Two years later, FBI investigators set up surveillance cameras outside a dozen Feeding Our Future sites that were supposedly feeding thousands of children each day. They observed that the kids were nowhere to be found. Agents then raided the sites, leading to the arrests of some of the same Somali scammers Ellison had protected.
Ellison was brought before Congress to answer questions about his failure to back state regulators against Feeding Our Future and other Somali fraud fronts. He denied any wrongdoing, including allegations he obstructed fraud investigations in exchange for campaign contributions.
But a December 2021 audio recording surfaced of him meeting with some members of the Somali community who were later convicted of fraud, including one of the Feeding Our Future ringleaders: Ikram Mohamed. The would-be fraudsters could be heard demanding that Ellison, whom they called “Brother,” fend off regulators and investigators and free up frozen payments on their claims, while pledging “votes” and  dollars” to keep him in office so he would feel “comfortable and safe” enough to protect their interests.
AP
Minnesota’s first Muslim attorney general, Keith Ellison, allegedly protected co-religionists who were defrauding the government.
AP
“The only way we can protect what we have is by inserting ourselves into the political arena, putting our votes where it [sic] needs to be, but most importantly, putting our dollars in the right place, and supporting candidates that will fight to protect our interests,” Abshir Omar, a Feeding Our Future consultant and site operator, said on the tape.
“That’s right,” Ellison responded, according to a transcript.
“But if you are secure in your donor base, and if you are secure in your power base, you can act the way you want to act,” Omar added.
“Money is freedom,” Ellison said, chuckling.
“We are jumping into the fight with some serious money, serious organizing, and we need you in this fight with us,” Omar asserted. “We are gonna commit to backing you.”
“I’m here to help,” the attorney general replied. “Let’s fight these people … put a stop to it.”
Ellison vowed to convey their complaints to the Minnesota Department of Education. “I’ll call them in my office and demand some explanations,” he said.
A House Oversight Committee investigation concluded that, “Attorney General Ellison knew about fraud in the Child Care Assistance Program as early as spring 2019.”
Nine days after the recorded 2021 meeting, state records show Ellison received $10,000 in donations from some of the convicted fraudsters for his 2022 reelection, though he later quietly returned the gifts – four years later, after their roles in the fraud scheme were revealed, according to Minnesota Campaign Finance Board filings. In early 2022, Ellison got an additional $2,500 from another conspirator in the fraud, records show, but that gift also was returned a year later.
Whistleblowers from the state agencies reported to congressional investigators that “they were told not to say anything about the fraud because they would be called ‘Islamophobic,’” according to the House report.
Critics say Ellison is a cautionary tale about the potential problems with electing Muslims who could be in a position to prosecute fellow Muslims for alleged crimes. The massive fraud case, which could have been stopped earlier, has resulted in a black eye for the Land of 10,000 Lakes. “A once high-trust society devolved into a culture that tolerates the kinds of systemic, large-scale frauds that Somali migrants now perpetrate upon the citizens of Minnesota,” said Steve Cortes, president of the League of American Workers.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz counters that the fraudsters represent a small minority of the state’s Muslim population. The 2024 Democratic Party vice presidential nominee has accused critics of “demonizing” a community that has been saddled with what he says is an unfairly negative image.
However, prosecutors say the Somalis arrested are just a fraction of the total number from the community who participated in the conspiracy to shake down welfare agencies. They say participants who could be prosecuted, if authorities had the staff and resources to bring them all to trial, number as many as 320 potential defendants – and they even include leaders of local mosques. One of the most prominent members of the community who participated in the meals programs is the wife of a Minneapolis city councilman who has talked about creating a “Muslim caucus” on the council.
Prosecutors say they have focused on going after the biggest players in the case, some of whom billed millions of dollars to the government falsely claiming they prepared and served several thousand meals a day to Somali children from their small apartment units. Prosecutors say the one scheme may have bilked as much as half a billion dollars from taxpayers.
It’s not the first time Ellison, who did not respond to requests for comment, has been accused of protecting Muslim constituents from law enforcement.
A college-age convert to Islam, Ellison began his political career in 2007 as the first Muslim elected to Congress. He was sworn in on the Quran. Two years later, the young Muslim congressman would defend an extremist local mosque in his home district where more than 20 Somali men had been radicalized for jihad, according to published local reports at the time.
Also in 2009, he held a meeting in Minneapolis urging Somalis to organize themselves into a powerful political and economic coalition to help fend off FBI investigations, the reports said. At the time, the local Somali community was the target of federal investigations into terrorist money laundering. Agents suspected Somali refugees were funneling millions of dollars in fraudulent food stamps through Somali grocery stores into overseas bank accounts used by al-Qaeda.
Ellison joined forces with CAIR to defend the Somali store owners against the allegations, even meeting with the head of the civil-rights unit of the USDA to complain about the agency’s food stamp investigations, according to a confidential CAIR memo obtained by the authors of “Muslim Mafia.”
He also worked with CAIR to help recruit Muslim candidates for office, as well as Muslim staffers to work on Homeland Security and other sensitive congressional committees. Ellison set a goal of electing 15 more Muslim lawmakers and even envisioned forming a Congressional Muslim Caucus. “I want to see many more Muslims serving in Congress,” including as U.S. senators, he said.
Like Ellison, top CAIR officials came of age attending college in Minneapolis around the same time period. CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, who roots for “the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future,” and CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, who he was “happy to see” Hamas massacre Jews on Oct. 7, 2023, got their start as Islamic activists in Minneapolis, where they protested Israel.