Government malpractice in MN

A Star Tribune review of state and federal records shows that Minnesota officials provided federal authorities with little or no evidence that Feeding Our Future was misappropriating government funds.

The FBI had to build a case from scratch, obtaining records from “hundreds of bank accounts” and following the money to dozens of conspirators, according to search warrants filed in January. Those bank records led to indictments that laid out how millions of dollars meant to feed needy children was used to buy cars, jewelry and expensive real estate, with the perpetrators covering their tracks by submitting fake attendance sheets and phony invoices, according to court records.

The Attorney General’s Office has broad authority to conduct civil fraud investigations and could have initiated its own probe or demanded the nonprofit’s bank records before the feds stepped in. Ellison’s office began representing the Education Department in court when Feeding Our Future sued the department in November 2020 for blocking its expansion plans.

If Ellison’s office had used its investigative power to pull bank records, it could have found that the alleged conspirators paid at least $524,579 in bribes and laundered $3.2 million in program funds between July 2020 and March 2021, prior to the FBI’s involvement, according to a Star Tribune review of the federal indictments.