Nick Shirley Threatened on a New York City Sidewalk

Last week, a man approached Nick Shirley on a Manhattan sidewalk, told him, "someone is going to find you," and made a gun gesture with his hand. He accused Nick of being "Islamophobic and racist." When Nick asked for an example, the man couldn't give one but kept shouting. Nick shared a video of the encounter, which you should watch below.

The confrontation took place during the day on a busy street, with people passing by as the man grew louder. He never explained what Nick had done to deserve the accusation. When Nick asked what he had done to help anyone, the man said Nick should go to "any leftist organization" and show his photo, claiming, "they will know who I am." He repeated that someone would find Nick.

Nick said this moment was part of a pattern: "Uncovering fraud and helping America has become the most dangerous job in America, unfortunately." The next day, on Fox News' The Will Cain Show, he explained that he is often called racist and Islamophobic, even though his investigations focus on taxpayer fraud and are not related to race.

To see where these labels come from, look at Nick's work. In Minnesota, he investigated daycare and autism centers that took public money while their buildings were empty. Critics quickly called his reporting bigoted and accused him of making up a scandal. Later, federal agents raided more than 20 of those centers. The daycare owner in his video was charged with wire fraud, and 15 people were indicted in a $90 million Medicaid scheme that prosecutors said was one of the largest ever. Reporting on fraud that the government later confirms is not racism, no matter how many times people say it is.

What happened in New York is not an isolated outburst, which is exactly why it is worth your attention. Over the past two months, California Democrats advanced a bill critics call the 'Stop Nick Shirley Act' to criminalize the footage he posts, prominent commentators have gone after him by name, and now a stranger on a public street is gesturing a gunshot and promising he will be tracked down. The methods range from legislation to personal threats, but the purpose behind them is the same: to raise the cost of exposing fraud until people decide it is no longer worth it.

From the start, we have said that exposing fraud should not be dangerous work, and that the people who want it to be dangerous are usually the ones with something to hide. Anyone who wants Nick to stop has a simpler option than a threat on a sidewalk: stop giving him fraud to find.

What do you think of the growing death threats coming from the left? Reply to this email and let us know.

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Nick has previously investigated how California handles its elections. Last week’s slow mayoral count in Los Angeles supported his main argument: the process is confusing and takes too long, which makes people lose trust. The city’s mayoral primary took a week to finish, and the result changed after late ballots were added. For Nick, who identified a 126 year old women registered to vote in Californian elections, this confirmed his worries and pointed to what he sees as bigger issues with election integrity.

In recent weeks, he has checked California's voter rolls and visited homes, including one where the state listed a woman as 126 years old because they had no real birthdate for her. Other groups have found the same issue on a larger scale. The Public Interest Legal Foundation looked at two million active California voters and found almost 95,000 dead people still registered, over 57,000 people registered in two states at the same time, and thousands of records with placeholder birthdates. Judicial Watch sued the state over more than 870,000 registrations that stayed active after voters died or moved away.

Nick called the Los Angeles mayoral race a "3rd world country election." On election night, Republican Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades Fire, was ahead by eight points. But as mail-in ballots were counted, his lead vanished and progressive council member Nithya Raman took the lead. President Trump called the result a "Rigged Election." Some commentators questioned why late ballots seemed to help one side. In California, ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive up to a week later, and counties have 30 days to certify results. This means Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city, might wait a month for the final result.

This is what a problem with election integrity looks like. It is bigger than just one miscounted ballot. The system sends ballots to every name on the list, even if the person is no longer alive. It can take a month to announce the winner, and the state cannot always confirm voters’ ages. In a system like this, you cannot prove if fraud happened or not. That kind of uncertainty hurts public trust. California needs to change.

Do you believe California’s elections are trustworthy? Share your thoughts by replying to this email.

For decades, the FBI's Most Wanted list focused on murderers and terrorists. Now, the bureau has introduced a new list for people who steal from taxpayers. The "Most Wanted Fraudsters" list is part of the biggest fraud crackdown the FBI has ever done.

The numbers involved are staggering. The Justice Department charged 324 people in one nationwide operation. The cases center on $14.6 billion in alleged healthcare fraud, including a $10.6 billion international Medicare scheme. To find cases like these, the department now uses a new Health Care Fraud Data Fusion Center. This center spots suspicious billing before anyone reports it.

On June 4, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced charges against 14 people. They are accused of taking over $50 million from government programs. In one case, money meant for children's mental health was spent on luxury cars. Investigators seized 14 vehicles worth about $800,000, including six Mercedes, a Bentley, a Maserati, and a McLaren.

The crackdown also put a spotlight on the agencies meant to prevent fraud. The Federal Trade Commission removed Hawaii's Medicaid fraud control unit's certification after finding it had no convictions or indictments from 2021 to 2025, even though its funding increased. This is the less visible side of the problem. Money goes missing not just because of theft, but also because some offices meant to stop it do nothing.

This is the pattern the Trump Administration has tracked from the start, and it keeps repeating. Fraud that agencies overlooked for years gets exposed, then the public reacts, and enforcement finally follows. Nick Shirley's Minnesota investigation helped set off that kind of chain reaction. The federal government is now running takedowns on an unprecedented scale.