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Did This Leading Democrat Help Somali Non-Profits Defraud Minnesota Taxpayers?

By POLITICS COMMENTARY

Yesterday, USA Journal reported that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was not only aware of the massive fraud unfolding under his watch — fraud that drained billions from Minnesota taxpayers, contributed to the death of a vulnerable man, and even helped fund Islamic terrorism in Somalia — but that he actively retaliated against the whistleblowers who tried to expose it.

But the rot and corruption didn’t stop with Walz. Now it appears Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was also playing a role — not only keeping Somali “non-profit” groups flush with state cash despite glaring red flags, but allegedly receiving campaign donations after doing so.

And it gets worse. There’s audio circulating that reportedly captures Ellison outright promising to help these Somali groups in exchange for campaign contributions.

If true, it’s pay-to-play politics at its ugliest — and yet another example of Minnesota’s political class protecting fraud networks instead of taxpayers:

The American Experiment noted:

Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Attorney General, can clearly be heard pledging his support to individuals who would soon become his family’s campaign donors and later Feeding Our Future criminal defendants.

His recorded statements flatly contradict his contemporaneous public statements and raise uncomfortable questions about the intersection between political fundraising and constituent services.

American Experiment has exclusively obtained the complete 54-minute, 44-second audio file of a private December 2021 meeting between state Attorney General (AG) Keith Ellison and key figures in the Feeding Our Future scandal.

As I wrote last week, the audio file was named as Exhibit 710 on the evidence list presented to the court by Aimee Bock’s defense attorney, Kenneth Udoibok. The recording was not offered into evidence during the six-week trial that concluded last month, with Bock’s conviction on all seven counts she faced. A timeline of relevant events can be found here.

The audio is around an hour long, but according to the publication, here are some of the highlights:

  • At 8:59, Ellison says he is “in the middle of the battle with the agencies now.”
  • At 9:07, Ellison says, “[Governor Tim] Walz agrees with me that this piddly, stupid stuff running small people out of business is terrible.”
  • At 9:50, Ellison “agrees with the proposition that there is state agency discrimination against East African businesses.”
  • At 44:26, Ellison tells the audience, “Of course, I’m here to help.”
  • At 45:00, Ellison says, “Let’s go fight these people.”

This meeting occurred in early December 2021. According to American Experiment, on December 20, Ellison allegedly received $10,000 in campaign contributions, which included donations from Gandi Mohamed, who is Defendant No. 69 in the Feeding Our Future scandal, as well as from the brother of Irkam Mohamed, Defendant No. 63 in the same scandal. Ellison also obtained funds from an unidentified Donor #2, who has not faced any charges. On the same day, American Experiment indicates that Ellison’s son, Jeremiah Ellison, a member of the Minneapolis city council, also received campaign contributions from Gandi and an unnamed Donor #2. Jeremiah Ellison was reportedly also granted donations from Salid Said, Ikram Mohamed, Ikram’s spouse, and Gandi’s wife, along with four others who were later charged in the Feeding Our Future case.

In a separate thread, Fox News contributor Paul Mauro outlined a timeline that appears to support the allegations, showing that Ellison received campaign contributions shortly after meeting with members of the Somali community regarding the Feeding Our Future program. Ellison allegedly vowed to pressure state agencies to resume payments to Feeding Our Future.

Here’s a relevant excerpt from the publication County Highway:

Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, is Minnesota’s highest law enforcement officer. In December of 2021, business leaders in the Twin Cities Somali community met with Ellison in his office in Saint Paul. Bill Glahn, a fellow at the conservative Twin Cities-based Center of the American Experiment and the former deputy commissioner of commerce for Republican governor Tim Pawlenty, obtained and published a recording of the meeting earlier this year. Its contents reveal how different the actual workings of Minnesota’s government are from what the citizens of any fair and generous and functioning society would probably like to believe.

Ellison’s guests were concerned that government moneys for a Minneapolis nonprofit called Feeding Our Future (FOF) might be in jeopardy. In late 2020, the nonprofit had sued the state, claiming the Minnesota Department of Education had been discriminatory in delaying and in many cases denying funding to a Somali-run group affiliated with FOF. Organizations working through FOF claimed to be providing tens of thousands of meals a day as part of a federally funded but state-administered COVID-era food-relief program. With even a little investigative initiative, Ellison’s office could easily have proven that Feeding Our Future was a $250 million fraud against taxpayers.

Many of the nonprofits collecting state reimbursements under the FOF umbrella simply didn’t exist, and even those with some basis in physical reality invoiced the state for implausible numbers of meals. By December of 2021, Feeding Our Future had actually won its case in state court, with a judge determining several months earlier that the state had no basis to impede the flow of money to the group. But the ruling didn’t actually require the state to resume all payments. In December, Somali groups and FOF still complained that funding wasn’t coming in quickly enough.

As The New York Times reported, Democrats in Minnesota were so terrified of being labeled “racist” that they looked the other way as massive fraud and corruption unfolded right under their noses. But it’s becoming clear that political cowardice was only part of the story. High-ranking Democrats like Tim Walz and Keith Ellison weren’t just ignoring the warning signs — they were allegedly aware of the fraud, aiding the groups involved, and in Walz’s case, even punishing whistleblowers who tried to sound the alarm.

And let’s be honest: we’re only scratching the surface. The deeper this scandal goes, the worse it’s going to get for Walz and Ellison.

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