the only one with concerns. They have a very fine balancing act. I think they understand that’s a risk with everybody.”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) accused Republicans of setting the stage for cuts to popular government programs to pay for tax cuts that would primarily benefit the nation’s wealthiest individuals and families.

“In voting for this bill, Senate Republicans sided with billionaires, against the middle class, in total obeisance to Donald Trump,” he said.

Another major sticking point between Senate and House Republicans is how much to increase defense spending in the reconciliation bill.

The Senate budget calls for $150 billion in direct defense spending while the House budget called for $100 billion in additional defense spending.

Graham, the Senate budget chairman, kept the conflicting instructions to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees to postpone a fight between the chambers on the issue until later in the year.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said last month he wanted to increase defense spending by an amount “north of 175” billion dollars in the reconciliation package.

Wicker told The Hill he’s willing to go along with the $150-billion target Graham included as an instruction to the Senate Armed Services panel.

“It’s not enough but it’s a big step. We have to make compromises,” he said

The House GOP target of increasing defense spending by $100 billion falls well short of what Senate defense hawks want.

Another significant conflict between Senate and House are the contrasting instructions to the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee on the size of new tax cuts.

House Republicans included language in their budget instructing the Ways and Means panel to submit changes in laws that increase the deficit by not more than $4.5 trillion.

The Senate budget kept the House’s instruction but also included a separate instruction to the Senate Finance Committee to report changes in laws that increase the deficit by not more than $1.5 trillion.

One Republican senator said the Senate language has prompted grumbling among House Republicans that the instruction to the Senate Finance Committee sets too low of a deficit cap to accommodate all of Trump’s tax priorities, such as exempting tipped wages and Social Security benefits from taxation.

House GOP leaders hope to take up the budget resolution next week, though Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is facing turmoil within his conference that could hinder floor action on a host of priorities.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5233787-senate-republicans-vote-budget-resolution/amp/

>>22873760

Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent

@SecScottBessent

The Senate just took a major step toward pro-growth tax certainty and economic strength.

Making @POTUS’ Trump Tax Cuts permanent will reward work, drive investment, and give families room to grow. Now it’s time for the House to finish the job.

https://x.com/SecScottBessent/status/1908590618697216244

New court decision in a disputed North Carolina race means 65,000 votes are a step closer to be being thrown out

The fresh ruling could tip the results of a race for North Carolina state Supreme Court, which is still caught up in legal battles months after Election Day 2024.

A three-judge panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled Friday that more than 65,000 votes cast in the contested race for the state Supreme Court in 2024 must be recounted and verified — a win for the Republican candidate in the razor-thin, disputed contest and a decision that could potentially tip the election results in his favor.

In the ruling, the Republican majority involved in the decision ordered that a group of more than 65,000 voters, whose eligibility was challenged by Republican Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin and his lawyers, now have 15 business days to provide state elections officials with the necessary proof of identity that would verify their votes. The court ruled that any voters who don’t respond will not have their votes counted in the race between Griffin and Democrat Allison Riggs, which is still caught in legal battling five months after Election Day.

The arduous task of verifying those voter identities will fall on the North Carolina State Board of Elections. And the decision sets up an appeal to North Carolina's highest court, the state Supreme Court — the body that the winner of this election will join.

“The inclusion of even one unlawful ballot in a vote total dilutes the lawful votes and ‘effectively disenfranchises’ lawful voters,” the Republican majority on the three-person panel wrote in its opinion. “Post-election protests protect against this risk of vote dilution by enabling candidates and voters to rigorously investigate the election process, identify and challenge unlawful ballots, and ensure those ballots are not counted.”

The one Democratic judge involved in the state Court of Appeals' decision said the majority’s ruling amounted to “changing the rules by which these lawful voters took part in our electoral process after the election to discard their otherwise valid votes” and called the majority's ruling an “an attempt to alter the outcome of only one race among many on the ballot is directly counter to law, equity, and the Constitution.”

The latest decision overturns a ruling by a lower state court from February that had effectively dismissed the case.

In a statement, Riggs said her campaign would appeal the ruling. Doing so is all but certain to put the case before the North Carolina state Supreme Court — the same bench whose seat is at stake in the case. Republicans currently have a 5-2 majority on that court.

