Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Steven Vaden/Image: USDA
In a letter to House Democrats, Department of Agriculture (USDA) Deputy Secretary Steven Vaden slammed the ‘apologists for leftist organizations and the welfare complex’ for propping up a failing system, full of rampant fraud at the expense of American taxpayers.
In his letter, Vaden reaffirms the overall goal of the Trump administration to relocate much of the USDA’s Washington, D.C.-area workforce to five regional hubs across the country in an effort to reduce bureaucracy and costs, get closer to farmers, states, and people the department serves, improve efficiency, and fight fraud/waste in programs.
The Food and Nutrition Administration (formerly Food and Nutrition Service – FNS) will now move most headquarters and regional staff out of the D.C./Northern Virginia area and will consolidate from 7 regional offices down to 5 hubs aligned with broader USDA hubs: Raleigh, NC, Kansas City, MO, Indianapolis, IN, Fort Collins, CO, and Salt Lake City, UT.
Deputy Secretary Vaden and Secretary Brooke Rollins have noted that there have been decades without stable, Senate-confirmed leadership in nutrition programs, and that the structure is fragmented and rife with high administrative costs.
Vaden also points to the erroneous payments and fraud in nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP).
In November, Rollins revealed that her department uncovered massive fraud within SNAP and that 21 Democrat-led states are actively blocking efforts to expose it.
Just the News reported in November that Vaden cited an instance of one individual getting SNAP in six separate states, and another person had over $50,000 loaded onto their electronic benefits card.
In 2025, The Gateway Pundit reported that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced that a longtime USDA employee and five others were busted in one of the largest food stamp frauds in U.S. history.
Perry Carbone, Attorney for the United States, Charmeka Parker, the Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General and Christopher G. Raia, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the FBI revealed a superseding indictment was unsealed charging six people in connection with a $66 million-plus fraud and bribery scheme under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aka food stamp program.
The letter reads in part:
However, I might remind you of two recent instances that did significantly impact access to nutrition programs. The first was the Obama and Biden Administrations’ mismanagement of the Food Distribution on Indian Reservations Program, which disrupted food availability and access across Indian Country. The Biden Administration’s failures were so serious that the Subcommittee on Nutrition, Foreign Agriculture, and Horticulture of the Committee on Agriculture and the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations held a rare joint oversight hearing’ to investigate how the Biden Administration’s incompetence caused those shortages. That was a failure of execution, twice over, by Secretary Vilsack.
The second was the government shutdown last fall, when Congressional Democrats refused to open the Federal government to feed families in need. Rather than negotiate a compromise that would restore Federal operations, Democratic lawmakers prioritized ideological grievances over the immediate needs of our Nation’s most vulnerable. On May 13, 2026, the House Committee on Agriculture held a roundtable where I discussed the reorganization and took questions from attending Members. Noticeably absent were these questions raised in this public letter. However, I welcome a second opportunity to provide information.
When a business is not serving its customers or operating within its budget, corporations regularly restructure. Some recent notable private sector restructurings include Chevron’s relocation to Houston, Texas, to escape the over regulation and hostile business climate found in California? Walmart similarly announced it was relocating about one thousand workers as it sought to combine its global technology and product teams into two primary locations.
Read the full letter below:
This morning, I sent a response to House Democrats, apologists for leftist organizations and the welfare complex. The reorganization of @USDA_FNA is long overdue. Decades with no Senate confirmed leadership. Fragmented and siloed program staff. Rampant fraud and erroneous… pic.twitter.com/riuVUZjl8C
— Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden (@DepSecVaden) June 4, 2026
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