Committee report: Feeding Our Future

Feeding Our Future Hearing Date: April 21, 202632

Background:

Feeding Our Future is the largest COVID-era fraud scheme in America. The story reads like a movie script, with powerful politicians enabling a $250 million dollar scam while claiming to help feed needy children. It features Attorney General Keith Ellison caught on tape promising to help the fraudsters; Congresswoman Ilhan Omar actively promoting the waivers that led to the fraud while shooting a video at the largest fraud site; and Governor Tim Walz caught lying about a Judge’s order. It also must be said that the fraud, based on evidence to date, was primarily committed by Somali Americans in their own community.

This is an important fact because failure to admit this was largely an issue in the Somali community was one of the reasons it was allowed to continue. Whistleblowers were afraid to speak up for fear of being called “racist” or “Islamophobic.” Indeed, the fraudsters sued the Dept. of Education and accused them of being racist for not approving new site applications as quickly as the criminals wanted.

While we certainly should not be afraid to say this fraud scheme was mostly in the Somali community, the ringleader, Aimee Bock, was not Somali and some of our best whistleblowers have been Somali. There are many people in the community who want to stop the fraud. Both things are true and we must not shy away from the truth for political correctness or convenience.

The lessons learned from Feeding Our Future have relevance far beyond the federal school nutrition program from which it stems. Understanding the genesis and the “business model” will help us understand the broader fraud picture in Minnesota and America.

This so-called “business model” involves creating a non-profit or an LLC, signing up a large number of (often fictitious) clients, claiming that these clients were served every day regardless of actual service provision or physical capacity, and then replicating the model across multiple sites and programs.

We decided it was important to examine the Feeding Our Future scam to better understand this business model and determine what role public officials may have played in the creation of this scheme, many of whom have yet to face accountability.

Note: The Committee sent multiple invitations asking Rep. Ilhan Omar to testify so that we could ask her questions about her role in the waiver of regulations in the federal school nutrition programs (CACFP and SFSP), as well as her relationship to multiple defendants in the case. She has not answered our requests. Attorney General Keith Ellison was also invited and he publicly posted a letter declining to attend.

32 YouTube video, House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee 4/21/26.

Finding: Feeding Our Future was born out of the CCAP fraud. If the Walz Administration had not closed DHS’s criminal investigation unit for CCAP fraud, Feeding Our Future may not have happened.

As Jay Swanson testified, when the Walz Administration closed the unit doing criminal investigations of childcare (CCAP) fraud, they removed the deterrent. Criminals were not afraid of administrative sanctions – they could simply open up a new daycare under a different name/owner and keep billing the state.

The group that formed to lobby against strong internal controls in the CCAP program was the Minnesota Minority Child Care Association (MMCCA) They were politically connected. Their lobbyist was a former Congressional staffer for Keith Ellison before he became Attorney General, and they had a great deal of influence in the clan-based Somali community. At least two of the leaders of MMCCA were later charged in the Feeding Our Future case.

This group, who laid the groundwork politically for the CCAP fraud, took advantage of the new “business opportunity” to establish meal sites during COVID and realized that this was, in fact, much easier. Rather than billing for 100 or 200 kids in a childcare center, they could bill for thousands of meals every day, and no one would attempt to verify.

The failure to stop CCAP Fraud lead directly to the explosion of fraud that followed – not only in Feeding our Future, but in other Medicaid-funded programs as described in this report.

Finding: Feeding our Future created the template and business model for the large-scale fraud schemes that have plagued Minnesota since 2020.

Feeding Our Future (FOF) was a Minnesota nonprofit that served as a site sponsor for federal meal programs like the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), submitting reimbursement claims through the Minnesota Department of Education. The organization was founded in 2016 by Aimee Bock following her employment with a similar site sponsor for federal meal programs, Partners in Nutrition.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization expanded rapidly, overseeing hundreds of meal sites and claiming tens of millions of dollars per month, far more than other sponsors throughout the state. This growth should have raised concerns about the oversight and accuracy of its claims, but the Minnesota Department of Education raised no significant concerns, and continuously funded FOF’s claims.

Before the pandemic, these programs had some built-in controls that naturally limited abuse to some extent. Meals typically had to be consumed on-site at a school or non-profit, participation was tied to the student’s physical presence, and oversight relied in part on site visits and direct observation.