“We will be promptly appealing this deeply misinformed decision that threatens to disenfranchise more than 65,000 lawful voters and sets a dangerous precedent, allowing disappointed politicians to thwart the will of the people,” Riggs said in an emailed statement. “North Carolinians elected me to keep my seat and I swore an oath to the constitution and the rule of law — so I will continue to stand up for the rights of voters in this state and stand in the way of those who would take power from the people.”

In a statement, Griffin spokesperson Paul Shumaker said, "We are pleased" with the ruling, calling it "a win for the citizens of North Carolina."

Griffin himself sits on the Court of Appeals but recused himself from the case.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that "this partisan decision has no legal basis and is an all-out assault on our democracy and the basic premise that voters decide who wins their elections."

The decision in the battleground state race is the latest chapter in a running saga since the November election.

Griffin and state Republicans have repeatedly claimed that the 65,000 votes in question should be invalidated because they were fraudulently cast by ineligible voters. Litigation over whether those votes should be counted has been stuck in both federal and state courts since the election.

A series of legal developments and rulings earlier this year put the decision in the hands of the state court system, though Riggs' campaign hasn't ruled out legal action that would seek to put the matter back before federal judges.

Riggs, the incumbent Democratic state Supreme Court judge who was appointed to the bench in 2023, was narrowly ahead of Griffin after Election Day, triggering a series of recounts.

A full machine recount, as well as a partial hand recount of the race, both showed Riggs leading Griffin by 734 votes. More than 5.5 million ballots were cast in the race, which the NBC News Decision Desk did not call, amid the recounts and legal cases. Even small changes to the vote count in the race could affect the outcome.

Following the original ballot count after Election Day, Griffin’s team filed hundreds of legal challenges across all of North Carolina’s 100 counties, alleging that more than 65,000 people voted illegally.

Many of the allegations centered around people who Griffin’s lawyers claimed didn’t have a driver’s license number or Social Security number on file in their voter registration records. Their protests were also related to overseas voters who haven’t lived in North Carolina and overseas voters who failed to provide photo identification with their ballots.

In its ruling Friday, the Republican majority on the Court of Appeals instructed the State Board of Elections “to immediately direct the county boards to expeditiously identify the military and overseas voters challenged under this protest and notify said voters of their failure to abide by the photo ID requirement or equivalent, to allow said voters fifteen (15) business days from the mailing of the notice to cure the defect, and upon verification, to include in the count of this challenged election the votes of those voters who timely cure their failure to abide by the photo ID requirement and to omit from the final count the votes of those voters who fail to timely cure their deficiencies."

In their ruling, the two Republicans said that overseas voters who have never lived in North Carolina should not have their ballots counted.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/new-court-decision-disputed-north-carolina-race-means-65000-votes-are-rcna199746

DHS officials ask IRS to use tax data to locate 7 million illegal aliens

The agencies have still not reached an agreement on sharing information. But immigration officials now say they’re seeking records on millions of people suspected of being in the United States without authorization.

Federal immigration officials are seeking to locate up to 7 million people suspected of being in the United States unlawfully by accessing confidential tax data at the Internal Revenue Service, according to six people familiar with the request, a dramatic escalation in how the Trump administration aims to use the tax system to detain and deport immigrants.

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security had previously sought the IRS’s help to locate 700,000 people who are subject to final removal orders and had asked the IRS to use closely guarded taxpayer data systems to provide their names and addresses.

The two agencies have still not reached an agreement on how much data, or how, IRS will share.

But immigration enforcement officials on Thursday increased the volume of their request, according to the people familiar with it, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of professional reprisal. DHS officials initially said they would send preliminary queries about 2 million taxpayers, and eventually seek help locating 7 million individuals, the people said.

Federal officials estimate there are roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

IRS officials were aghast, according to people familiar with the discussion, and lawyers from both agencies have spent recent days negotiating the details. Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause has told subordinates she expects the agency to ultimately comply with the Trump administration’s aim of using IRS systems to help in immigration enforcement, The Post has reported.

“While we have nothing to share regarding any potential discussions, the United States Treasury is fully committed to supporting our partner agencies in executing the President’s America First agenda,” a Treasury spokesperson said in a statement, issued on the condition of anonymity because of a department policy.

