Bessent: “Waste of Our Time” to Probe ICE’s Strange $500M Prison Purchase 

Standing at a podium to tout the Trump administration’s “fraud task force” achievements on Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a reporter that it would be a “waste of our time” to investigate ICE’s recent purchase of a prison from a private company for hundreds of millions of dollars over a prior asking price.

Bessent responded sternly when a reporter suggested at a press conference in Minnesota on Friday that the Trump administration look into a recent, questionable $496 million purchase of a prison by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“If the administration has declared war on waste and fraud, could you explain the 420 million overpayment for a prison in Appleton, Minnesota, when the company offered it to the state of Minnesota for 75 million?” a reporter asked the treasury secretary.

“I don’t know anything about that. What we are here to do is prosecute criminal fraud and any question like that that deflects away from it, I think, is a waste of our time,” Bessent responded.

The reporter was referring to an investigation by local outlet KARE 11 last week that found that, in August, ICE spent nearly half a billion dollars for a vacant prison in Appleton, Minnesota, being sold by major private prison company and ICE contractor CoreCivic. Communications obtained by KARE 11, however, showed that CoreCivic had offered to sell the facility to the state of Minnesota for $75 million in May 2025, which the state declined.

This means that the administration may have overpaid $420 million for the facility. CoreCivic, a major Trump donor, is one of the top contractors tapped by the Trump administration in its mass deportation campaign. The company swiftly announced the new ICE contract for CoreCivic to run the prison for an expected profit of $75 million a year.

The Department of Homeland Security responded to the investigation by saying that the purchase price was set through a different process than the company’s offer to Minnesota.

“The 1,600-bed site gives ICE immediate capacity to detain and remove those who have no legal right to remain, protecting American communities and restoring the integrity of our borders without waiting years for new construction,” the agency said. CoreCivic’s offer to Minnesota “was not based on replacement-cost analysis and did not reflect the intervening rise in construction costs or federal operational standards,” it added.

Bessent’s dismissal of the question is ironic considering the press conference that took place immediately beforehand. The secretary and other officials like FBI Director Kash Patel announced in a lengthy presser that the administration is taking even further action to insert the federal government in the state’s investigation of the welfare fraud scheme, as part of its supposed “war on fraud.” For over a year, the administration has used this scheme to justify a wide range of actions against Minnesota and its Democratic leaders, including Operation Metro Surge and President Donald Trump’s open attacks on Somali immigrants.

Standing in front of a sign that read, “the vice president’s fraud task force,” the officials made lofty statements about the administration’s supposed work on the issue.

“President Trump has made clear that the war on fraud is not the work of one department, but a mandate that we must carry across the entire administration,” said Bessent. “That is why I visited Minnesota in January to make clear that the U.S. Treasury is employing every tool to bring an end to this egregious, unchecked fraud and hold perpetrators to account.”

“This FBI follows the money. This FBI will put in prison anyone who commits fraud anywhere in the world against any American citizen,” said Patel.