Feeding Our Future Illustration (Credit: Photos and photo illustration by Nicole Neri/The Minnesota Reformer)
A 54-minute secret recording from a December 11, 2021, closed-door meeting inside Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s official state office is resurfacing amid explosive revelations that 70 Somali community members in Minnesota participated in stealing $250 million in federal COVID child-feeding funds.
On the tape released by American Experiment earlier this year, Ellison sympathizes with, encourages, and ultimately promises assistance to a group of Somali-American business leaders, many of whom would later be charged or convicted in the largest COVID relief fraud scheme in U.S. history.
The fraudulent operation, centered around the notorious nonprofit Feeding Our Future, stole an estimated $250 million in federal child nutrition funds, money intended to feed poor children but instead used to purchase luxury homes, foreign real estate, jewelry, and lavish lifestyles.
The audio reveals Ellison mocking state agency oversight, vowing to “fight” on behalf of the very operators who investigators say were deeply involved in a web of wire fraud, money laundering, and fake meal claims across Minnesota.
Soon after (on December 20, 2021), Keith Ellison’s campaign and that of his son Jeremiah Ellison received campaign donations from individuals linked to Feeding Our Future.
Among those donors was Gandi Yusuf Mohamed, a person publicly identified as tied to laundering over $1.1 M in program funds.
According to American Experiment:
Ellison states on the recording that “we are in the middle of the battle with the agencies now” at 8:59. At 9:07, Ellison asserts that:
Walz agrees with me that this piddly, stupid stuff running small people out of business is terrible.
At 9:22, Ellison can be heard drawing a diagram on a whiteboard.
At 9:50, Ellison agrees with the proposition that there is state agency discrimination against East African businesses.
At 11:30, Ellison brags that:
Just being able to say, just getting the question, just getting the inquiry from the AG is sometimes enough to make people knock it off.
[…]We return to the tawdry subject of coin at the 13:00 mark, where Omar again offers his fundraising assistance to Ellison as a political candidate, apparently while sitting in Ellison’s official government office.
Ellison can be heard (13:29) responding, “That’s right” and (13:56), “Money is freedom.”
The “ask” of Ellison begins around 43:30. Specifically, the request is for him, in the AG’s statutory role as attorney for state agencies, to intervene on behalf of these small businesses subject to racist government overregulation. At 44:26, Ellison assures his audience, “Of course, I’m here to help,” and at 45:00, “Let’s go fight these people.” Hear the Ellison battle plan.
Ellison claimed the recording was a “smear.” But the tape speaks for itself.
(…) The entire recording can be heard here.