About the author: Kristen Magnuson is a Washington state resident and citizen sleuth who helped uncover a troubling pattern with childcare payments in Washington state that mimicked alleged fraud in Minnesota. Follow her work on X at @KristenMag.

Become a Supporter

On the morning of December 28, I settled in with a cup of coffee to catch up on the latest Minnesota fraud news. I’d heard rumblings of the scandal for weeks after County Highway and City Journal published pieces describing the schemes in startling detail.

Earlier that week, independent journalist Nick Shirley released a viral video investigating Minneapolis daycare centers, focusing on several owned and operated by members of the Somali community. His videos weren’t definitive proof of fraud, but like many Americans I was left with questions that were too big to ignore.

So, what was I going to do about it?

I’ve always had a knack for pattern recognition and making sense of data. I fully admit I’m not professionally trained in this capacity. I have an art degree. I’m just a concerned citizen who wanted to take a closer look at how our tax dollars are being spent.

Here’s how I went about uncovering suspicious activity that was later highlighted by Elon Musk, viewed by millions of people, and led to on-the-ground investigations by independent journalists (and even some legacy news stations in Seattle). 

It started with a simple search

My initial efforts were not sophisticated. I simply typed ‘childcare wa’ into a search engine. I never anticipated that such a basic exercise in sleuthing would spark the local and national attention that it did.

I landed on the state website for the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF). Among other things, the site serves as a tool for families to find childcare options. It lists every provider in the state, with information on the owner, address, capacity, inspection history, and language.

I toggled the filter to show daycares participating in the Early Achievers rating program, which is a requirement for receiving state funding. From there, I filtered results to show only the daycare operators listed as speaking Somali.

Is it racist to single out one ethnicity?

The Minnesota fraud scandal had already established a clear pattern of fraud within the Somali community, resulting in multiple prosecutions and guilty pleas.

It’s not racist to explore whether similar patterns might exist in other states, too.

Consider this excerpt from Armin Rosen’s County Highway piece:

If one chooses to inhabit a fact-based world, it is impossible to ignore that the most thoroughly proven frauds, the ones that have dollar amounts and dozens of federal prosecutions attached to them, involve the distribution of social services through organizations serving Somali-Americans.

In a City Journal article, Christopher Rufo highlighted a whistleblower who reported that the Minneapolis Somali fraud ring may have a potential link to Seattle.

According to Glenn Kerns, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who spent 14 years on a federal Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Somalis ran a sophisticated money network, spanning from Seattle to Minneapolis, and were routing significant amounts of cash on commercial flights from the Seattle airport to the hawala networks in Somalia. One of these networks, Kerns discovered, sent $20 million abroad in a single year. 'The amount of money was staggering,' Kerns said.

Ignoring evidence and patterns over concerns about being called racist is how fraud goes unreported and uncovered.

In my initial search of Somali-run daycares in Washington state, I found that of 5,046 total Early Achievers childcare providers, 539 were Somali speaking. That’s more than 10%. Census reports estimate less than .2% of Washington state’s population is of Somali descent.

That seemed oddly disproportionate, so I posted a scrolling video on X to show what I found.

Hours later, I casually checked my notifications while at the grocery store and saw that Elon Musk replied! Millions of people were suddenly interested in what I’d uncovered with a simple search of publicly available data.

Day 1: Investigating on the ground

The day after my X post went viral, independent journalist Jonathan Choe pulled up to my house. We spent the next four hours driving all over town investigating daycares in person. I’d never done anything like it.

While state leaders, including Washington’s Attorney General and several Democrats in the legislature, would later accuse us of harassing daycare owners, we did no such thing. We were friendly. We knocked on doors. We politely asked for an application to enroll a child. Many of the people who came to the door were friendly in return.

At the first daycare, a woman invited us inside for a tour. There were activity tables with child-sized chairs, nap mats neatly stacked, art on the walls, age-appropriate books arranged on a shelf.

While everything looked legitimate, the woman would not give us an application, and I noted that only one child was present at the time.

As we ventured to other locations, we encountered some obvious red flags. Windows fully covered, no signage, and very few outdoor play areas. Most of the people who answered the door told us the owner was not there. They asked us to come back another time. Most significantly, we rarely saw or heard any kids.

