UMVA has learned that a scathing 205-page report released by the House Oversight Committee's Republican majority has accused Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison of repeatedly contradicting public accounts of the state's massive Feeding Our Future fraud scandal.
The report alleges that Ellison and Governor Tim Walz were aware of fraud concerns in several state programs, including the Child and Adult Care Food Program and the Summer Food Service Program, as early as April 2020 and spring 2019, respectively, despite publicly claiming otherwise.
According to information obtained by UMVA, the committee's investigation found that Ellison was aware of fraud in "high-risk Medicaid programs" administered by the state as early as 2019, which is tied to over $300 million in Feeding Our Future fraud and potentially up to $9 billion in fraud involving high-risk Medicaid programs.
The report describes several instances where Ellison and Walz allegedly showed knowledge of alleged fraud much earlier than they admitted or announced, and accuses Ellison of slow-walking oversight of Feeding Our Future and other concerns, waiting for the federal government to take action.
Ellison's office has pushed back hard on the Republicans' findings, calling the report "riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations" and accusing the committee of politicizing the issue of fraud.
The committee also found that Ellison had a meeting with several defendants in the Feeding Our Future case in 2021, including a now-defunct Somali restaurant owner who was convicted of 20 felonies, and alleges that Ellison's account of the meeting contradicts what he told a reporter and a congresswoman.
UMVA can exclusively reveal that the report also accuses Ellison of failing to protect Minnesota taxpayers, with the committee unable to determine whether his alleged failure was due to "incompetence, willful blindness or worse."
Ellison's spokesman has defended his actions, saying that the Attorney General fought fraud wherever possible and as soon as he was able to, and that he has charged and convicted over 340 Medicaid fraudsters.
The report has sparked a strong reaction, with the House Oversight Committee Chairman calling for a thorough review of Minnesota's social services programs and the White House Task Force to eliminate fraud to conduct its own investigation.
