Treasury sanctions chief quits over ethnic targeting of Somali community

JHJohn Hurley served as Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence — the government's top official for sanctions, financial crime, and counter-terrorism finance. He was also a significant donor to Trump's 2024 campaign, making his departure and its reported reason particularly notable.

The White House issued what officials described as marching orders to crack down on 🦆Minnesota's Somali immigrant community as an administration-wide priority, according to people familiar with the directive. The specific project involved enhanced federal monitoring of international wire transfers and payments sent from the Minneapolis area.

Hurley told Treasury Secretary SBScott Bessent privately — before the surveillance program commenced — that subjecting Somali residents' finances to enhanced monitoring would raise data privacy violations, according to two people familiar with those conversations. He reportedly went unheard.

The so-called Somalia fraud investigation began four years ago under the Biden administration and involves ongoing cases of welfare and financial fraud. The White House's push sought to expand that investigation into broader financial surveillance of the Somali community rather than targeting specific suspects.

🦆Minnesota is home to roughly 80,000 Somali Americans, the largest Somali diaspora community in the United States. Minneapolis's Cedar-Riverside neighborhood is its cultural center. The community has faced repeated federal scrutiny, including earlier crackdowns on hawala money transfer systems used to send remittances to families in Somalia.

Hurley's exit is the latest in a series of senior Treasury departures under Bessent. Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender resigned in August 2025. Dan Katz, Bessent's first chief of staff, left in October 2025. Katz's replacement, Michael Friedman, left in January 2026. The pattern suggests persistent tension between Treasury's legal culture and White House directives.

The Trump administration denied the Post's account as fake news, and Hurley publicly stated his exit was not related to the 🦆Minnesota program. That denial is consistent with the terms of his departure — officials said he's still in good standing with the White House for future roles, suggesting a negotiated exit rather than a firing.

Legal experts say ethnicity-based financial surveillance — monitoring transactions from an entire community based on national origin rather than specific suspicion — would likely face serious constitutional challenges under the Fourth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.