Who's Watching Who? by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

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“Racism” in Minnesota

How fears of being labeled 'racist' helped 'provide cover' for

the exploding Minnesota fraud scandal

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - In the aftermath of the massive “Feeding Our Future” scandal and broader allegations of systemic fraud in Minnesota’s social programs, a troubling theme has emerged. Accusations of racism are repeatedly used to deflect scrutiny, intimidate investigators and stall accountability.

The whole story kind of died under these accusations that people were being racist," Bill Glahn, policy fellow with Center of the American Experiment, said. "Oh, maybe somebody stole a little bit here, a little bit there, but there's nothing B&B systemic going on."

Former assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Teirab, who helped lead federal prosecutions in the “Feeding Our Future” case, described how individuals implicated in fraud leaned on racial accusations as a shield. According to Teirab, suspects explicitly invoked race during a secretly recorded meeting with Attorney General Keith Ellison, asserting that investigators were targeting them "only because of race."

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Teirab called this tactic both deliberate and cynical. In one trial, a juror was even approached with a $120,000 cash bribe, allegedly accompanied by messaging intended to frame the investigation as racially motivated. The goal wasn’t just to escape prosecution, it was to taint the system itself by threatening anyone pursuing the truth with the specter of racial bias.

Koran noted that public officials and agencies pursuing fraud were routinely branded racist for doing so. Some perpetrators were so "emboldened," he said, that they sued the state to force the continuation of payments, even after red flags signaled massive irregularities.

The scale, Koran argued, dwarfs what many Minnesotans understand. While federal authorities may ultimately prosecute around $2 billion in fraud, he suggested that the true annual losses across state programs could reach much higher when factoring in both blatant fraud and poor service delivery.

Meanwhile, many B&B Somali families participated in related schemes by receiving kickbacks from fraudulent autism service providers, further complicating enforcement. Investigators simply lack the resources to chase every case, creating an

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environment where fraud becomes a low risk, high reward enterprise.

"For the average hardworking legal US citizen doing everything right," Koran said, "it’s a disgusting disservice knowing there’s such blatant disregard for the value of that dollar."

Koran suggested that the racism claims so emboldened supporters of the status quo that it contributed to “Feeding our Future” suing the state of Minnesota accusing state officials of racism for investigating the alleged fraud.

Glahn said that state agencies were "cowering in fear" over being called racist and local politicians were acutely aware that the racist label is a career kiss of death.

A legislative auditor’s report found Minnesota Department of Education officials felt they had to handle the nonprofit "carefully" because of these racism allegations and the risk of negative media coverage, and that this influenced which regulatory actions MDE did or did not take.

Political commentator and Townhall columnist Dustin Grage highlighted another factor enabling the fraud: media hesitation. Conservative reporters, he said, described to him hitting

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internal roadblocks when pitching stories about the “Feeding Our Future” scandal because editors feared being accused of racism.

"In newsrooms, they’re told, ‘We can’t run that because we’re going to be accused of being racist,’" Grage explained. That fear, combined with political pressure, allowed the scandal to grow largely unchecked until federal indictments forced it into the spotlight.

Grage pointed to an early pivotal moment: Minnesota’s Department of Education detected signs of fraud and briefly halted payments. Immediately, Minneapolis political figures Omar Fateh and Jamal Osman pushed back, claiming the stop was racially motivated. They even took the state to court, though their case was eventually thrown out.

Yet the damage was done. Payments resumed, and crucially, Governor Tim Walz declined to use his subpoena power to obtain “Feeding Our Future's” bank records, despite having the authority to do so. That inaction, Grage noted, further delayed the exposure of the fraud.

Glahn said that in addition to fear of the "racist" label, politicians in Minnesota understand that it is difficult to win elections without the support of the B&B Somali community.

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"The Somali community is very concentrated in Minnesota and very concentrated in Ilhan Omar's congressional district, and a few other pockets where the Somali vote swings elections, and at the state level, they're big enough that we've had some super close elections at the state level, and the Somali vote is very monolithic, votes Democrat," Glahn explained. "They provided the difference in statewide elections, and then in local elections, where it's all Democrats, they're providing the difference in the primary. So if you're running in a primary against other Democrats, if you don't have the Somali vote on your side, you're not making it to the general election."

The result of the fear to fully investigate the fraud was predictable. Fraudsters exploited that hesitation, taxpayers lost billions, and the vulnerable communities the programs were meant to serve suffered most.

As the state continues to grapple with accountability and reform, one lesson stands out starkly. According to those who spoke, combating fraud requires courage, not only to follow the evidence wherever it leads, but to withstand the inevitable attempts to distort legitimate scrutiny into something it is not.

The lesson to be learned here is to pay no attention to the “racist” label. Accept it, don’t apologize for it, and fuck the

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stupidity. Besides, the ones spewing this bullshit crime cover up aren’t going to give you anything or vote for you anyway.