Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is now reportedly facing renewed scrutiny after a 2021 audio recording surfaced showing him meeting with members of the Somali community who would later be convicted of defrauding taxpayers out of millions of dollars.
The recording, obtained by Fox News, captures a conversation in which individuals who were later implicated in the sprawling Feeding Our Future fraud scheme appear to press Ellison for help securing additional funding. The discussion then shifts toward political influence and campaign donations.
In the audio, one of the Somali community members stresses the importance of political involvement and financial support. “The only way that we can protect what we have is by inserting ourselves into the political arena. Putting our votes where it needs to be. But most importantly, putting our dollars in the right place. And supporting candidates that will fight to protect our interests,” the speaker says.
“That’s right,” Ellison responds on the recording.
Ellison has flatly denied any wrongdoing connected to the meeting, insisting he had no knowledge of the illegal activity at the time. In an April op-ed published in the Minnesota Star Tribune, Ellison said he met with the group in good faith and was unaware of their criminal conduct.
“I took a meeting in good faith with people I didn’t know and some turned out to have done bad things,” Ellison wrote. “I did nothing for them and took nothing from them.”
Ellison did receive campaign donations from some of the individuals later convicted in the fraud case, according to the Center for the American Experiment. However, he returned those contributions after the donors were convicted, a step his office has cited as evidence he did not knowingly benefit from their crimes.
The recording was first uncovered by Minnesota attorney Kenneth Udoibok, who represents Aimee Bock, one of the central figures convicted in the roughly $250 million Feeding Our Future scandal last year. Udoibok has argued that the fallout should not stop with lower-level defendants and that senior state officials must also be held accountable.
“I would like to see someone, someone in the state, I don’t care if it is the governor, I don’t care if it is the attorney general, someone take responsibility,” Udoibok told Fox News in an interview. He specifically pointed to Ellison’s office, saying it bears some responsibility for failures that allowed the fraud to occur.
“Mr. Ellison, your department that your agency represents have some culpability,” Udoibok said. He also criticized Gov. Tim Walz, arguing that leadership should have taken stronger action when warning signs emerged. “As much as I like Mr. Walz, he didn’t take responsibility on behalf of his agency. The buck stops with him, and in the worst-case scenario, he ought to have fired the commissioner. He ought to fire the director of the food program, somebody.”
The controversy is now poised to move to Capitol Hill. Rep. Tom Emmer, a Republican and the House Majority Whip, plans to question witnesses about the 2021 recording during a House Oversight Committee hearing scheduled for Wednesday, according to a source familiar with his plans.
The Feeding Our Future case has already become one of the largest pandemic-era fraud scandals in the country, and critics say the newly surfaced recording raises uncomfortable questions about access, accountability and political influence in Minnesota.
While Ellison maintains he acted appropriately and without knowledge of wrongdoing, Republicans argue the audio underscores the need for deeper scrutiny into how state leaders interacted with groups that later turned out to be at the center of a massive taxpayer-funded scam.
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