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MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota – Following the massive “Feeding Our Future” scandal and broader allegations of systemic fraud in Minnesota social programs, a troubling theme has emerged: accusations of racism have been repeatedly used to distract attention, intimidate investigators and stall accountability.
Rumors and reports of fraud in Minneapolisprimarily among the city's thriving Somali community, have been circulating for at least a decade, but criticism of the scam has been largely dismissed by elected Democrats as “racist” or fueled by hostility toward foreigners. News reports in recent years about Somali scammers have been criticized as “racist”.
“This whole story kind of died because of these accusations that people were racist,” Bill Glahn, a fellow at the Center for the American Experiment, told Fox News Digital. “Oh, maybe someone stole a little here, a little there, but nothing systematic is happening.”
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Teirab, who helped prosecute the federal Feed Our Future case, told Fox News Digital how people involved in the scam relied on race as cover. The suspects openly referenced race during a secretly recorded meeting with Attorney General Keith Ellison, claiming investigators were targeting them “only because of race,” Teirab said.
Dem. Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Governor Kate Ellison and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz MANDEL, MANDEL, MANDEL, MANDEL.
Teirab called the tactic both deliberate and cynical. In one trial, a juror was even offered a $120,000 bribe, allegedly accompanied by messages intended to portray the investigation as racially motivated. The goal was not simply to avoid prosecution, but to tarnish the system itself, threatening anyone who sought the truth with the specter of racial bias.
“It provided cover,” Teirab told Fox News Digital. “The scammers knew that the issue of race and racism was something they could use as a cudgel… It is disrespectful to use these terms when they are inappropriate, especially in a case where fraud has clearly occurred.”
Minnesota republican State Sen. Mark Koran echoed Teirab's concerns, emphasizing that investigators were guided by evidence, not demographics. Fraud prosecutions disproportionately affected one community simply because that is where significant fraud was discovered, not because investigators targeted anyone based on race.
“The average Minnesotan, the average legislator, doesn't care who commits fraud,” Coran said. “Okay, the evidence will lead you either to the culprit or away from him. So, if the evidence leads to the culprit, we need to bring them all to justice.”
Coran noted that government officials and agencies that engage in fraud are usually labeled as racists for doing so. Some criminals were so “brave,” he said, that they sued the state to ensure continued payments, even after red flags signaled widespread abuse.
The scale, Coran argues, dwarfs what many Minnesotans understand. While federal authorities could ultimately prosecute about $2 billion in fraud, he suggested that the true annual losses to state programs could be much higher when both outright fraud and poor service delivery are taken into account.
Meanwhile, many families participated in similar schemes, receiving kickbacks from fraudulent autism treatment providers, further complicating enforcement. Investigators simply lack the resources to investigate every case, creating an environment in which fraud becomes a low-risk, high-reward enterprise.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., speaks in Brooklyn Center, Minn., during a news conference. (AP Photo/Morrie Gash, File)
“It is a disgusting disservice to the average hard-working, legal U.S. citizen doing everything right,” Coran said, “to know that there is such a blatant disregard for the value of that dollar.”
Coran suggested that the claims of racism so emboldened supporters of the status quo that they contributed to Feeding Our Future suing the state of Minnesota, accusing state officials of racism for investigating the alleged fraud.
Glahn told Fox News Digital that government departments are “cringing in fear” of being called racist, and local politicians are acutely aware that a “racist label” is a “career kiss of death.”
The legislative auditor's report said Minnesota Department of Education officials believed they needed to handle the nonprofit “carefully” because of these allegations of racism and the risk of negative media coverage, and that this influenced what regulatory actions MDE did or did not take. CBS News reports.
Political commentator and Townhall columnist Dustin Grage has identified another factor contributing to fraud: media hesitation. Conservative reporters, he said, told him that he faced internal obstacles in publishing stories about the Feeding Our Future scandal because editors were afraid of being accused of racism.
“The newsrooms tell them, 'We can't publish this because we'll be accused of being racist,'” Grage explained. That fear, combined with political pressure, allowed the scandal to grow virtually unchecked until federal charges brought it into the spotlight.
MINNESOTA LAWMAKERS PROMISE NEW APPLICATIONS AFTER $1 BILLION FRAUD, SAY LET WALS SPIRAL
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks to the Star Tribune at his office at the State Capitol in St. Paul on Dec. 12, 2024. (Alex Cormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Grage pointed to a crucial moment: The Minnesota Department of Education found signs of fraud and briefly suspended payments. Minneapolis politicians Omar Fateh and Jamal Osman immediately responded, saying the stop was racially motivated. They even took the state to court, but their case was ultimately dismissed.
Yet the damage was done. Payments resumed and, crucially, Gov. Tim Walz refused to use his subpoena powers to obtain Feeding Our Future's bank records, even though he had the authority to do so. This inaction, Grage noted, further delayed detection of the fraud.
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The sun shines on the Minnesota State Capitol. (Steve Karnowski/Associated Press)
Glahn told Fox News Digital that beyond the fear of the “racist” label, Minnesota politicians 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 as well as several other areas where the Somali vote influences the election, and at the state level it is large enough that we have very close elections at the state level and the Somali vote is very monolithic, the Democratic vote,” Glahn explained. “They make the difference in statewide elections, and then in local elections where everyone is Democratic, they make the difference in the primaries. So if you're running in the primary against other Democrats, if you don't have the Somali vote on your side, you're not going to make it to the general election.”
The result of the fear of fully investigating fraud was predictable: Fraudsters took advantage of this hesitancy, taxpayers lost billions, and the vulnerable communities the programs were supposed to serve suffered the most.
As the state continues to struggle with accountability and reform, one lesson stands out in particular. According to those who spoke with Fox News Digital, fighting fraud requires the courage to not only follow the evidence wherever it leads, but also to resist the inevitable attempts to distort a legitimate audit into something it is not.
