Trump admin sues Kentucky, 3 other states for refusing to provide SNAP data
The federal government is suing Kentucky in an effort to force state officials to turn over detailed food and nutritional benefits records and data it says is needed in an effort to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the nation’s food assistance program.
The United States requested a permanent injunction in federal court that would require officials with the Kentucky Cabinet of Health and Family Services to turn over the last five years of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program applicant data.
The lawsuit, filed June 26 in the Eastern District of Kentucky, requests a federal judge to compel the data from cabinet officials. It argued that by not doing so, the state is violating the Food and Nutrition Act.
The Trump administration also filed lawsuits against Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota. All four states being sued have Democratic governors.
The Department of Justice says the effort is not an attempt to cut out individual SNAP benefits, but that the data is required to enforce state-agency compliance.
However, a spokesperson for Gov. Andy Beshear says it is the latest attempt of the federal government to illegally bypass a trial court’s order that went against the Trump administration.
“As the Governor has stated time and again, no Kentuckian — and no American — should have to worry about their confidential and personal information being shared unlawfully,” spokesperson Scottie Ellis said in an emailed statement to the Herald-Leader.
In May 2025, U.S. Department of Agriculture requested states hand over the information of those who applied to SNAP since Jan. 1, 2020, as part of President Donald Trump’s executive order on “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos.”
That information included household group members’ names, birthdates, Social Security numbers, residential and mailing addresses used or provided, as well as all data records used to determine eligibility or ineligibility, such as financial information.
In July 2025, Beshear joined 21 attorneys general in an effort to stop the administration’s original effort to obtain the personal data. Nearly a month and a half later, a federal district judge issued a restraining order against the USDA, preventing it from requiring recipients’ data in order to award SNAP benefits.
But in the new filing, the federal government says Kentucky officials cannot use protocol disagreements as a reason to withhold data. The complaint said federal officials revised their original request to match guidance from the previous SNAP litigation, and Kentucky has not complied.
“Gov. Beshear sued the Trump administration beginning in 2025 over its demands to disclose the protected, confidential and personal SNAP information of Kentuckians,” Ellis said. “The trial court initially agreed and has entered an injunction against the Trump administration, which remains. It appears that the Trump administration is trying to illegally bypass the court’s order.”
