Treasury sanctions chief John Hurley resigns after objecting to Somali community targeting

John Hurley, head of the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, resigned on February 25, 2026, after privately raising objections to White House-directed plans to subject the finances of Minnesota's Somali immigrant community to enhanced federal monitoring. Hurley told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the surveillance program would raise data-privacy concerns and constitute ethnic targeting, but his objections went unheeded as the White House had issued administration-wide directives to scrutinize transactions tied to Somali residents.