The war of words between Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and his republican challenger, Jim Schultz, continued today over the ongoing fraud investigation involving Feeding Our Future.
Tuesday morning, Ellison joined News Talk 830 WCCO's Vineeta Sawkar to discuss the case saying his office did not stop the fraud immediately because the FBI was investigating.
"It is extremely sad that the 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, quite the opposite, they are thanking them for the cooperation," Ellison said.
Tuesday afternoon, Schultz spoke with Chad Hartman, saying that he thought Ellison was not being truthful and is squarely to blame for the fraud continuing.
"The attorney general is acting far beneath his office. This is a lie. He needs to tell Minnesotans the truth," Schultz said. "It's an absolute disgrace we have an attorney general so willing to lie to the Minnesotan people every day of the week."
This all comes one day after most every GOP statewide candidate called for either the resignation of Education Commissioner Heather Mueller or a special investigation into who knew what and when.
Ellison said that Republicans are making this an issue when it isn't.
"This is a success of state and federal cooperation to hold fraudsters accountable," he said.
However, Schultz says that Ellison did not succeed but failed.
"He is at the center of, you know, $250 million being stolen," Schultz said. "The attorney's general office can't run from responsibility for this. They represented the Minnesota Department of Education. They are responsible for the oversight of all nonprofits in the state, and they failed dramatically here."
But Ellison maintains that the operation was a success.
"The non-partisan FBI has not cast any blame on anyone at the state," Ellison said. But has, in fact, praised people at the state because we have gotten these people, and they are all going to be held accountable."
Others in Minnesota politics are weighing in on the silence from Ellison.
Minnesota Republican House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt is wading into the issue today, saying if attorney-client privilege is preventing Ellison from answering basic questions about the situation, then Governor Walz and the state education department should waive it so Minnesotans can get the answers they deserve.
"Minnesotans deserve answers from the Governor and Attorney General about the largest fraud scandal in Minnesota history," Daudt said in his statement. "Gov. Walz and Commissioner Mueller should voluntarily waive attorney-client privilege — to the extent it even exists in this situation — if it prevents Attorney General Ellison from being honest and transparent about the timeline, why the administration agreed early on in the case to continue payments, and why they misled Minnesotans about the judge's actions. Democrats shouldn't get to hide information from Minnesotans about their role and decisions they made in this scandal."
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