Leaked audio shows Minnesota AG Ellison vowing to support a group including now-convicted defendants in fraud case
Leaked audio from a December 2021 meeting between Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and a group including now-convicted defendants in the Feeding Our Future fraud case is leading Republican lawmakers to call for further investigation.
The meeting involved Ellison and a group of business owners who claimed to represent the "Minnesota Minority Business Association."
Members of the group told Ellison in the meeting they were being unfairly targeted by state agencies because of their race and nationality.
"This community has been behind you. We continue to stand behind you," one group member said. "But we're dealing with some very difficult market forces standing against us."
Weeks after the meeting, FBI agents carried out search warrants and the largest pandemic fraud case in the United States became public.
The meeting audio was supposed to be used in court, says defense attorney Kenneth Udoboik, who represented Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock. Udoboik says he's unaware how the audio got leaked to the American Experiment, a Minnesota-based think tank, earlier this week.
What it proves, he alleges, is that state leaders worked with Bock and Feeding Our Future up until federal arrests in early 2022.
Attorney General Ellison's office declined an on-camera interview Friday but released a written statement.
"The attorney general regularly meets with constituents, hears their concerns in good faith, and does his best to help people who need it, which is exactly what the recording of this meeting shows," the statement said.
The statement added that Ellison initially thought he was only meeting one other person.
"It is a shame that these fraudsters tried to exploit the attorney general's good faith engagement, but they were not successful. Nothing happened as a result of the meeting," the statement said.
On Friday, Minnesota Republicans pushed back — calling for more transparency from Ellison's office.
"We need a lot more information about what's happened," Rep Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, said. "In that meeting, he's sending emails to people in his staff. We need to really understand what was happening behind the scenes."
"We all meet with people – we don't know who we're meeting with at the time," Niska said. "But the reality is within that office, there were cases that the office was involved with representing the department of education against feeding our future. It should have come up to his level."
Ellison's office says that while he was unaware of the implications of the December 2021 meeting with the now-convicted business owners, his comments in September 2022 that he spent "years" working to hold Feeding our Future accountable are accurate.
"I would rather the attorney general say this – 'look, I was surprised, I didn't know that they were involved in criminality.' That would be the truth," Udoboik said.
