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Will Minnesota Prosecute Nick Shirley for His Flagrant Act of Journalism?

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  December 29, 2025 2:00 PM

Independent YouTuber journalist Nick Shirley did the work the mainstream media failed to do: he went to the Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota to ask questions and reveal that many of these places, while claiming they cared for dozens of children, had no children on site.

This is the sort of thing that journalists would once sell a kidney for, the kind of Pulitzer-prize-winning reporting, like when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein blew open the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration. But we don't have journalists anymore; we have stenographers and propagandists for the Democratic Party. And it shows. Earlier, I told you how Mara Gay of The New York Times said the Somalis are being "scapegoated" by a "weaponized" DOJ and FBI.

As of right now, Shirley's post with the 42-minute video of his investigation has more than 110 million views on X.

Shirley's reporting was so damning that Walz was forced to issue a statement today through a spokesperson.

"The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action," the spokesperson said. "He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed."

That's quite the tonal shift from Christmas Eve, when Walz was engaged in some massive demagoguery and accused the administration of "white supremacy" in an attempt to deflect from the fraud scandal.

But as I reported back on December 1, Walz isn't just the governor who oversaw this massive scandal. He's elbows-deep in the thing and not only knew about the fraud, but "systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, [and] repression." Here's more from that report:

"Instead of partnership, we got the full weight of retaliation by Tim Walz, certain DFL members, and an indifferent mainstream media," Minnesota DHS writes. "It's scary, isolating, and left us wondering who we can turn to."

"In addition to retaliating against whistleblower (sic), Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance. Media and politicians supporting Tim Walz or the DFL-agenda attacked whistleblowers who were trying to raise red flags on fraudulent activities," the post continues.

"This is a cascade of systemic failures leading up to Tim Walz. Agency leaders appointed by Tim Walz willfully disregarded rules and laws to keep fraud reports quiet — even to the extent of threatening the families of whistleblowers," the post reads.

"As staff, we firsthand witnessed and observed fraud happening, yet we were shut down, reassigned, and told to keep quiet. Sometimes more. Leadership did not want to appear to discriminate against certain communities and were unwilling to take action such as stopping fraud, that would have an adverse impact on their image," the group wrote.

This is clearly a guy who has no problem retaliating against whistleblowers and someone who is cruel and petty.

On top of that, Attorney General Keith Ellison appears to have had a hand in the scandal, vowing to battle state agencies that were flagging applications for potential fraud.

That being said, I have to wonder this: will Minnesota attempt to charge Nick Shirley for his flagrant act of journalism? 

I fear they might.

And the precedent is there, thanks to Kamala Harris. Back in 2016, Kamala Harris, who was then California's Attorney General, filed charges against pro-life journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. Why? Two years prior, they blew the lid off a story that showed Planned Parenthood was illegally harvesting and selling the body parts of aborted babies for profit.

Harris got that ball rolling, and her successor, Xavier Becerra, filed felony charges against the two after Harris left the position and joined the Senate.

On top of that, her office illegally colluded with abortion providers and pro-abortion advocacy groups while she pursued that criminal case.

And I'm not the only one to think this, either.

"idk what kind of fraud somalis in daycares are doing but i think it's a separate crime to try and storm w a camera into a daycare w kids in it???" wrote Hasan Piker (spelling in context).

And attorney Marc J. Randazza noticed the talking points had gone out, too.

On top of their history of persecuting journalists who expose their pet causes, as they did with Daleiden, Democrats aren't exactly known for taking responsibility. They're the ones who like to find scapegoats, like the video maker they threw in prison after the 2012 U.S. Embassy attack in Benghazi that happened on Obama's watch, and while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.

So I can easily envision a world in which Shirley is arrested and hauled into court for exposing the fraud. Democrats will say he broke some other laws, of course, but we'll all know the real reason why they're punishing him.

Here's hoping that doesn't happen, but I'm not optimistic it won't.