Claim:
U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned a swindler who was serving a sentence for stealing far more money than was taken in massive welfare fraud in Minnesota involving members of the state’s Somali community.
Rating:
What’s False
Trump did not pardon the swindler in question, Philip Esformes. In 2020, Trump commuted his 20-year sentence to time served. Esformes remained liable for $44.2 million in restitution and forfeiture.
What’s Undetermined
Esformes was convicted of stealing $1.3 billion from Medicaid and Medicare. The total amount stolen in Minnesota has yet to be determined. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said fraudsters may have stolen as much as $9 billion since 2018 from various welfare benefit programs. A Minnesota Star Tribune calculation in early December 2025 found $217.7 million in stolen money, which the government disputed.
As stories spread in December 2025 about massive welfare fraud in Minnesota in which the vast majority of people charged were of Somali descent — leading to accusations the state’s Democratic leadership had ignored warnings — critics of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump shared a rumor that he had pardoned a fraudster who was serving a 20-year sentence for stealing far more money.
One popular instance of this accusation, which focused on alleged fraud in Minnesota involving day cares, appeared on X on Dec. 29, identifying the supposedly pardoned fraudster as Philip Esformes (archived):
Another version of the claim on Facebook purported to compare the sum stolen by “every single Somali scheme in the state of Minnesota COMBINED” to the amount Esformes stole, arguing Esformes had swindled more. Occupy Democrats also amplified the claim.
As we outline below, the claim is false on one count: Trump did not pardon Esformes. It may also be incorrect on the scale of the fraud in Minnesota, though the total has yet to be calculated.
Esformes’ crimes and sentence commutation
Esformes, who had been in custody since July 2016, was convicted in April 2019 of “the largest health care fraud scheme charged by the U.S. Justice Department,” according to a DOJ statement at the time, and a judge sentenced him that September to 20 years in prison. Esformes fraudulently billed Medicaid and Medicare $1.3 billion in unnecessary services through his network of assisted-living facilities and skilled nursing facilities. Esformes also was sentenced to restitution and forfeiture totaling $44.2 million, as well as three years of supervised release following his prison term.
In December 2020, near the end of his first term in office, Trump commuted Esformes’ sentence. A pardon is a complete forgiveness of someone’s crimes, while a commutation is only a reduction of sentence. In Esformes’ case, Trump commuted his prison term to time served, but left in place all other elements of his sentence, including the supervised release and the restitution of $5.5 million and forfeiture of $38.7 million. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Esformes’ appeal.
In other words, Trump critics were incorrect in saying he pardoned Esformes.
Scale of fraud in Minnesota
The scale of the fraud in Minnesota is still unclear as of this writing.Â
In November 2025, The New York Times reported that prosecutors were expanding their investigation to other schemes set up to steal welfare money in what they said represented “more than $1 billion.” At that time, more than 90 people had reportedly been charged and nearly 60 people convicted, the vast majority of whom were members of the Somali community, according to several reports from reputable news outlets.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported in early December that it had calculated $217.7 million in stolen money, which it said was a number likely to grow. Federal authorities disputed the newspaper’s calculations, saying in a statement that it had found “$300 million in proven fraud loss” in one program alone and that “when the ongoing fraud prosecutions are finished, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will have prosecuted a billion dollars in fraud.”
On Dec. 18, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said in a news conference that “staggering industrial-scale fraud” in Minnesota may have taken more than half of the $18 billion allotted in federal funds for social programs in the state since 2018.Â
(The fraud in Minnesota was a portion of nationwide fraud that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which calculated taxpayers lost between $100 billion and $135 billion in unemployment claims.)
In sum, it was undetermined as of this writing how much money the various fraudulent schemes in Minnesota stole from taxpayers, but the amount appeared poised to exceed the $1.3 billion Esformes siphoned from Medicare and Medicaid.Â
For more on this topic, Snopes examined an independent journalist’s investigation into supposedly Somali-run day care centers in Minnesota allegedly receiving millions of dollars in fraudulent payments of taxpayer money without providing actual child care services. We also debunked the claim that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz gave $8 billion to a Somali company to investigate fraud in the state.Â
