Travis Kelce turned up in a St. Louis fraud case as a victim, and the White House turned the Kansas City Chiefs star’s loss into a draft-board punchline.
In federal court, prosecutors identified Kelce as one of 60 people who lost money in a scheme tied to Swiftarc Ventures Lab Fund.
His name was absent from the indictment and judgment, but Kelce had invested in the fund run by Siddharth Jawahar, who pleaded guilty this year to federal wire fraud charges.
Jawahar allegedly drew tens of millions from investors between 2016 and 2023 while spending money on debts, private flights, luxury hotel stays and lavish restaurant outings.
This is why we do what we do.
Seems like a good time to re-up the work of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud: identifying fraud & protecting Americans.
Oh and it looks like the next draft pick to join the Task Force is @tkelce! https://t.co/kfo1xpbLvY
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 17, 2026
The official White House account seized on Kelce’s victim status to plug the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, an effort created by executive order.
“This is why we do what we do,” the account posted. “Seems like a good time to re-up the work of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud: identifying fraud & protecting Americans.”
The football joke followed immediately. “Oh and it looks like the next draft pick to join the Task Force is @tkelce!” the White House added.
🪖Seventeen battle-tested candidates are ready to strike a decisive blow to the Democrat Machine — but they urgently need resources. 🪖 Join the grassroots push to save the House Majority and back them today! ➡️➡️➡️ Make a 17X impact!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Kelce’s name was also dragged through a separate Taylor Swift what-if after Colin Kaepernick used his latest book to reveal that his mother once wanted him to ask out the singer.
Tessa Kaepernick, his adoptive mother, thought the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback and Swift would make an attractive pair years before Swift’s relationship with Kelce, Page Six reported.
“When I was in the NFL, she told me that I should ask out Taylor Swift (long before Travis Kelce made his move) because we would be perfect together,” Kaepernick wrote.
Kaepernick wrote that he meant no “slight to Taylor,” but said Swift was “not his type.”
The timing made the anecdote even odder. Kaepernick was in the NFL from 2011 to 2016. Kelce and Swift began dating in 2023, and the couple married in July of this year.
By that math, Tessa Kaepernick had floated a Swift-Kaepernick romance at least 10 years before Swift married the Chiefs tight end.
Kaepernick’s book and media appearances also pulled him back into the Trump-era fights that have followed him since his exit from the league.
On a MediasTouch podcast, Ben Meiselas asked Kaepernick about a “Black Summit” invitation from Trump’s first term.
Kaepernick said CNN analyst and former Obama administration adviser Van Jones was the person relayed to him as the source of the outreach, but the idea never got far.
“What was relayed to me was the outreach came from Van Jones for this,” Kaepernick said.
“I don’t know the details around it because, candidly, as soon as it came up as, ‘Hey, here is the opportunity,’ it was immediately rejected,” he added.
Kaepernick described the invitation as part of a “constant attempt” to “co-opt people who are trying to work for the benefit of the people.”
Trump criticized Kaepernick during his first term over the quarterback’s decision to kneel during the national anthem as a protest against racial injustice.
“But I will tell you — you cannot disrespect our country, our flag, our anthem, you cannot do that,” Trump said at the time.
Trump also said he would support an indefinite NFL suspension over the protest.
Kaepernick said Trump’s remarks colored how he viewed the summit offer, which he called “a facade that he’s working for Black people or trying to be in the benefit of Black people.”
“History shows otherwise,” Kaepernick said.
“This is after him going out publicly and trying to target me in my employment,” he added.
Kaepernick also brought up Trump’s connection to Reform Alliance, where Jones previously served as CEO, and pointed to “pardons” and “pay-for-play” as what he saw on the other side of that relationship.
The former quarterback has been out of the NFL since March 2017, when he opted out of his 49ers contract, though he has not formally retired.
He later filed a grievance accusing NFL owners of colluding to keep him from playing, and the dispute ended in a confidential agreement.
Trump said in 2019 that he would “love” to see Kaepernick return to the NFL, while adding that team owners would sign him “if he was good enough.”
Kaepernick made a similar argument on “The View,” where he said politics and power explain why his NFL career stalled.
Ana Navarro asked why no team signed him after he opted out of his contract, noting that the league’s owners denied the collusion claims before the confidential agreement.
“I think it was political,” Kaepernick said. “I also think it was power.”
Kaepernick said his protest was not aimed at the NFL, but he argued the league’s response revealed its politics.
“We’ve seen them donate millions of dollars to [President Donald] Trump and this administration,” Kaepernick said.
He said NFL players could change the league quickly if they acted collectively.
“There’s no game, there’s no business and things would change very quickly,” he said.
Kaepernick said he did not expect the level of outrage that followed his protest.
“The part that candidly surprised me was the amount of pushback on a conversation of, ‘Hey, police shouldn’t kill Black people.’ That doesn’t feel like a controversial topic to me,” Kaepernick said.
In another interview, Kaepernick said the NFL was “actively blackballing” him and said he no longer supports the league.
“I’m not gonna support an organization that one, is actively blackballing me, but two, has targeted my brothers who have been protesting as part of this as well,” Kaepernick said. “I watch college football.”
Kaepernick said he could not point to one definitive moment, but argued his résumé made the lack of interest difficult to explain.
“Coming on the back of going to a Super Bowl, going to an NFC Championship, setting records, and not a single team would bring me in, even for a workout?” Kaepernick said.