At the last spot a woman spoke to us through a doorbell camera.

“We don’t have childcare,” she said.

The windows were fully covered.

Day 2: Trouble with the police

On our second day visiting Somali-run daycares listed on the state website, we met up with local journalist Carleen Johnson of The Center Square.

At one site, a woman spoke to us from behind a closed door. She wasn’t willing to give us an application. We asked a few more brief questions, thanked her, and started walking away. Shortly after, two women came out of the house to scold us.

Someone had called the police.

A responding officer assured us that we were not trespassing or doing anything wrong. The women allowed him to look inside the home, and he confirmed that there were kids inside.

The hostility was surprising. By then, a local KOMO News reporter was doing similar work – knocking on doors and asking questions. Basic shoe-leather journalism. Not harassment. Not racism.

We continued throughout the city. Some of the places we visited looked like real daycares, but many did not.

We detailed our findings on social media.

Day 3: Where has all the money gone?

We began looking deeper into the publicly available spending data on the Washington State Fiscal Information website. This site, also known as Open Checkbook, discloses provider payments by month and fiscal year. Our third day was focused on visits to providers that received significant amounts of funding.

Another independent journalist, Cam Higby, was with us as well.

Many of these small home daycares were receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds each year – some got more than a million. Keep in mind that most of these daycares have a maximum capacity of 12 children.

At one address we visited, a man spoke to us from a porch camera. He told us it was not a daycare.

Another alleged daycare was listed at the address of a small, run-down house. The windows were covered. We didn’t see or hear any children. Besides a tattered basketball hoop sitting in a mud puddle at the edge of the property, there was no play equipment. The woman who answered the door was friendly but declined to provide us with any information or an application.

Our team asked two neighbors if they had seen kids at the house and if they were aware it was registered as a daycare.

Both neighbors said no.

Yet, according to state data, the childcare provider listed at that address receives six-figure monthly payments, bringing in over $160,000 in July alone.

As I expanded my research, I checked out the state’s most recent audit. The Washington State Auditor’s Office reviews federal funding annually. Findings are published in a formal report, with highlights summarized on the auditor’s website. The 2024 fiscal year audit exposed significant concerns, including a whopping $416 million dollars in “unauditable” DCYF spending.

The audit revealed that DCYF repeatedly failed to comply with reporting requirements and had more audit “findings” than any other agency.

Despite being given corrective actions to take, similar findings have plagued DCYF for years.

“For the fourth year in a row, we are questioning all childcare payments from the Child Care and Development Fund at the Department of Children, Youth, and Families,” the Auditor’s Office stated.

Read that again. The auditor’s office has questioned ALL federal childcare payments to DCYF for the past four years. Hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable payments.

How is such a blatant failure to follow reporting requirements or enact corrective action even allowed?

I posted a thread summarizing the audit findings on X. Before long, other news outlets and political figures were amplifying what I found.

The strange thing is that the audit findings were never private or hard to uncover. They were right there on a government website for all to see, for years. Why did it take a citizen with an art degree in Washington state to shed light on them?

Knowledge is power, but what comes next?

I want to be clear that I am not alleging fraud at any of these daycares. I do not have the tools or authority to do so. But we, as citizens, do have the tools to spot concerning patterns and question government oversight of our money.

Thanks to social media, we can amplify our concerns so that officials who do have the tools and authority to investigate can be pressured to do so.

State officials have seemingly ignored these red flags for years. Our questions and concerns are fair. We are not racists for recognizing patterns and asking questions.

Our elected officials owe us transparency – and if the media won’t demand it, we should.

About the author: Kristen Magnuson is a Washington state resident and citizen sleuth who helped uncover a troubling pattern with childcare payments in Washington state that mimicked alleged fraud in Minnesota. Follow her work on X at @KristenMag.

Become a Supporter

Kallie Keeler has been wrestling her entire life.

The 16-year-old sophomore at Rogers High School in Puyallup says she's never experienced anything like what happened during a December 6 match with in-district rival Emerald Ridge High School.

A couple of minutes into the 190-pound bout, Kallie found herself face down on the mat – with her opponent's arm between her legs and fingers pressing into her vagina. Hard.

