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MINNEAPOLIS, MN – In the aftermath of the massive Feeding Our Future scandal and broader allegations of systemic fraud in Minnesota’s social programs, a troubling theme has emerged: accusations of racism repeatedly used to deflect scrutiny, intimidate investigators and stall accountability.
Rumors and reports of fraud in Minneapolis, primarily within the city’s exploding Somali community, have been circulating for at least a decade, but criticism of the fraud has been largely dismissed by elected Democrats as “racist” or being underpinned by animosity towards foreigners. News stories focused on Somali fraudsters in recent years were shot down as “racist.”
“The whole story kind of died under these accusations that people were being racist,” Bill Glahn, policy fellow with Center of the American Experiment, told Digital. “Oh, maybe somebody stole a little bit here, a little bit there, but there’s nothing systemic going on.”
Former assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Teirab, who helped lead federal prosecutions in the Feeding Our Future case, described to Digital how individuals implicated in fraud leaned on racial accusations as a shield. According to Teirab, suspects explicitly invoked race during a secretly recorded meeting with Attorney General Keith Ellison, asserting that investigators were targeting them “only because of race.”
OMAR ACCUSED BY GOP OPPONENT OF OPENING UP THE DOOR TO MASSIVE MINNEAPOLIS FRAUD: ‘DEEP, DEEP TIES’
Dem. Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota AG Keith Ellison, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images, MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images and Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Teirab called this tactic both deliberate and cynical. In one trial, a juror was even approached with a $120,000 cash bribe, allegedly accompanied by messaging intended to frame the investigation as racially motivated. The goal wasn’t just to escape prosecution, it was to taint the system itself by threatening anyone pursuing the truth with the specter of racial bias.
“It provided cover,” Teirab told Digital. “Fraudsters knew the issue of race and racism was something they could use as a cudgel…It’s disrespectful to use those terms when they’re not appropriate, especially in a case where fraud clearly happened.”
Minnesota Republican State Senator Mark Koran echoed Teirab’s concerns, emphasizing that investigators followed the evidence, not demographics. Fraud prosecutions disproportionately affected one community simply because that’s where significant fraud was uncovered, not because investigators targeted anyone based on race.
“The average Minnesotan, average legislator, doesn’t care who’s committing the fraud,” Koran said. “All right, the evidence will lead you either to or from the perpetrator. And so, if the evidence leads to the perpetrator, we need to prosecute all of them.”
Koran noted that public officials and agencies pursuing fraud were routinely branded racist for doing so. Some perpetrators were so “emboldened,” he said, that they sued the state to force the continuation of payments, even after red flags signaled massive irregularities.
The scale, Koran argued, dwarfs what many Minnesotans understand. While federal authorities may ultimately prosecute around $2 billion in fraud, he suggested that the true annual losses across state programs could reach much higher when factoring in both blatant fraud and poor service delivery.
Meanwhile, many families participated in related schemes by receiving kickbacks from fraudulent autism service providers, further complicating enforcement. Investigators simply lack the resources to chase every case, creating an environment where fraud becomes a low-risk, high-reward enterprise.
MINNESOTA’S FRAUD SCANDAL WAS ‘SHOCKINGLY EASY’ TO PULL OFF, IS LIKELY WORSE THAN REPORTED: EX PROSECUTOR
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., speaks in Brooklyn Center, Minn., during a news conference. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)
“For the average hardworking legal U.S. citizen doing everything right,” Koran said, “it’s a disgusting disservice…knowing there’s such blatant disregard for the value of that dollar.”
Koran suggested that the racism claims so emboldened supporters of the status quo that it contributed to Feeding our Future suing the state of Minnesota accusing state officials of racism for investigating the alleged fraud.
Glahn told Digital that state agencies were “cowering in fear” over being called racist and local politicians were acutely aware that the “racist label” is a “career kiss of death.”
A legislative auditor’s report found Minnesota Department of Education officials felt they had to handle the nonprofit “carefully” because of these racism allegations and the risk of negative media coverage, and that this influenced which regulatory actions MDE did or did not take, CBS News reported.
Political commentator and Townhall columnist Dustin Grage highlighted another factor enabling the fraud: media hesitation. Conservative reporters, he said, described to him hitting internal roadblocks when pitching stories about the Feeding Our Future scandal because editors feared being accused of racism.
“In newsrooms, they’re told, ‘We can’t run that because we’re going to be accused of being racist,’” Grage explained. That fear, combined with political pressure, allowed the scandal to grow largely unchecked until federal indictments forced it into the spotlight.
MINNESOTA LAWMAKERS VOW NEW CRACKDOWN AFTER $1B FRAUD MELTDOWN THEY SAY WALZ LET SPIRAL
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz sits for an interview with Star Tribune journalists in his office at the State Capitol in St. Paul on Dec. 12, 2024. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Grage pointed to an early pivotal moment: Minnesota’s Department of Education detected signs of fraud and briefly halted payments. Immediately, Minneapolis political figures Omar Fateh and Jamal Osman pushed back, claiming the stop was racially motivated. They even took the state to court, though their case was eventually thrown out.
Yet the damage was done. Payments resumed, and crucially, Governor Tim Walz declined to use his subpoena power to obtain Feeding Our Future’s bank records, despite having the authority to do so. That inaction, Grage noted, further delayed the exposure of the fraud.
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The sun shines on the Minnesota State Capitol. (Steve Karnowski/Associated Press)
Glahn told Digital that in addition to fear of the “racist” label, politicians in Minnesota understand that it is difficult to win elections without the support of the Somali community.
“The Somali community is very concentrated in Minnesota and very concentrated in Ilhan Omar’s congressional district, and a few other pockets where the Somali vote swings elections, and at the state level, they’re big enough that we’ve had some super close elections at the state level, and the Somali vote is very monolithic, votes Democrat,” Glahn explained. “They provided the difference in statewide elections, and then in local elections, where it’s all Democrats, they’re providing the difference in the primary. So if you’re running in a primary against other Democrats, if you don’t have the Somali vote on your side, you’re not making it to the general election.”
The result of the fear to fully investigate the fraud was predictable: fraudsters exploited that hesitation, taxpayers lost billions, and the vulnerable communities the programs were meant to serve suffered most.
As the state continues to grapple with accountability and reform, one lesson stands out starkly. According to those who spoke to Digital, combating fraud requires courage, not only to follow the evidence wherever it leads, but to withstand the inevitable attempts to distort legitimate scrutiny into something it is not.
