{"id":944753,"date":"2026-05-07T22:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/944753\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:48:18","slug":"maga-influencers-find-a-medicare-fraudster-they-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/944753\/","title":{"rendered":"MAGA Influencers Find a Medicare Fraudster They Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>(Photo illustration by The Bulwark \/ Photos: Getty, Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

WITH DONALD TRUMP INCREASINGLY UNPOPULAR, and with fewer woke Democratic initiatives to bemoan, right-wing media figures have united around a cause seemingly every faction of their audiences can get behind: targeting minority communities for alleged fraud.<\/p>\n

Twenty-four-year-old MAGA influencer Nick Shirley became a star doing this early this year when he posted videos of himself visiting<\/a> Somali-American daycares in Minnesota. In January, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Oz visited<\/a> Los Angeles to do his own fraud hunt. Vice President JD Vance has embraced the title of fraud czar even as the rest of his portfolio appears to have narrowed. And just this week, the Daily Wire published<\/a> a multi-part investigation of home-care fraud.<\/p>\n

Yet at the same time as this fraud focus has grown nearly monomaniacal, MAGA influencers have rallied behind a fraudster of their own. In what appears to be a coordinated effort on X, MAGA influencers as varied as a pro-Trump rapper and a Gateway Pundit editor are calling for leniency for Utah businessman Andrew McCubbins, arguing that his conviction for looting $89 million in Medicare money isn\u2019t really that big of a deal, all things considered.<\/p>\n

McCubbins is the former head of a Utah company that was found to have ordered unnecessary genetic testing, with nurses and doctors bribed to request the tests for patients.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t a question about his guilt. In September 2020, he pleaded<\/a> guilty to three charges, including conspiracy to defraud Medicare. He agreed<\/a> to hand over his multi-million-dollar Utah house as part of a forfeiture, and even testified<\/a> about the details of the scheme in a co-conspirator\u2019s trial.<\/p>\n

But he also happens to have financially supported a couple of projects dear to MAGA\u2019s heart. McCubbins was an executive producer of Sound of Freedom, the runaway 2023 hit conservative movie about human trafficking, and participated in the undercover operations carried out by the now-embattled group that movie was based on.<\/p>\n

With McCubbins\u2019s sentencing on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud Medicare looming later this month, conservative influencers have launched a months-long\u2014and what appears to be coordinated\u2014effort to win him a pardon, or at least to get the Justice Department to drop the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe math on this case just doesn\u2019t add up,\u201d pro-Trump rapper<\/a> Forgiato Blow, who calls himself \u201cTrump\u2019s nephew,\u201d wrote<\/a> on X on May 1.<\/p>\n

Blow tagged Justice Department official Ed Martin, addressing the U.S. pardon attorney as \u201cMy nxgga\u201d (sic).<\/p>\n

Blow is known for songs like \u201cI Stand With ICE<\/a>\u201d and for wearing a blinged-out Trump head on a chain, rather than his sober analysis of criminal justice cases. But he wasn\u2019t the only unexpected MAGA-ite who suddenly was intrigued by the McCubbins case.<\/p>\n

\u201cSound of Freedom showed the grit needed to save kids,\u201d wrote<\/a> Ada Lluch, a pro-Trump influencer in Spain. \u201cAndrew McCubbins was a key operative on those missions. It is crazy that a case from the last administration is still active against him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Influencer Erik Finman, who was positioned as a sort of Trumpworld wunderkind a few years ago after selling a \u201cFreedom Phone<\/a>\u201d to Trump supporters, has recently become one of McCubbins\u2019s most frequent boosters on X. Citing<\/a> Trump\u2019s pardon of drug-trafficking former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, Finman claimed that it was time for McCubbins to get his own pardon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Honduran president caught helping cartels move 500 tons of cocaine into America was recently pardoned,\u201d Finman wrote<\/a> on X. \u201cOkay. Meanwhile this man who went into the field rescuing 100+ children from trafficking rings is staring down real prison time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other influencers\u2014from the founder<\/a> of \u201cGays Against Groomers\u201d to the pro-Trump \u201cBluesky Libs<\/a>\u201d X account\u2014have also gotten on board.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Just announced!<\/strong> We\u2019re thrilled to welcome these chatty friends to the stage for Bulwark Live: LA.<\/strong>Join Tim, Sarah, and Sam for this one-night live show at The Novo on May 21. Grab your seats today.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bulwark Live: LA<\/a><\/p>\n