Representatives from DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the IRS did not respond to requests for comment.

Normally, personal tax information — even an individual’s name and address — is considered confidential and closely guarded within the IRS. Unlawfully disclosing tax data carries civil and criminal penalties.

But that information can be shared with law enforcement under limited circumstances, usually with permission from a court, to build a criminal investigation.

It would be highly unusual, and perhaps illegal, the people said, to use tax data to enact criminal penalties. IRS executives told Homeland Security officials that their request likely violates the narrow criminal investigation exemptions. Simply being in the country illegally is a civil, not criminal, offense.

If approved, the agreement would represent a significant shift in how federal agencies manage both taxpayer information and immigration enforcement.

The IRS has for years reassured undocumented workers that their tax information is confidential and that it is safe for them to file income tax returns without fear of being deported.

Undocumented immigrants pay tens of billions of dollars in federal taxes each year. Undocumented workers’ wages are subject to the same tax withholding and reporting requirements that apply to other U.S. residents. Many immigrants file tax returns and save them in hopes that a record of paying taxes will one day help them make a case to apply for legal residency. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, for instance, granted permanent legal status to undocumented migrants who had paid back taxes, among other requirements.

On its website, the IRS says undocumented immigrants “are subject to U.S. taxes in spite of their illegal status.” Because most are ineligible for Social Security numbers, the IRS allows them instead to file with individual taxpayer numbers, known as ITINs.

The IRS has already rejected previous DHS requests to share taxpayer information for immigration enforcement purposes during the Trump administration.

In February, DHS asked the tax agency for the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of 700,000 people officials suspected of being in the country illegally. It also asked the IRS to open investigations into businesses suspected of hiring undocumented workers. The IRS’s acting commissioner at the time, Doug O’Donnell, quickly rejected the request, saying it was flatly unlawful.

But O’Donnell retired after a decades-long IRS career the next day. He was replaced by Krause and the agencies have volleyed draft agreements back and forth since then.

https://archive.is/1DyOM#selection-407.0-687.168

Kash Patel hanging with Wayne Gretzky at Caps game.

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1908358873708118159

Scott Bessent explains the state of what was inherited to manage.

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1908423499875569751

One America News

@OANN

INDIANA AG REVEALS THAT 30% OF PRISONERS IN INDIANA PRISON IDENTIFY AS THE OPPOSITE SEX

Attorney General of Indiana

@AGToddRokita

explains to

@MattGaetz

that in one prison in Indiana, “30% of Indiana’s inmates now say they identify with the opposite sex. And that’s MOSTLY male identifying as female,” adding, “No one is owed transgender surgery.”

https://x.com/OANN/status/1907606478829076769

Jesse Watters

@JesseBWatters

.

@realDonaldTrump

's team says he's never felt more confident. He’s on a mission to right the Swamp’s wrongs before the end of his term. The vision? Turn the country into a place with thriving main streets and hometowns, where American workers made American products sold to the American public. Doesn’t that give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside? He wants to make it easier for people to start families, afford homes and go to college. The President’s mentality is: if you want access to the greatest market in the world, the American market, you’re going to have to pay up. Tariffs are bringing oil prices down and mortgage rates just fell below 6%. Trump’s trade war is high risk/ high reward but he’s not biting his fingernails, staring at the Dow. Tariffs are just one piece of the puzzle. Cheaper energy, lower tariffs, and tighter borders are going to make everyone’s salaries go up. Lower taxes, regulation and spending will ignite an economic BOOM. We’ve been talking about doing this for over 50 years. People say, “Well, why now?” Because it’s never the wrong time to do the right thing.

https://x.com/JesseBWatters/status/1908339280038289519

Minnesota food bank CEO steps down as legislators question her $721K salary

Second Harvest Heartland defended its executive compensation and financial stewardship, but some legislators are concerned by the "out of control" salaries at nonprofits requesting public dollars.

Minnesota’s hunger crisis is growing—and apparently so is the appetite for big executive pay at one of the state’s top food nonprofits.

Allison O’Toole, CEO of Second Harvest Heartland, earned $721,000 in total compensation in 2022—even as the nonprofit has lobbied for taxpayer funding and warned of rising hunger across Minnesota, where 26% of households with children are food insecure, according to its own research.

