0:07 Senator Josh Holly and Minnesota
0:09 Attorney General Keith Ellison got into
0:12 a shouting match during a Senate hearing
0:14 on Thursday. The Senate Homeland
0:16 Security Committee hearing was over a
0:18 federal investigation into an alleged
0:20 fraud within Minnesota involving the
0:21 misappropriation of millions of dollars
0:23 in government funds primarily targeting
0:25 federal food, nutrition, and child care
0:28 programs. The confrontation started with
0:30 Holly questioning Ellison about his
0:32 actions surrounding the nonprofit
0:34 Feeding Our Future. The nonprofit was at
0:37 the center of a $250 million scheme to
0:39 allegedly defraud a child nutrition
0:42 program during the CO 19 pandemic. Let's listen.
0:43 listen.
0:44 >> Here's what you said. Let's take a look.
0:46 >> Obviously, you said it's not a question.
0:49 You said to them, "Send me the names of
0:52 all these folks who are investigating
0:53 them." you said to them, "Send me their
0:56 names and I'll take that list and I'll
0:58 call the person over at education who
0:59 was investigating them and say, "What's
1:01 going on? Why am I getting these
1:04 complaints?" Then he went on to say, "I
1:07 already have my team working on this.
1:09 What day should we get together to
1:11 discuss it again?"
1:14 The Center for the American Experiment,
1:15 a conservative Minnesota based
1:19 nonprofit, in April, released a 54minute
1:21 recording of two future criminal
1:23 defendants with ties defeating our
1:26 future during a meeting with Ellison on
1:29 December 2021. The Missouri Republican
1:31 during the hearing kept pressing Ellison
1:34 to accept that the Minnesota AG was
1:36 complicit in this fraud scheme that
1:39 resulted in the theft of federal funds.
1:40 Let's listen.
1:42 >> Why did you help him?
1:43 >> First of all, I didn't help them.
1:44 >> You did help?
1:46 >> No, I did not. I certainly didn't.
1:47 >> You're saying you didn't do anything for him?
1:48 him?
1:49 >> You You didn't You didn't
1:50 >> Well, wait a minute.
1:51 >> I already have my team working on this
1:52 again. That's not you.
1:57 >> I have I have my team My team assisted
1:59 with the information that led to the
2:01 prosecution and conviction of these people.
2:01 people.
2:02 >> No, you didn't. You didn't finger to
2:04 prosecute them. No, you did not. You
2:06 were federal prosecution.
2:08 >> You had Oh, BS. You had whistleblowers
2:10 coming to you as early as 2019.
2:11 >> You're the one talking BS.
2:14 >> Hey, listen. It's my time.
2:16 >> Holly then called for Ellison to resign
2:18 and be put behind bars to which
2:20 Minnesota Attorney General shot back.
2:21 Let's listen.
2:23 >> As early as 2019,
2:24 >> don't call me.
2:26 >> Whistleblowers came to Well, I should
2:26 call you a prisoner because you ought to
2:27 be in jail.
2:30 >> Well, see what you can call. 2019
2:32 whistleblowers came to you in your
2:34 office and referred to you fraud
2:36 allegations from feeding our futures and
2:38 you blew them off. You've been right at
2:40 the center of this fraud
2:44 and you've enabled it and sir you should resign
2:44 resign
2:46 >> and sir you should resign. I was
2:48 thinking the same thing about you.
2:50 >> This week got really hectic with
2:53 hearings. There's been a lot of yelling.
2:56 I'm I'm on the side of if anybody was
2:57 complicit in fraud, they should be
3:01 prosecuted. I'm also scaling back and
3:02 remembering the time that we're looking
3:04 at. It's it's a little frustrating that
3:06 we are so laser focused on Minnesota
3:08 when the country has been focused on
3:10 prosecuting a variety of criminals in in
3:12 all states that were committing
3:15 violations and fraud during COVID. Um I
3:17 think that it's warranted to look into
3:18 anybody who is committing fraud and
3:20 especially if they took donations, get
3:21 them out of here. I'm not opposed to
3:24 that. I I just think that this intense
3:26 overly focus on Minnesota when we need
3:27 to make sure that we're combing through
3:29 a variety of states is also
3:31 >> Yeah. I mean, I'll say the FBI does have
3:33 a a special unit that they are using to
3:37 investigate specific pandemic related
3:40 fraud. Um and that's why there were so
3:43 many indictments coming out of Minnesota
3:46 uh from the DOJ. There were 70 plus
3:48 various indictments and uh even
3:51 convictions. And I think that the reason
3:54 why Minnesota became sort of the main
3:57 target is because they were just finding
4:00 so much and it was concentrated in a
4:02 specific community which made it easier
4:04 to kind of trace all of the paper
4:06 trails. And then you had this added
4:08 element of well as well of the
4:11 politicians there taking donations from
4:13 the groups that were committing the
4:15 fraud and potentially helping them avoid
4:17 investigation or accountability. And
4:19 even worse in this case is that Keith
4:21 Ellison is the attorney general, right?
4:23 He is the top cop where the buck stops
4:25 in Minnesota. The buck absolutely stops
4:27 with him. So if he is turning a blind
4:30 eye to fraud or even promising to try to
4:32 get investigators off of their backs,
4:35 that is a huge affront to the taxpayers
4:37 of Minnesota and he absolutely should be
4:38 held accountable for that.