What happened – and didn’t happen – in the two months that followed highlights the extent to which public school districts in Washington state will go to to protect trans athletes at the expense of girls – and even at the expense of following the law.

The alleged assault

Video taken by Kallie’s mom on December 6 captures the disgust and panic in Kallie’s face. She tries to mouth something to her mom: "Her fingers are in my (vagina)."

Her mom can't make out what she’s saying and is on the wrong side of the mat to see what’s happening to her daughter. The referee is also out of the line of sight.

"I don’t know what she said. I don’t know why her face looked like that," her mom can be heard saying to someone off camera.

Traumatized and confused, Kallie decided to let her opponent pin her.

"I just wanted the match to be over," the teen told me, her hands grasping together. I could tell she felt awkward even talking about it.

After the match, Kallie immediately told her mom what happened.

"I couldn’t find my coach," she said. "There were other matches going on."

As she waited for a break in action to inform her coach of what she felt like was an intentional sexual assault, a coach from an opposing team came up to her and told her something that would make the ordeal even worse.

Kallie’s opponent was a biological boy.

"I was really shocked," Kallie said.

She had no idea. No one had told her before the match.

To be clear, Kallie intended to tell her coach what happened before knowing her opponent was a boy. But now, she felt violated in more ways than one.

Two months of inaction

Two days after the match, Kallie’s parents emailed coaches at Rogers High School to find out what they intended to do about what happened.

"This is a huge issue and something that is 100% not OK," her mom wrote. "The fact that this was done by a biological male who identifies as a female is an even bigger issue for me. Where do we go from here?"

Kallie had also spoken to her coach personally about the incident.

"I told her how uncomfortable the match made me feel. She said she was looking into it."

In a December 8 email response to Kallie's parents, her coach seemed to take the accusations seriously.

"I most certainly would not put Kallie on the mat if I thought she was competing with a male. I will investigate this and look to see if we have a video on our end. I will touch base with you either this afternoon or tomorrow morning after I do my due diligence."

The family says they never heard back.

Failure to report

Kallie decided to email unDivided about her story a few days after we reported that at least a dozen female athletes at Emerald Ridge High School were complaining to school administrators about the presence of two boys in their locker room. The girls told the school principal and vice principal that the boys made them uncomfortable.

In our January 22 story, we identified one of the two boys the girls complained about as a 190-pound wrestler on the girls' team.

That was when Kallie realized that more girls than just her were being hurt.

She emailed our tip line on January 25.

"Ever since that incident on the mat it has made me reconsider returning to wrestling because I'm not sure if I can or will feel safe on the wrestling mat," she said.

We emailed the Puyallup School District for comment on January 29.

The next day, the school reported Kallie's allegations to the Pierce County Sheriff's Office – nearly two months after district employees had a legal obligation to do so.

"This matter is currently under investigation. As such, the district is legally required to protect the privacy of students and families and cannot share details regarding individual students or specific incidents. What we can say is that student safety is a top priority and that all reports involving student safety are taken seriously," the district told us in an email on January 30.

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to unDivided that it has launched a criminal probe.

"The School Resource Officer informed me he was called by the school to investigate a report of sexual assault at a wrestling match. This incident allegedly happened during the match between the victim and a transgender student the victim was wrestling at the time. Last week, the School Resource Officer reviewed a video of the match, and he will be following up with the victim this week for further information. This is being investigated and is still active,” Pierce County Sheriff's Deputy Carly Cappeltto told unDivided in an email.

Still, the timeline is problematic – and potentially exposes school district staff who knew about Kallie's allegations to legal jeopardy.

Under Washington state law, public school employees are mandatory reporters if they suspect a child has been abused in any way – that obligation extends to accusations of sexual assault committed by other students, regardless of whether the teacher, coach, or staff members find those accusations to be credible or provable.

Failing to report such information to law enforcement is a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail, a $5,000 fine, or both.

While it's unclear how many district employees knew of the allegations, based on emails reviewed by unDivided and conversations Kallie and her family had directly with school officials, we believe at least four district employees failed to meet mandatory reporting requirements: Two coaches, a principal, and an athletic director.

Proving intentional assault

Wrestling is a contact sport. Anyone who's ever watched a match knows hands can end up in all sorts of places.

