在克里斯蒂·诺姆担任国土安全部部长的动荡任期内，她优先采购仓库，打算用来拘留并实际上监禁无证移民。该计划进展不佳：六月，诺姆离职几个月后，国土安全部决定放弃七个空置的仓库。
During her troubled tenure as the secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem prioritized the purchase of warehouses, which she intended to use to detain and effectively imprison undocumented immigrants. That plan did not go well: In June, a few months after Noem’s departure, the Department of Homeland Security decided to abandon seven of the warehouses, which were vacant.
从表面上看，这一事件表明国土安全部滥用公共资源，而两个月后，公众得知该机构还花费近五亿美元，通过非招标合同购买了几架大多未被使用的二手飞机，情况看起来更糟。这份非招标合同授予了一家公司，该公司的董事长向与诺姆结盟的政治委员会捐款。
By all appearances, the incident pointed to an important example of the Department of Homeland Security misusing public resources — which looked even worse two months later when the public learned that the agency also spent nearly a half-billion dollars on a no-bid contract for several used airplanes that went largely unused. The no-bid contract went to a company whose chairman donated to a political committee aligned with Noem.
上周末，这一丑陋模式变得更加混乱，当时我们了解到明尼苏达州草原矫正设施的故事。
Late last week, this ugly pattern got messier still when we learned about the story of the Prairie Correctional Facility in Minnesota.
去年，一家名为CoreCivic的私营监狱公司向明尼苏达州矫正部提出报价：该州可以以7500万美元购买这座长期关闭的拘留设施。
Last year, a private prison company called CoreCivic reached out to the Minnesota Department of Corrections with an offer: The state could buy the long-shuttered detention facility for $75 million.
明尼苏达州官员拒绝了，得出结论称该州不需要这座监狱，也买不起，尽管CoreCivic似乎无论如何都做得不错。《纽约时报》报道：去年夏天，令他们惊讶的是，这座1600张床位的监狱以超过4.95亿美元的价格售出。买家：国土安全部。
Officials in Minnesota declined, concluding it did not need and could not afford the prison, although things apparently worked out quite well for CoreCivic anyway. The New York Times reported: Last summer, to their astonishment, the 1,600-bed prison sold for more than $495 million.
“价格标签与我们去年进行的对话截然不同，”明尼苏达州矫正部副专员兼幕僚长萨菲娅·汗说。“这真是个震惊。”该报报道补充说，CoreCivic在获得的金额几乎是一年前向明尼苏达州寻求的七倍之后，于特朗普2024年获胜后“向特朗普总统就职委员会捐款50万美元”。
The buyer: the Department of Homeland Security. “The price tag is so different than the conversations we were having last year,” said Safia Khan, the deputy commissioner and chief of staff for the Minnesota Department of Corrections. “It was a shock.”
明尼苏达州民主党籍总检察长基思·埃利森在一份声明中说：“特朗普骗取纳税人近5亿美元，这令人愤慨，尤其是在特朗普的关税和对伊朗的战争已经推高明尼苏达州民众物价之际。”（白宫和国土安全部均未回应《纽约时报》的置评请求。）从理论上讲，这似乎正是共和党政府应该高度重视的事情。毕竟，特朗普团队喜欢谈论明尼苏达州涉嫌滥用公款的问题，对吧？
The Times’ report added that CoreCivic, which received nearly seven times the amount of money it had sought from the state of Minnesota a year earlier, “donated $500,000 to President Trump’s inauguration committee” after the Republican’s 2024 victory. Minnesota’s Democratic attorney general, Keith Ellison, said in a statement, “Trump scamming taxpayers out of almost half a billion dollars is outrageous, especially at a time when Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran are already raising prices for Minnesotans.” (Neither the White House nor DHS commented in response to the Times’ request.) In theory, this seems like the sort of thing the Republican administration should take quite seriously. After all, Team Trump loves to talk about the suspected misuse of public funds in Minnesota, right?
然而，就在周五，在当地媒体报道草原矫正设施事件之际，财政部长斯科特·贝森特前来谈论特朗普政府打击欺诈的乏力努力。一名记者就国土安全部明显的多付款项向他提问，贝森特似乎并不欣赏这个问题。
And yet, on Friday, amid local reporting on the Prairie Correctional Facility story, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was there to talk about the Trump administration’s faltering efforts to root out fraud. A reporter asked about the apparent DHS overpayment, and Bessent did not seem to appreciate the question.
“我对此一无所知，”财政部长回答说，并称他觉得这个问题“浪费我们的时间”。哦，我明白了。按照共和党政府自己的估计，明尼苏达州“喂养我们的未来”欺诈丑闻给纳税人造成了大约2.5亿美元的损失，白宫将其视为21世纪最重大的丑闻之一。但如果国土安全部为同一州一座未使用的监狱多付了4.2亿美元，那么唯一被浪费的，就是部长宝贵的时间。
“I don’t know anything about that,” the treasury secretary replied, adding that he considered the question “a waste of our time.”Oh, I see. By the Republican administration’s own estimate, Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future fraud controversy cost taxpayers roughly $250 million, and the White House considers that one of the most significant scandals of the 21st century. But if the Department of Homeland Security overpaid $420 million for an unused prison in the same state, the only thing that’s wasting is the secretary’s precious time.
一个愤世嫉俗者可能会怀疑，特朗普团队是否只在认为可以将所谓的浪费和欺诈作为政治棍棒，用来攻击蓝州和种族少数群体时才关心这些问题。
A cynic might wonder if Team Trump only cares about alleged waste and fraud when it thinks it can be used as a political cudgel against blue states and racial minorities.