Back at the beginning of December, Townhall reported how Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was not only working to help Somali fraudsters keep access to funding, but that he allegedly received campaign donations for doing so. Here's what American Experiment wrote about Ellison at the time:
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Attorney General, can clearly be heard pledging his support to individuals who would soon become his family’s campaign donors and later Feeding Our Future criminal defendants.
His recorded statements flatly contradict his contemporaneous public statements and raise uncomfortable questions about the intersection between political fundraising and constituent services.
American Experiment has exclusively obtained the complete 54-minute, 44-second audio file of a private December 2021 meeting between state Attorney General (AG) Keith Ellison and key figures in the Feeding Our Future scandal.
As I wrote last week, the audio file was named as Exhibit 710 on the evidence list presented to the court by Aimee Bock’s defense attorney, Kenneth Udoibok. The recording was not offered into evidence during the six-week trial that concluded last month, with Bock’s conviction on all seven counts she faced. A timeline of relevant events can be found here.
Now Fox News has picked up the story, and Ellison is not happy about it.
"Putting our dollars in the right place."
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 7, 2026
Audio of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison meeting in 2021 with Somali community members who were later convicted in a $250M fraud scheme resurfaced Wednesday. Ellison denies wrongdoing, saying he was unaware of their crimes at…
Here's more:
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is facing new scrutiny over a 2021 audio recording of him meeting with members of the Somali community who would soon be convicted of defrauding millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
In the recording, now obtained by Fox News, the would-be fraudsters can be heard asking Ellison to help them secure more funding, before the conversation then turns to campaign donations.
"The only way that we can protect what we have is by inserting ourselves into the political arena. Putting our votes where it needs to be. But most importantly, putting our dollars in the right place. And supporting candidates that will fight to protect our interests," one of the Somalian community members says in the recording.
"That's right," Ellison responds.
As Townhall reported in December, here were some of the more salient points of the nearly hour-long audio recording:
- At 8:59, Ellison says he is "in the middle of the battle with the agencies now."
- At 9:07, Ellison says, "[Governor Tim] Walz agrees with me that this piddly, stupid stuff running small people out of business is terrible."
- At 9:50, Ellison "agrees with the proposition that there is state agency discrimination against East African businesses."
- At 44:26, Ellison tells the audience, "Of course, I'm here to help."
- At 45:00, Ellison says, "Let's go fight these people."
Fox News confirms that Ellison did receive campaign donations from Somali fraudsters, but returned the money after they were convicted in the scandal.
The recording was leaked by Kenneth Udoibok, the attorney for Aimee Bock, who was convicted as part of the $250 million "Feeding Our Future" fraud scam last year. Some described Bock as the "ringleader" of the scam.
Udoibok said that both Governor Tim Walz and AG Ellison need to be held accountable, telling Fox News, "I would like to see someone, someone in the state, I don't care what if it is the governor, I don't care what the attorney general, someone take responsibility."
Udoibok continued, "Mr. Ellison, your department that your agency represents have some culpability. As much as I like Mr. Walz, he didn't take responsibility on behalf of his agency. The buck stops with him, and in the worst-case scenario, he ought to have fired the commissioner. He ought to fire the director of the food program, somebody."
In an April 2025 op-ed for the Minnesota Star Tribune, Ellison denied any wrongdoing. "I took a meeting in good faith with people I didn’t know and some turned out to have done bad things. I did nothing for them and took nothing from them," he wrote.
And now Ellison is doubling down, claiming the fraud is "not a serious thing" and merely a "political matter."
DELUSIONAL: Minnesota AG Keith Ellison says he has done "enough" to stop the fraud in his state.
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 7, 2026
CNN: "Are you confident your office has done enough.
Ellison: "Of course we've done enough. And we're doing more every single day. This is a political matter. This is not a serious… pic.twitter.com/dGKNFngpDU
"Not that fraud is not a problem, of course it's a problem," Ellison tells CNN. "And of course we have to prosecute, and of course, we have been prosecuting it."
"Have you done enough?" asks anchor Laura Coates. "One of the claims is that there has been hundreds of millions, but now there are some estimates there could be $9 billion or more, and [DHS Secretary Kristi] Noem was just suggesting they took hundreds of people off the street who were involved in fraud. Are you confident your office has done enough?"
"Of course we've done enough, and we're doing more every single day," Ellison responds. "This is a political matter, this is not a serious thing."
This is not a "political matter." This is fraud. And as we reported yesterday, it has very real, very serious consequences for innocent Minnesotans, including disabled children.
Keith Ellison would have been Kamala Harris' Attorney General had she won the election. It's clear we dodged so many bullets in 2024. Walz and Ellison are slated to appear at a Congressional hearing on February 10, and Walz's political career has been effectively ended by this scandal. If we're lucky, Ellison's career will follow in his footsteps.
Editor’s Note: Help us continue to report the truth about corrupt politicians like Keith Ellison.
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