ONE THING THAT IS STRIKING about the push to obtain a pardon for McCubbins is the uncomfortable racial double standard it suggests: After all, the right-wing anti-fraud campaign this year has largely focused on minority and immigrant communities whose populations include many people dependent on government support for services and funding, like those Somali-American daycare providers in Minnesota. For right-wingers to push for leniency for a well-connected white guy who confessed to white-collar fraud has an odor of hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

The McCubbins campaign is also striking because, outside of the posts from these conservative influencers, there is no broader groundswell on the right or anywhere else to free McCubbins. I couldn\u2019t find any articles, podcasts, videos, or anything else suggesting there\u2019s a real base of support for a McCubbins pardon, even among the conservative commentariat.<\/p>\n

Yet for weeks, a coterie of pro-Trump activists have been pushing for it\u2014often with similar language, tagging Martin or another Justice Department official, like acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. The campaign appears to have stepped up this month, as McCubbins\u2019s long-delayed sentencing approaches on May 20.<\/p>\n

Despite McCubbins\u2019s guilty plea, the well-connected influencers backing him have argued that he\u2019s somehow the victim of a deep-state frame-up. Finman has even described the prosecution as a \u201cBiden-era case,\u201d despite the fact that McCubbins pleaded guilty during the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n

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None of the influencers trying to help McCubbins avoid jail time responded to my requests for comment about whether someone is coordinating this effort, if so who, and whether or not that person or entity is paying them. But the similarities in the posts are striking.<\/p>\n

For example, many of them quote-tweeted a January post<\/a> by Gateway Pundit blogger Ben Kew calling for McCubbins to receive a presidential pardon.<\/p>\n

The MAGA influencers will also seemingly tie any\u2014and I mean any\u2014news event to the Free McCubbins cause.<\/p>\n

A week after counterterrorism chief Joe Kent quit the administration over the Iran war, MAGA influencer Joey Mannarino struggled to turn Kent\u2019s resignation into a demand that then-Attorney General Pam Bondi step in to save McCubbins.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne guy quits and gets a media tour,\u201d he tweeted<\/a>. \u201cThe other saved kids and got a federal case. The system tells you everything about its priorities by who it rewards and who it punishes.\u201d<\/p>\n

If McCubbins\u2019s family or legal team are behind this effort, I have to admit, it\u2019s actually a pretty good idea! Despite the administration\u2019s claims to be stamping out fraud, Trump has pardoned or commuted sentences for several people<\/a> who ripped off Medicare and other government programs for hundreds of millions of dollars. The Justice Department, meanwhile, has repeatedly dropped cases against white-collar criminals<\/a> and the politically connected<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McCubbins must be hoping a few positive tweets aimed at the DOJ can get him some of that action.<\/p>\n

That said, some of these efforts are pretty ham-handed, even by the anything-goes standards of right-wing-media X accounts. After actor Chuck Norris died in March, Kew strained to somehow make the martial artist\u2019s death about McCubbins.<\/p>\n

\u201cA true man of action,\u201d Kew wrote<\/a> of Norris. \u201cNot enough of them in this world. Andrew McCubbins is a man of action as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leave a comment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Photo illustration by The Bulwark \/ Photos: Getty, Shutterstock) WITH DONALD TRUMP INCREASINGLY UNPOPULAR, and with fewer woke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-944753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116535736658214605","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}