FIRST ON FOX: Trump admin freezes out Minnesota of the Caribbean over alleged hurricane-aid abuses

FIRST ON FOX: The Trump administration suspended a U.S. territory’s housing-finance authority from receiving further federal funding after the Department of Housing and Urban Development cited years of alleged financial mismanagement, dire audit findings and the conviction of a former executive in a disaster-recovery contracting scheme.

The suspension over alleged waste and abuse at the Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority (VIHFA) comes as HUD Secretary Scott Turner, a member of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, ramps up the administration’s scrutiny of federal grant recipients following a series of high-profile investigations nationwide.

“The Trump administration is changing the game when it comes to who we entrust with taxpayer dollars. Organizations riddled with corruption, mismanagement and crime will no longer be allowed to squander billions,” Turner, a former NFL cornerback, told Fox News Digital.

“An officer corruptly awarding disaster clean up contracts violates, at minimum, HUD rules on oversight of contractors,” HUD said, citing Richardson’s kickbacks of at least $107,000 in one case.

VIHFA will have 30 days to request a hearing on the matter or HUD’s funding suspension will be final, Hughes said.

The suspension marks the latest front in the feds’ anti-fraud campaign, which has now stretched from the massive Feeding Our Future prosecution in the cold northern reaches of Minnesota now to the southern, sunny confines of Charlotte Amalie.