Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is shining new light on a timeline in the $250 million Feeding Our Future scandal. On Monday, a 49th person was charged in connection to the scandal that took money from the Federal Child Nutrition Program during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the timeline provided Monday by Ellison's office, the Minnesota Department of Education grew suspicious of Feed Our Future's growth in the fall of 2020. Feeding Our Future threatened a lawsuit, prompting the Minnesota Attorney General's Office to get involved.
Feeding Our Future eventually went forward with a lawsuit in November 2020.
Ellison told Vineeta Sawkar during the WCCO Morning News on Tuesday that the charges announced last week are proof of how effective the state's partnership was with the FBI.
"Just talk to the FBI about this," he said. "They've made public statements about how they appreciate the cooperation of the Minnesota Department of Education and how their cooperation resulted in the federal indictments."
Ellison's appearance on WCCO Radio came one day after Republican gubernatorial candidate Dr. Scott Jensen held a press conference to demand a special investigation into the Feeding our Future fraud scandal.
"Someone's not telling the truth. Minnesotans deserve to know why," Jensen said.
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Jensen questioned why the state Department of Education continued payments to Feeding our Future after they learned that fraudulent activity was taking place.
"There was a finding of contempt in the court," Ellison said. "The court was not pleased to MDE stopped payments. Rather than reveal everything about what we knew and show this evidence of fraud, we knew the Attorney General's Office was not legally authorized to criminally prosecute this fraud. We knew the FBI was, so that's where we went."
GOP attorney general candidate Jim Schultz has also condemned Ellison's actions, claiming the Attorney General mishandled the investigation.
MDE, according to AG Ellison's timeline, first contacted the FBI in March 2021 about its concern that Feeding Our Future was committing criminal fraud. The FBI began its investigation and representatives of Attorney General Ellison’s office met confidentially with the FBI on a regular basis to cooperate fully with the investigation.
"The FBI repeatedly made it clear to the Attorney General’s Office and MDE that it should not disclose the existence of the investigation in Feeding Our Future’s state court lawsuit so that it could proceed without tipping off Feeding Our Future and the target of the investigation," Ellison's office wrote.
"It's extremely sad that Republicans are now trying to cast blame and act like something was done improperly when the FBI and U.S. Attorney is not saying the state did anything improperly," Ellison said. "They're saying quite the opposite. They're thanking them for their cooperation."
According to the criminal charges, Mohamed Muse Noor was charged Monday and had scheduled a flight to Istanbul, Turkey that was set to depart the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Monday at 8 a.m.