Nick Shirley—the right-wing creator whose YouTube investigation sparked the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota—claims that his most up-to-date video about alleged fraud in California was bolstered by knowledge offered by none aside from Edward Coristine, one of many first members of the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) recognized on-line as “Large Balls.”
Coristine, who joined DOGE at 19 years old with no prior authorities expertise, was staffed throughout a number of businesses together with the Social Safety Administration (SSA) and the Small Enterprise Administration (SBA). Earlier than becoming a member of DOGE, Coristine labored at Elon Musk’s Neuralink for a number of months and based a startup recognized for hiring black hat hackers.
In an interview with Coristine revealed on Shirley’s YouTube channel on Thursday, Shirley claims that Coristine personally pulled knowledge on Medicaid spending for companies based mostly in California as potential targets. Coristine nodded alongside, telling Shirley that the federal government should create extra alternatives to crowdsource fraud investigations.
The data Coristine allegedly pulled for Shirley was from a dataset revealed by the DOGE crew on the Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS) in February. In a post to X at the time, the HHS DOGE crew referred to it as “the most important Medicaid dataset in division historical past.” The submit additionally claimed that the dataset could possibly be used to “detect” large-scale fraud.
“After that, I went to California based mostly off that dataset you had helped me extract, and these fraudsters additionally weren’t even attempting to cover it,” Shirley informed Coristine in Thursday’s interview.
Coristine mentioned that by open-sourcing knowledge on authorities spending, vigilante investigators like Shirley who’re “extra well-positioned” might uncover fraudulent funds. “You’re somebody who really went to the locations the place we have been spending all this cash and confronted the individuals and obtained to know the reality. I believe we simply must create extra alternatives for that to occur. We now have to proceed to open supply knowledge,” Coristine mentioned.
The intersection of the precise’s favourite fraud influencer and some of the infamous DOGE engineers exemplifies the following evolution of DOGE and the Trump administration’s struggle in opposition to “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Shirley’s movies have change into key items of proof for the Trump administration’s fraud and immigration crackdowns. When Shirley launched his December video claiming to have uncovered greater than $100 million in Somali-run childcare fraud in Minnesota, figures like vp JD Vance shared it. A surge of immigration agents have been then despatched to Minnesota, leading to mass arrests, detainments, and the deaths of two protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Early of their YouTube video, Shirley and Coristine immediately tie fraud to immigrant communities and foreigners. “Numerous the cash is being stolen and siphoned in a foreign country,” Coristine says, with out offering proof. “As soon as that cash is in a suitcase to Somalia, that’s by no means coming again,” Shirley replies.
Later within the video, Shirley and Coristine cite particular examples of “waste and fraud” recognized by DOGE, together with funding for a “Sesame Avenue fashion youngsters’s TV program in Iraq” and “tax coverage consulting in Liberia.” Each packages were supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which DOGE successfully shut down within the early months of 2025. Coristine additionally alleged that the SBA “did a horrible job,” notably with loans in the course of the top of COVID, and that there have been “no checks in any respect on who’s receiving cash, not even essentially the most fundamental checks of like, if [a Social Security number] is actual.”
