Back in 2020 BY Minnesota officals according a piece in Huffington Post….
Better yet?
The Fed’s did NOTHING with their knowledge for years….
Minnesota actually was caught in the middle between the fraudlent organiztion and the feds….
And YES…
That WOULD drop this Back into Trump’s FIRST Admin….
Blaming and going after Gov. Waltz , eh?
Cept in 2022 Minnesota worked with the FBI to begin THEIR probes and arrests…
This IS another Trump revenge thing that looks FAR DIFFRENT after the covers come off the case….
The Trump administration justified its deadly immigration crackdown in Minnesota as necessary to combat fraud by Somali residents, some of whom are accused of defrauding the federal government through a food nonprofit.
President Donald Trump even claimed Gov. Tim Walz (D) declined to run for reelection because he’d been “caught” stealing billions with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and “others of his Somali friends.”
But in 2020, the first Trump administration was warned by the state that the nonprofit in question, Feeding Our Future, was likely engaged in fraud, and the administration declined to get involved.
That year, the Minnesota Department of Education asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for support as it considered taking action against the nonprofit, which had contracts to provide meals for children and adults with disabilities. Minnesota told the USDA about startling growth in Feeding Our Future’s reimbursements, which increased 252% from 2019. While pandemic-driven changes could explain some of the increase, Minnesota’s overall reimbursements for the federal programs in question had only gone up 14%.
A 2024 audit report by the Minnesota legislature examining the Feeding Our Future scandal said officials with the Education Department complained that the USDA was unresponsive when they asked about how to deal with problems presented by the nonprofit….
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The report also said that when the state asked about unusual attendance patterns reported at child meal sites ― namely, perfect daycare attendance over an extended period, which was a red flag for fraud ― the USDA said the attendance pattern was plausible under pandemic rule changes in effect at the time. “When MDE reached out to USDA to notify it of unusual attendance patterns, USDA responded that perfect attendance would be possible due to the waivers,” according to the report.
In April 2020, after the state hesitated to approve eight new feeding sites for Feeding Our Future, the organization threatened to file a lawsuit accusing the government of racial discrimination against the Somali community that the organization served.
A former USDA official, who requested anonymity during an interview with HuffPost, recalled a state official asking the federal government for support to defend against the allegations. The state sought a letter of support from the USDA saying the number of meals Feeding Our Future claimed to be serving was implausible and could be a sign of fraud. “These numbers don’t look right, and the state is justified in taking the action that it is taking,” the former USDA official recalled thinking. “We discussed it as being fraud.”
The official urged higher-ups at USDA to support the state’s suspicion of fraud, but they declined. They didn’t want to get involved….
…
“This whole thing started during the first Trump administration, and what’s frustrating to me is, reading these news stories, there’s no acknowledgement of that,” the USDA official said…
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The state also brought its concerns about Feeding Our Future to the USDA’s inspector general office, which investigates fraud, “but that did not resolve the issue either,” then-MDE commissioner Willie Jett wrote in the 2024 report. The inspector general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The state legislature’s audit concluded the MDE had all the authority it needed to cut off an organization that flouted program rules, and it faulted the agency for failing to be more aggressive. In January 2021 the department declared Feeding Our Future “seriously deficient” after belatedly learning the IRS had revoked its tax-exempt status, though it took a whole year for payments to stop. That spring, the state told the FBI about its fraud suspicions and a criminal investigation began. Starting in 2022, dozens of people were indicted for allegedly embezzling more than $250 million in federal funds.
Note…
Soooo?
The Reason fronted for the Trump Minnesota Somali invasion could have been a ‘Switch and Bait’ situation?
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