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Justice Department sued Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota to compel five years of SNAP applicant data

On June 26, 2026, the Justice Department filed lawsuits against Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota seeking injunctions to force their state SNAP agencies to turn over five years of applicant data, after the four states refused the U.S. Department of Agriculture's demand citing recipient privacy. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said the states were obstructing efforts to detect benefit fraud, noting that twenty-eight other jurisdictions had complied. A federal court had already issued a preliminary injunction barring USDA from cutting SNAP funding from states over the same data refusal.

Jurisdiction
federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

On June 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice filed lawsuits against Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota, seeking injunctions that would require the four states' SNAP agencies to hand over the last five years of applicant data to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The suits followed the states' repeated refusals — first when USDA demanded the data in 2025 and again after a renewed demand in May 2026 — to surrender the records, which the states said contained protected, confidential personal information about benefit recipients. Twenty-eight other jurisdictions had complied with the original request.

The filings escalated a data dispute that federal courts had already reached. Earlier in 2026, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking USDA from withholding SNAP funding from states that declined to turn over applicant and recipient data over privacy objections, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said a trial court injunction obtained in his state's separate 2025 suit remained in effect. The new lawsuits sought to compel disclosure of the same category of personal data through affirmative litigation rather than a funding cutoff.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called the states' conduct "unacceptable, suspicious, and it will not stand under this Administration," while USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said she had asked the Acting Attorney General to compel the four states to comply, framing the demand as necessary to detect waste and fraud. The department cited data from compliant states indicating billions of dollars a year in overpayments. The four states named in the suits are all led by Democratic governors or attorneys general.

Why we recorded this

Federal privacy law protects the personal information Americans provide when they apply for public benefits, and the executive branch's authority to demand that data from states is bound by statute. The Justice Department sued four states to force them to surrender five years of SNAP applicant records — pressing for the same category of personal data a federal court had already preliminarily barred the USDA from coercing, and singling out four Democratic-led states while twenty-eight other jurisdictions had complied. This archive records when the government uses its litigating power to compel disclosure of protected personal data beyond clear statutory authority.

Sources

  1. Justice Department Sues States for Failing to Provide SNAP Data to the U.S. Department of Agriculture — U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs primary accessed July 2, 2026
  2. DOJ accuses 4 states of refusing to provide SNAP data to federal officials — CBS News Detroit secondary accessed July 2, 2026
  3. Justice Department sues Minnesota over refusal to turn over SNAP data — Star Tribune secondary accessed July 2, 2026
  4. US federal court blocks SNAP funding cuts over states' refusal to share recipient data — JURIST secondary accessed July 2, 2026

See also