During the pandemic, with the March 2020 passage of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s MEALS Act in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, most of those safeguards were waived, ostensibly to ensure children could still access food while schools and community programs were disrupted.

Rep. Omar’s MEALS Act allowed meals to be distributed as “grab-and-go,” or taken off-site, and in some cases provided in bulk. States could also remove income eligibility and allow a broader range of organizations, including restaurants, to participate.

These changes had a major operational impact, including shifting the system further toward self- reported data. Instead of verifying meals through physical attendance, the system relied even more heavily on paperwork, meal counts, rosters, and invoices submitted by sponsors, sites and food vendors. To make matters worse, the state largely abandoned in-person site visits during the COVID pandemic.

In 2022, federal prosecutors charged dozens of individuals connected to Feeding Our Future in a large-scale fraud scheme involving false meal claims and misuse of funds. To date, federal prosecutors have indicted 79 defendants for stealing more than $250 million dollars, making it the largest pandemic-related fraud case in the country.

Note: From OLA Special Review, “Minnesota Department of Education: Oversight of Feeding Our Future.”

Finding: Representative Ilhan Omar played a critical role in creating the conditions for fraud in the federal nutrition programs by passing the MEALS Act, which took the guardrails off the program, including allowing restaurants to become meal sites.

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s MEALS Act (H.R. 6187)33 was enacted as part of the larger Families First Coronavirus Response Act (H.R. 6201) in March 2020. The MEALS Act allowed states to use waivers for extra flexibility during COVID. These waivers were originally set to expire on August 31, 2020.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the program at the federal level, claimed they did not have the authority to extend the waivers. But in September,

33 Office of Rep. Ilhan Omar, “Representative Omar Introduces Bill to Protect Access to School Meals During School Closures,” Mar. 11, 2020.

2020, Rep. Omar and other Members of Congress urged USDA to extend the waivers, arguing that the Families First Coronavirus Response bill authorized them to do so.34 The following month, a Continuing Resolution (CR) was passed that extended the waivers. Most of the waivers later expired during 2022. Timeline of Key Events: • March 2020: Congress passes Rep. Omar proposal to create waivers in federal school nutrition programs • 2020–2021 school years: Full flexibility extended by Rep. Omar and Congress • November 20, 2020: Feeding Our Future sues MN Dept. of Education (MDE) • December 11, 2021: AG Ellison meets with Feeding Our Future fraudsters about MDE • January 2022: First FBI raids in Feeding Our Future Case • Spring 2022: Congress declines to extend most broad waivers • June 30, 2022 -- Most nationwide waivers expire, including the end of:

During the waiver period, which saw a steep decline in program oversight, multiple individuals connected to Rep. Omar enriched themselves by defrauding the federal school nutrition programs.

Due to Rep. Omar’s failure to attend the hearing, despite multiple invitations, the Committee played a video in which she said, in her own words, how successful the MEALS Act had been. The video, which was made for Somali TV, was filmed at the Safari Restaurant and promoted the restaurant as a meal site.

Safari Restaurant had the highest reimbursements of all of the food sites in the Feeding Our Future program, receiving over $12 million in reimbursements. A transcription of Rep. Omar’s comments, translated from the original Somali in the video, is shown below:

Rep. Omar: “We got a chance to create a law called the MEALS Act that makes it easy in this time of a pandemic for those kids who aren’t in school, who are at home, don’t starve. So their families could get a chance to get food and go to those places where food is being given out. So I’m very thankful for Safari for being part of those places where food is being given out. Also, for making food every day and helping those kid’s families in need of food. Each day, Safari gives

34 Office of Rep. Ilhan Omar, “Rep. Omar Statement on Extension of MEALS Act Provisions,” Sept. 26, 2020. 35 Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, “For Two Years, Attorney General Ellison’s Office Has Held Feeding Our Future Accountable,” Sept. 26, 2022.

out 2,300 families and kids meals. That’s a very important thing. A lot of kids live in hunger in this country, or their families don’t have a way to feed them. So, for them to be able to find lunch is good especially in this month of Ramadan where a lot of families don’t have jobs, who don’t have any other source of income. For them not to worry about how they’ll feed their kids is important. So, I’ll thank places like Safari and those who came to volunteer for those families in need.”36

In addition to creating the conditions for fraud and having filmed a video at Safari Restaurant, Rep. Omar had a number of direct ties with the Feeding Our Future case:

the case were listed among the trial exhibits in the case US v. Bock.39 Finding: Despite Governor Walz’s initial claim to the contrary, it is highly likely that the Minnesota Dept. of Education (MDE) decided to continue Feeding our Future in April of 2021 despite significant evidence of fraud.

