Sen. Kennedy Reveals Damning Minnesota AG Office Memo on Somali Fraud
“There is a perception that forcefully tackling this issue would cause political backlash from the Somali community, which is a core voting block for Democrats.”
Americans were stunned last month to learn that members of Minnesota’s Somali community had scammed state taxpayers out of hundreds of millions — possibly even billions — of dollars.
The question on everyone’s mind was how did this go undetected for so long?
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) may have provided the answer in remarks delivered earlier this month that have only recently come to the media’s attention.
The always entertaining senator from Louisiana read a particularly damning portion of an internal memo written by a fraud investigator from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. Kennedy told his colleagues that those benefiting from the Feeding our Future program [Emphasis added.]:
[W]ent to the state and said, ‘If you stop giving us this money, we’re gonna call you racist and we’re gonna sue you. And you don’t want to be in the news.’
Well, why didn’t the employees do something? They did. They told the people higher up — the people with the flags in their office, and you know what they did? Nothing. You know why? Here’s what the legislative auditor in Minnesota said: He said that the threat of litigation and the negative press affected how the state politicians used their regulatory power.
Here’s what a fraud investigator in the Attorney General’s office said. She said, ‘There is a perception that’ — I’m quoting now — ‘that forcefully tackling this issue would cause political backlash from the Somali community, which is a core voting block for Democrats.’
Senator John Kennedy reads an internal memo from the Minnesota Attorney General's office
They openly say they did not stop the Somalia immigrant fraud because Democrats would lose votes
“Here's what a fraud investigator in the Attorney General's office said. She said, There is… pic.twitter.com/sw9CMBIhUE
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) December 14, 2025
That’s right. They didn’t want to offend members of the Somali community, whose votes they needed to continue winning elections.
We’ve heard this before — but never straight from the horse’s mouth.
Last month, Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo of The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, conducted an investigation into a massive Medicaid fraud scheme that allegedly funneled millions of dollars in Minnesota taxpayer funds to entities in Somalia. Reportedly, a portion of these funds went to the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab.
Thorpe and Rufo detailed their findings in a City Journal article appropriately titled The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer.
Their report began with an overview of the vast scope of Minnesota’s welfare system, which the authors argued had, by its very design, made the state especially susceptible to fraud.
Our investigation shows what happens when a tribal mindset meets a bleeding-heart bureaucracy, when imported clan loyalties collide with a political class too timid to offend, and when accusations of racism are cynically deployed to shield criminal behavior. The predictable result is graft, with taxpayers left to foot the bill.
If you were to design a welfare program to facilitate fraud, it would probably look a lot like Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program.
The report quoted former Minnesota State Sen. David Gaither, who said that when members of the Somali community come under legal scrutiny, they typically respond by alleging racial bias. He noted, “Even if the facts don’t point to that, it allows for many folks in the middle, or on the center-Left, to stay silent.”
Gaither believes the mainstream media, alongside Minnesota’s Democratic establishment, have long turned a blind eye to fraud within the Somali community. This, in turn, allowed the problem to metastasize. “The media does not want to put a light on this,” Gaither said. “And if you’re a politician, it’s a significant disadvantage for you to alienate the Somali community. If you don’t win the Somali community, you can’t win Minneapolis. And if you don’t win Minneapolis, you can’t win the state. End of story.”
Taken together, Kennedy’s remarks and the Manhattan Institute’s reporting point to the same disturbing conclusion: Minnesota’s fraud problem was not merely a failure of oversight, but a failure of political will. Warnings were raised, and evidence was gathered, but officials chose inaction over accountability, fearing backlash from the Somali community more than betrayal of the public trust.
When accusations of racism become a shield against scrutiny and electoral calculations override enforcement of the law, fraud is not just possible; it is inevitable. Taxpayers were left exposed, and criminals were emboldened.
Until political leaders are willing to confront wrongdoing without regard to identity politics or electoral pressure, Minnesota’s scandal will remain less a cautionary tale than a blueprint for how corruption is allowed to flourish in plain sight.
Kennedy’s full remarks can be viewed here.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
People were killed using the tax dollars of innocent Minnesotans. Innocent SOMALIANS even.
Why does catering to a foreign legion that got here two minutes ago more important for winning a major American city than making sure Americans DON’T FUND TERRORISM?
Why aren’t there people in JAIL? Why aren’t there even people IN THE STREET?
Hopefully this episode and others of Covid era demonstrate enough need to get basic reforms. For starters a broad application, enforcement and probably expanded definition of the ‘public charge’ rule prohibiting aliens from receiving and federal ‘welfare’ or assistance. Period. Then stop handing federal tax $ to NGOs/charities, all of them no exceptions. Revoke Social security # for non Citizens. Then require State/local gov’t to submit data name, address, DL/ID number, SSA # to Feds for all applicants/recipients of any program which receives Federal funding. Run the data v federal data from INS, IRS, State Dept, DoJ to find, locate, prosecute those ineligible or scamming the system. Deport the aliens. Finally make all Federal ‘welfare’ contingent on the household eligibility so that if Joe who is himself eligible allows Jane who isn’t eligible to to reside, ‘stay with’ him then Joe is ineligible. That stops the drain on taxpayers, removes incentives to scam, removes eligibility at household as well as individual eligibility. Puts US Citizens first.
Or, you know, stop funding welfare at the federal level. Then, half of what you say is needed disappears altogether.
Sounds good, though there’s probably only a couple dozen votes in HoR and far less in the Senate who’d sign onto such legislation and I suspect a few of those would flip if it looked like it might actually pass.
Democrats need to be RICOed out of existance.
The Dhimmi-crat neo-communist/Islamofascist party is a criminal racketeering organization, masquerading as a political party.
It’s not just Minnesota.