But is what happened to Kallie normal?

No, say two experts who reviewed the video. Neither have any connection to Kallie or Emerald Ridge.

A coach who has 39 years of wrestling experience said there is a joke among wrestlers about "checking the oil." It's when someone's fingers – usually unintentionally – penetrate their opponent.

The expert said this is typically fleeting and happens rarely. He said that in nearly four decades of wrestling and coaching, this has never happened to him, nor have any of his wrestlers reported it happening.

If it did, he said, the contact would be brief as the offending wrestler would move their hand immediately – or risk a flagrant foul and/or disqualification.

After reviewing the video, he said there was no reason in that moment that Kallie’s opponent needed to put his arm between her legs. He said it looked intentional.

A female wrestling coach who reviewed the video for unDivided agreed.

"That’s not common, unless you’re doing it intentionally."

unDivided provided contact information to the Puyallup School District to pass along to the wrestler and his family for comment. We are choosing not to name him because he is a minor and has not been charged with or convicted of a crime.

What happens next

The ordeal comes as the Washington state legislature is faced with passing, or sending to voters, an initiative that would prohibit biological boys from competing against girls.

Since Democrats in the majority have refused to hold hearings on the initiatives, it will likely head to voters for a decision in November.

While she says she would have reported the assault even if her opponent had been a female, Kallie says she should have been able to make an informed choice that day about whether to wrestle a boy.

"Boys shouldn’t be allowed in women's sports, whether they identify as female or not," she said. "Especially in strength-based sports."

While it is common for boys to wrestle girls in elementary and middle school, Kallie said the physical advantage becomes more apparent as boys and girls develop further.

"Women’s wrestling has grown so much within the last couple years. I don’t want it to shrink again with this whole situation going on."

It's worth noting that over the weekend, the 190-pound Emerald Ridge wrestler advanced to state as a freshman, beating older, more experienced female competitors. 

Editorial note: Kallie will join unDivided during our regular live show Monday, February 9 at 12pm PT.

Become a Supporter

After 15 years covering the Washington State Legislature, I was just denied a press pass. Why? Because I have taken the public position that girls should not be forced to compete against boys.

I am one of the longest-serving political reporters in the state. I have never acted unprofessionally at the statehouse. I ask serious, well-informed questions and provide coverage for many Washingtonians who feel unrepresented by the mainstream news.

To make matters worse, legacy media representatives with the Capitol Correspondents Association conspired with Democrats in the House to weaponize an outdated policy to keep me (and other new media professionals) out. Independent journalist Jonathan Choe and radio host Ari Hoffman also had their press passes denied in recent days.

Let me be clear: Legacy news reporters took the side of politicians over the public. Rather than help expand political coverage for all by welcoming independent media into the fold, they pushed for LESS press freedom, not more. They played gatekeeper. Not only to help their struggling outlets survive by keeping out the competition, but to help the Democratic Party in power keep out critical voices.

Yes, independent media in Washington state is overwhelmingly conservative. There is a reason for that. There is a reason more reporters are leaving legacy newsrooms to do what I did in 2021. Too many local newsrooms cover stories from a progressive worldview. They increasingly shut out 40% of the state and parrot the views of the party in power.

Offering my informed opinion on policies should not preclude me, or others, from having access to the spaces we need to be in to do our jobs for the citizens who depend on us. To shut us out is to shut them out.

I have advocated for a simple policy to govern press passes in Olympia – one based on decorum. If reporters can abide by reasonable decorum rules, they should be allowed a press pass. Podcasters. Bloggers. Columnists. YouTubers. Everyone.

I invite my friends (and enemies) in legacy news to show a united front and stand up for press freedom, as I have done consistently for years – even when it meant criticizing my own side or defending reporters whose work I detest.

If the goal is to hold elected leaders accountable, expanding old rules to welcome in more voices and more perspectives is the answer.

If the goal is to shut out anyone who might challenge Democratic leaders, then I guess the policy should stay the same.

If you feel strongly that independent media should be allowed to access the State House of Representatives and be given access to leadership briefings with the rest of the media, please take a moment to email your elected representatives, and be sure to include House Speaker Laurie Jinkins and House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon.

 

Become a Supporter