In a 2024 report, the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) found that the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) provided inadequate oversight of Feeding Our Future, which created opportunities for fraud to occur and expand.40 The report concluded that both MDE’s actions and inactions contributed to the conditions that allowed the scheme to grow, especially during the rapid expansion of federal nutrition programs in the COVID-19 period.

The audit determined that MDE had received multiple warning signs for years, including complaints, prior compliance issues, and unusually large growth in meal claims. Despite these red flags, the department continued approving applications and reimbursements tied to Feeding Our Future and its network. MDE often relied on information provided by the organization rather than independently verifying claims or escalating enforcement actions.

36 YouTube video, House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee 4/21/26. 37 MSN, “Ilhan Omar Staffer Pleads Guilty in Fraud Case,” accessed May 10, 2026. 38 Bill Glahn, “History Between Ilhan Omar and Safari Restaurant Goes Back Years,” Center of the American Experiment, Feb. 3, 2022. 39 5/5/2026 Committee Document “Legislative Subpoena.” 40 Office of the Legislative Auditor, Minnesota Department of Education: Oversight of Feeding Our Future, Special Review, June 13, 2024.

A central issue in the report is MDE’s claim that it lacked authority to stop payments. MDE argued that federal rules, along with ongoing litigation from Feeding Our Future, limited its ability to deny or delay reimbursements. The Department had been sued by Feeding Our Future for what they perceived as failure to process new site applications in a timely manner, citing racism as one of the factors. In April 2021, a court order required MDE to resume processing applications for meal sites, but never required them to resume payments.

The judge who ruled in this case directly contradicted claims by Gov. Walz and the MDE commissioner who attempted to deflect accountability by saying that the court had ordered MDE to resume payments.

In a highly unusual public statement about a case, Judge Guthmann’s press release stated: “As the public court record and Judge Guthmann’s orders make plain, Judge Guthmann never issued an order requiring the MN Department of Education to resume food reimbursement payments to FOF. The Department of Education voluntarily resumed payments and informed the court that FOF resolved the “serious deficiencies” that prompted it to suspend payments temporarily. All of the MN Department of Education food reimbursement payments to FOF were made voluntarily, without any court order.”41

The OLA concluded that MDE could have taken earlier and stronger actions such as:

The OLA emphasized that MDE did not fully use the oversight tools available to the agency.42 At the Committee’s hearing on Feeding Our Future, the Committee tried to ascertain who made the decision to continue payments to Feeding Our Future, despite clear indicators of fraud. In what we can conclude was a decision to evade answering that question, MDE sent a representative to the Committee who was not employed by the Department during the period in question. This decision led to the following:

Rep. Schultz: “It is difficult given that the agencies, the Attorney General who is representing the agencies, didn’t send us people here today to share what happened. They are sending us someone who came onboard in 2024 for things that happened in 2021. That’s the attorney who represented the agency, it is the agency staff themselves not here today. Frankly, this is an example of the Executive Branch standing in the way of the Legislative Branch and the oversight responsibilities we duly have.”

41 Minnesota Judicial Branch, “Feeding Our Future v. Minnesota Department of Education: Correcting Media Reports and Statements by Governor Tim Walz Concerning Orders Issued by the Court,” Sept. 23, 2022. 42 Office of the Legislative Auditor, Minnesota Department of Education: Oversight of Feeding Our Future, Special Review, June 13, 2024.

Rep. Schultz and other members of the Committee proceeded to ask several questions of MDE Deputy Commissioner Hulden, who joined the agency in 2024 and had been sent by the agency to testify.

Rep. Schultz: “Who made the decision?”

Deputy Commissioner Hulden: “MDE made the decision to stop the payments. Like I said, Judge Guthmann indicated that he did not believe we had the authority to do stop payments and welcomed a procedural move by FOF to get the issue in front of him so he could address it directly.”