4:41 >> I look, I don't have a defense. I And
4:44 I'm not here to Right. Something that I
4:46 say all the time is that I can see right
4:49 from wrong. So, there's a lot of details
4:51 coming out of Minnesota um that I find
4:54 to be extremely alarming from the fact
4:55 that if you think that somebody
4:57 committed a crime, you're not looking
4:59 into them specifically because of their
5:00 race, that's a problem for me. We should
5:02 be looking into anybody that commits
5:03 fraud and there should not be a fear of
5:05 look doing so. I think that it's a
5:07 problem if the attorney general is
5:09 taking donations specifically from a
5:11 group that he may have been tipped off
5:13 about, that's a problem. And so I think
5:15 that part of the agreements with uh
5:17 across the aisle is that we want to get
5:19 more corruption out of politics. The
5:21 part that struck me the wrong way about
5:23 the entire Minnesota investigation was
5:25 the attack of the Somali people as a
5:27 whole as a result of what people that
5:29 were Somali descent that lived in
5:31 Minnesota did. And I think that there
5:32 are variety of Somali people that live
5:34 in America that don't commit fraud. And
5:35 I think what the president did is paint
5:37 with a broadstroke brush and make us
5:39 like untrusting of an entire country.
5:40 And I don't ever like that because I
5:42 think that that is not appropriate. But
5:44 when we look at officials that are doing
5:45 things that come on, there's too much
5:48 smoke over here. And and and Walsh also
5:49 said, you know, I dropped the ball. Just
5:51 in December, he tried to actually enact
5:53 some type of policy that actually was
5:55 going to really really target and look
5:57 into or assign people to look into the
6:00 fraud himself. And so 2025 was too late.
6:02 I'll give people COVID. I'll give
6:03 everybody they were scrambling. I'll
6:06 give you till 2022. But when you get
6:07 three years past it, I mean, we're well
6:10 out of the pandemic. Unacceptable. And
6:11 it should be reviewed. Well, and also in
6:13 Minnesota, the fraud started before the
6:16 pandemic because according to some
6:18 public reports, Attorney General Keith
6:20 Ellison was tipped off in 2019, so the
6:22 year prior. And I uh from my
6:24 understanding, there have been local
6:25 journalists who have been raising red
6:28 flags about this for a decade, if not
6:30 longer. And so, it was easier for them
6:32 to sort of skate by during the pandemic.
6:35 Maybe they were doing it at higher
6:37 levels than they were previously. But
6:39 it's pretty clear based on the timeline
6:41 of events that they had started this
6:45 back in probably 2010 to the 2013 area
6:48 continued on until they finally started
6:52 uh this special COVID fraud unit out of
6:54 the DOJ to try to investigate because
6:56 Minnesota was just like ah whatever.
6:57 >> Yeah. And it's unfortunate Minnesota has
6:59 a lot of explaining to do across the
7:02 board. Minneapolis, Minnesota. I mean,
7:04 they have a state and a city now that
7:07 has all of the nation's attention for a
7:09 variety of reason, whether it's the
7:10 immigration story that we just talked
7:12 about earlier today or the fraud that
7:14 led to some of this immigration, these
7:16 immigration tactics being used. So,
7:19 whoever takes um the governor position
7:21 there and whoever is the new leadership
7:22 is going to have a lot on their hands
7:24 and needs to be the right person in
7:26 order to kind of take away a lot of the
7:29 stain coming from, you know, both sides.
7:30 Whether it's the stain of the fact of
7:32 what happened and the recuperation from
7:34 incidents that just happened there in
7:35 the last few weeks, but also the stain
7:38 of like over not just overlooking a
7:40 variety of fraud cases for years. I
7:42 mean, so how the state moves forward is
7:44 going to be interesting to watch because
7:46 there's a lot to pick up the pieces from,
7:47 from,
7:49 >> right? And I know Republicans both for
7:52 the Senate and the governor's race feel
7:54 that this gives them a great opportunity
7:56 because obviously Minnesota is a lean
7:59 blue state. Um, hasn't really had much
8:01 Republican representation on the
8:03 statewide level. and they're hopeful
8:05 that this whole fraud scandal,
8:07 regardless of, you know, who's ends up
8:09 running in the in the Senate and
8:12 governor race, I know Amy Clolobachar um
8:14 is trying to get Tim Walls's seat. Uh
8:16 they feel like, okay,
8:19 >> the people in Minnesota have lost trust
8:21 in their public officials. They're
8:24 pretty much all Democrats. Maybe we can
8:26 run on this idea of being the cleanup
8:29 team. Um we'll see what happens. I mean,
8:31 it's still tough. It's an uphill battle
8:32 for them, but I I know that they're
8:35 probably going to be investing more than
8:37 they would have otherwise if this whole
8:38 story hadn't broken.
8:39 >> Yeah. If they ever had a leg to stand on
8:41 in a blue state, this would be this
8:42 would be the one.
8:45 >> Up next, a new report suggests that the
8:48 FBI spent several years gathering intel
8:50 on public figures without having a
