Attorney General Ellison sues to block Trump Administration’s gift to fraudsters

Joins coalition of 20 AGs in lawsuit to block Treasury Department’s gutting of bipartisan Corporate Transparency Act, which requires businesses to disclose who owns and controls them so criminals can’t hide dirty money

Trump Administration issued new rule exempting nearly every business from reporting, making it nearly impossible to catch and prosecute money launderers, tax cheats, and fraudsters

AG Ellison: “This. Corruption. Has. To. Stop”

October 27, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison today joined a coalition of 21 states filing in a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from gutting a federal law that helps police and prosecutors catch money launderers, tax cheats, and fraudsters.

The law, the Corporate Transparency Act, requires businesses to tell the federal government who actually owns and controls them. That matters because criminals often hide their money in shell companies — businesses that exist on paper but don’t do much of anything — so their names never show up. Now the United States Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, has exempted 99.9% of businesses from the law, making it nearly useless.

“Let’s review: the Treasury Department that answers to Donald Trump, the most nakedly corrupt president in American history — who has 34 personal convictions for fraud, has pardoned or commuted the sentences of scores of convicted fraudsters, and is gleefully using the White House to enrich himself to the tune of billions of dollars through shady deals with foreign governments and bitcoin companies — has gutted a bipartisan federal law designed to track dirty money and keep corporations honest. Raise your hand if you’re surprised,” Attorney General Ellison said. “FinCEN now stands for the Financial Crimes Empowerment Network. I’m filing this lawsuit because This. Corruption. Has. To. Stop.”

Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act with bipartisan support in 2021. It created a Treasury database of business owners that law enforcement can use to trace dirty money, track down stolen assets, and uncover bribes and political payoffs.

In August 2026, the Trump Administration issued a rule exempting nearly every business from reporting. Then FinCEN went further, announcing it would delete the ownership information already in the database, records that likely include evidence of unsolved crimes. The states argue that would break multiple federal laws.

In the lawsuit, Attorney General Ellison and the coalition that FinCEN has:

Attorney General Ellison and the coalition ask the court to throw out FinCEN’s rule and require the agency to keep collecting and maintaining the ownership database for law enforcement.

Joining Attorney General Ellison in filing the lawsuit today are Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who led the coalition, and the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.