Now, as O’Toole steps down after six years at the helm, lawmakers are raising questions.

Concerns first raised during legislative hearing

Rep. Pam Altendorf, R-Red Wing, told Alpha News that O’Toole’s salary issue first surfaced during a recent “food day” at the Capitol, when food shelf representatives, including O’Toole, testified before the House Children and Families Committee.

“Rep. Bjorn Olson pulled the 990 [tax form] and shared Allison O’Toole’s salary with our committee members right before she testified,” Altendorf said. “That’s when the questions started.”

Rep. Marion Rarick, R-Maple Lake, later raised the issue during a March 17 House committee hearing where a DFL lawmaker questioned why a GOP bill was reducing funding for Second Harvest Heartland in a proposed agriculture budget.

“It looks like the base funding for Second Harvest Heartland is $3.4 million and you reduce it by $900,000 in both the first biennium and the tails,” said Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids.

But Rarick said she thinks the organization “can handle it.”

“They do have a $260 million, that’s their gross revenue,” she said during the hearing. “What’s even more interesting, I think, is that their CEO, their top person, makes $721,000. Yeah, $721,000 is the top person … and they have 10 people that make more than the governor, which is more than $150,000. So that’s well over $2.6 million in their highest-paid people.”

About a week after the salary figures were brought up at the committee hearing, Second Harvest announced O’Toole’s resignation.

Altendorf said days later, Second Harvest lobbyists pulled both her and Rarick off the House floor for a private hallway meeting. At the time, Altendorf’s tweet highlighting O’Toole’s salary had received more than 65,000 views.

“I reassured them that no one questions the need for food banks in Minnesota,” Altendorf said. “But now that this has been exposed, everyone is questioning why an organization that claims to be a nonprofit is paying its CEO nearly a million per year. This is disgusting and incomprehensible to the average person who’s living paycheck to paycheck.”

Millions in revenue, taxpayer funds

Records show Second Harvest brought in roughly $260 million in total revenue in 2022—with over $6 million coming from government grants, according to a report in the American Experiment.

And it’s not just O’Toole earning well into the six figures at the food shelf.

Several executives at Second Harvest earn over $300,000 annually, with at least seven staffers making between $140,000 to $280,000 per year, according to the 2022 tax records.

Despite the high salaries, Second Harvest Heartland has maintained a strong presence at the Capitol this session, requesting public funding to address what it calls record-breaking demand for food assistance.

Altendorf also pointed to what she sees as a deeper issue. She says the nonprofit hired a “voter engagement coordinator” in 2024 to conduct get-out-the-vote efforts—something she calls “a huge conflict of interest” for an organization receiving taxpayer dollars.

“The public is waking up to the money funneling system happening within the Minnesota state government,” Altendorf said. “And I’m hearing loud and clear—taxpayers have had enough.”

O’Toole, who previously led MNsure during its rollout and served as state director for U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, was hired by Second Harvest in 2019, according to reports.

The organization’s Chief Operating Officer, Sarah Moberg, will serve as the interim CEO while a national search is conducted for O’Toole’s replacement. Records show Moberg’s annual salary is listed as roughly $370,000.

Second Harvest defends pay, says public funding doesn’t cover salaries

In a statement to Alpha News, Second Harvest Heartland defended its executive compensation and financial stewardship, stressing that none of its state funding goes toward administrative costs or staff salaries.

“Second Harvest Heartland is independently audited each year. Our latest report confirms that 92.5 cents of every dollar we spend goes toward food and hunger relief programming, with only 3.6% of our budget dedicated to general and administrative expense – which includes compensation,” stated communications director Mike Stephenson.

“Last year, government contracts made up roughly 2% of our $315 million annual budget, with $1.7 million coming from the state of Minnesota, all of which was designated for direct food spending,” he added.

The organization also pointed to its size and scope—distributing more than 167 million pounds of food last year across a network of more than 1,000 partners—as justification for offering competitive wages to attract and retain talent in the fight against hunger.

Stephenson added that O’Toole’s departure had been part of a planned leadership transition and was not in response to recent criticism.

https://alphanews.org/minnesota-food-bank-ceo-steps-down-as-legislators-question-her-721k-salary/