There are some strange things going on in the state of Rhode Island too, and I’m sure other states.
If our so called ‘representatives’ were term limited, it would be harder for them to be corrupted as easily as they are. The problem being they’re the ones that have to vote on term limits, and they’re not about to do that.
Where do we go from here? Ignore it? Maybe it will go away on its own?
There is a way to remove a person from (multiple) consecutive terms.
It is called the “ballot box,”
The fact of the matter is that when surveys are taken, people are for term limits but want their own representatives to be reelected over and over. When term limits were a really big discussion, the people of Massachusetts and Arizona were some of the most passionate for term limits – all the while repeatedly re-electing Ted Kennedy and John McCain.
Furthermore, term limits doesn’t stop corruption. It only limits the time frame in which corruption may take place.
If I am happy with my non-corrupt representative, doesn’t it deprive me of the representation I want because of a calendar?
In addition, there is no guarantee that a newly elected person to replace a person who was termed out is going to less corrupt than the predecessor.
Time limits don’t solve anything.
Smarter, more informed voters solve a myriad of issues.
If by insisting that laws are adhered to and those who violate them are held accountable makes me a racist then call me Nathan Bedford Forrest and give me a blue ribbon.
I don’t care, Margaret.
Throw them out. Throw them all out. And when they’ve been thrown out, throw them all out again. They don’t deserve to be our countrymen. They deserve to be shipped back to that hell on earth they came from.
And for those who allowed this to happen, from Walz to Ellison and anyone else involved, let’s prosecute them and once convicted, make sure they never see the light of day again.
Enough of this 🐂 💩.
I’d be ok with sending Walz, et Al, to Somalia.
You cannot drive in ANY large city in this country without dusky, little foreigners, driving their souped up little cars, running you off the road, blasting their speakers, running stop lights and tailgating. Meanwhile the police ignore them and give white retirees tickets for going 2 miles an hour over the speed limit.
Elderly people are unlikely to be carrying knives and firearms. Remember their top priorities to get home to their families at night. They hide behind the slogan of officer safety to make their jobs nice and easy.
I really think the country is headed for street justice and vigilantism that the right things are going.
Another needed change is emphasis of ‘Peace Officer v Law Enforcement Officer’. Meaning the first thing is to ‘keep the peace’ in our communities. Some vagrant druggie sprawled across the sidewalk, weirdos urinating in the aisle in the library, some rando defecating on the street, loud screaming/shouting, overturning tables/displays, throwing anything …those are not things associated with peace. The Police need to be empowered to confront, question, detain, and arrest these folks. Courts/Prosecutors can’t be trusted with discretion not to prosecute b/c they’ve abused it too often. Build out old school work camps to incarcerate these folks. Let them detox or work out their emotional impulse control issues out in the weather digging ditches, maintaining roads.
Every refugee, illegal alien, green carded seditious alien needs to be sent back to their homeland. I don’t care if your muslim, catholic, baptist, etc.. Get them out!! There needs to be non- stop flights out of Minneapolis full of Somalis as soon as possible. And I don’t want to hear about your anchor baby either. Take them with you and when that baby is of age they and only they can come back.
Mass migration from one country to another with an entirely different culture is doomed to fail. A tribal based Muslim culture is not going to be capable of assimilation into American culture.
Yep and we are getting run through here down under exactly like that. I hate gummint.
Start arresting these Democrats otherwise nothing g will change.
How long before something is done about these crooks? How long? Lack of evidence is a lame excuse at this point.
Well, why wouldn’t MN Democrats look the other way when federal dollars were being stolen? It wasn’t THEIR money.
thats a joke..right?????
Americans were stunned last month to learn that members of Minnesota’s Somali community had scammed state taxpayers out of hundreds of millions — possibly even billions — of dollars.
stunned b/c it was only millions??? maybe that
but not stunned at all b/c
the welfare state has been destroying america for over a century now and with the lefty takeover of america being made official in 1965 ….cemented into our dna
Its time for a Captain Phillups like reversal on the Somali Pirates.
Nothing of merit will happen. Nobody of importance will ever see the inside of a courtroom. You can’t vote your way out of this.
The historical precedent that’s relevant, here, is Obama’s “wingman,” the vile AG Holder, in conjunction with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, refusing to enforce federal law in a race-neutral manner, by prosecuting the “Black Panther” thugs who intimidated voters at a Philadelphia voting location, while dressed in paramilitary gear and brandishing truncheons.
Holder’s lame/despicable/unavailing excuse proffered before Congress, was that the voters at issue hadn’t suffered as much as black voters had, during the Civil Rights era — as if that was the allegedly proper metric by which to ensure that federal laws are enforced equally, without favor/disfavor, and, that they inure to the benefit of all Americans.
This shameful incident was the precedent and the warning signal for how Dhimmi-crat AG’s/prosecutors brazenly and indefensibly coddle criminal thugs “of color” and confer upon them special privileges/immunity from prosecution.
and they hired one of the thuggs
lefty is the animal
so the “somalis” of the uk groomed the young females and it was known by the local police but they too didnt want to lose votes//spend money on policing/risk their lives etc etc
on stopping them so they allowed all those young females to be ruined for life
and I dont think epstein was anywheres near the uk
its just what lefty does
fk ra pe and burn
Minnesota Nice. LOL
You know, it would be damning enough (a dereliction of duty) to have a state official say he wasn’t pressing an issue because it would result in negative press for the government.
But to have him come right out and say it was because it would result in negative press for DEMOCRATS is downright felonious,
Ah yes…those ‘defenders of democracy’ democrats showing once again why tens of millions of Americans absolutely despise them. They are always finding new ways to ‘buy votes’, and one of them is to let their ‘base’ rob the American taxpayers blind, as long as they keep voting democrat. The left is now beyond despicable.
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