Treasury officials confirmed they’ve begun using federal financial authorities to investigate the funding behind agitator and anti-ICE activist groups that have been disrupting law enforcement operations across American cities like Minnesota.
Bessent made the statement while speaking with Jack posobiec on Human Events Daily regarding “human blockades” and “vehicular blockades” while Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conduct enforcement operations. Posobiec asked whether Treasury could use its power to trace the money supporting these organizations.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that work has already begun. “What we do is we follow the money and all of these agitators who are causing violence night after night, Portland, Minneapolis, the other locations, someone is funding them,” Bessent told Posobiec. He noted that identifiable patterns — such as coordinated use of lasers and matching umbrellas — suggests organized spending behind these efforts.
Bessent said the Treasury Department can use the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to track such funding. He also highlighted the IRS Criminal Investigators unit, saying, “They have more investigators and they’re great because they can look at financial fraud and they carry guns, they go out in the field and they make arrests.” Bessent added that IRS agents were key in uncovering initial fraud in Minnesota, accusing state leadership of ignoring the issue.
Posobiec raised the possibility that organizations behind the blockades might be working with nonprofits, law firms, or public officials to process paperwork and funnel funds, and suggested that citizen journalists have found signs of storefronts and “daycares that have no children” attached to some groups.
Bessent responded, “It is a business. They have people who teach them how to form LLCs,” likening the training to giving a deranged person a weapon. “What is supposed to be relief and aid is now being turned into these businesses that just skim and skim and skim. And as we’ve seen, much of it ends up back in Democratic coffers.”
The segment also referenced Renee Good, the Minnesota woman fatally shot by an ICE agent on Jan. 7 during an encounter that followed anti-immigration enforcement activity in the city. Federal officials have said Good’s vehicle struck an agent before shots were fired; video of the incident has circulated widely. Good was part of an “ICE Watch” network that tracks and confronts immigration enforcement operations, and her death has fueled protests and debate over federal immigration policy and the tactics of activist groups.
Bessent made the statement while speaking with Jack posobiec on Human Events Daily regarding “human blockades” and “vehicular blockades” while Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conduct enforcement operations. Posobiec asked whether Treasury could use its power to trace the money supporting these organizations.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that work has already begun. “What we do is we follow the money and all of these agitators who are causing violence night after night, Portland, Minneapolis, the other locations, someone is funding them,” Bessent told Posobiec. He noted that identifiable patterns — such as coordinated use of lasers and matching umbrellas — suggests organized spending behind these efforts.
Bessent said the Treasury Department can use the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to track such funding. He also highlighted the IRS Criminal Investigators unit, saying, “They have more investigators and they’re great because they can look at financial fraud and they carry guns, they go out in the field and they make arrests.” Bessent added that IRS agents were key in uncovering initial fraud in Minnesota, accusing state leadership of ignoring the issue.
Posobiec raised the possibility that organizations behind the blockades might be working with nonprofits, law firms, or public officials to process paperwork and funnel funds, and suggested that citizen journalists have found signs of storefronts and “daycares that have no children” attached to some groups.
Bessent responded, “It is a business. They have people who teach them how to form LLCs,” likening the training to giving a deranged person a weapon. “What is supposed to be relief and aid is now being turned into these businesses that just skim and skim and skim. And as we’ve seen, much of it ends up back in Democratic coffers.”
The segment also referenced Renee Good, the Minnesota woman fatally shot by an ICE agent on Jan. 7 during an encounter that followed anti-immigration enforcement activity in the city. Federal officials have said Good’s vehicle struck an agent before shots were fired; video of the incident has circulated widely. Good was part of an “ICE Watch” network that tracks and confronts immigration enforcement operations, and her death has fueled protests and debate over federal immigration policy and the tactics of activist groups.