Chair Robbins: “The Governor at the time said that the judge had ordered them to stop payments and the judge issued a very rare statement saying that is not what he said. I just want that to be clear for the public that the judge did not order the stop payments.”

Rep. Schultz: “That’s why it’s important to know who made the decision. At the end of the day, as Minnesotans seek accountability, we need to know who made the decision. Was it the Governor himself who decided for these payments to continue amidst these fraud allegations? We have yet to get that answer and were sent people who weren’t even there when it happened.”

Rep. Anderson: “MDE would never make a decision like that without contacting and getting complete clarity from the Governor’s office, at least in every administration I know. I have a copy of the stipulation agreement. They went to court ultimately over this, that they (FOF) weren’t doing what they said they would do within the stipulation agreement. Do you know who helped negotiate this (the stipulation agreement)? Was it the Attorney General’s office?”

Deputy Commissioner Hulden: “If there is a legal matter that were engaged in, that’s involved in litigation, The AG’s office serves as our council.”

Rep. Anderson: “I assumed that, was that (continuing payments to FOF) at the advice of the Attorney General?”

Deputy Commissioner Hulden: “This is not going to be a satisfactory answer, but how certain decisions about litigation are made between counsel and a client are subject to attorney-client privilege. So the kinds of ins and outs, A. I wasn’t there, but B. I wouldn’t be able to get into it.”

Chair Robbins: “I’m sorry, that is not true. Just for the record, MDE has the authority to waive the privilege. The privilege is yours to waive. The Attorney General cannot waive the privilege, you may waive the privilege, and back on September 27th of 2022, then-Leader Kurt Daudt called on MDE to waive the privilege so we could get answers to these questions back then. You cannot hide behind attorney-client privilege in this hearing. You can waive the privilege at any point.”

Despite the Committee’s efforts, the Walz Administration continues to refuse to answer the direct question of who decided to continue paying Feeding Our Future. Based on this refusal, we can only conclude that the decision was made by Executive Branch officials still in office today.

Finding: Attorney General Keith Ellison has made contradictory statements about his role in the Feeding Our Future case. Although he testified before the Committee in April 2025, he declined to testify in 2026, thus failing to provide transparency and accountability for his conflicting statements. On September of 2022, when the first indictments were announced by the US Attorney in the Feeding Our Future case, AG Ellison issued a press release to try to take credit for playing a significant role in the federal investigations and indictments.43

AG Ellison Press Release: “Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and his office have been deeply involved for two years in holding Feeding Our Future accountable. The Attorney General’s Office worked closely with the Minnesota Department of Education as they provided suspicions of fraud and other evidence and information to the FBI, which directly led to the federal investigation and indictments of Feeding Our Future and its founder Aimee Bock. Without the Attorney General’s involvement alongside MDE in flagging that fraud and turning it over to the criminal investigative power of the federal government, there would likely have been no federal investigation or indictments….

MDE and Attorney General Ellison’s office brought their suspicions of fraud to the FBI and fully cooperated with the investigation that they jump-started (bold added)..”44

This statement contradicts his statements made to Feeding Our Future fraudsters in a meeting he had with them on December 11, 2021, and also contradicts his testimony before our Committee on April 28, 2025.45

Feeding Our Future had sued the Minnesota Department of Education on November 20, 2020, accusing the Department of racism for failing to approve its meal site applications fast enough. As was confirmed by MDE in our hearing on April 21, 2026, AG Ellison’s office was defending MDE in this lawsuit, so he would have certainly been aware of it by the time he met with the Feeding Our Future fraudsters over a year later.

We held a hearing on April 28, 2025 to investigate an audio recording of a meeting between AG Ellison and several people involved in Feeding Our Future on December 11, 2021, just weeks before the FBI raids made the investigation of Feeding Our Future public.

At our that hearing, AG Ellison claimed he only “learned of the FBI’s involvement” in investigating Feeding Our Future after he returned to his office after the December 11, 2021

43 Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, “For Two Years, Attorney General Ellison’s Office Has Held Feeding Our Future Accountable,” Sept. 26, 2022. 44 Ibid. 45 Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, presentation of the Attorney General’s Office, testimony of Attorney General Keith Ellison, Apr. 28, 2025.

meeting and was briefed by his staff.46 This directly contradicts the press release he issued in September, 2022, where he claimed he had been “deeply involved” for two years.47

In the audio recording from the December 11, 2021 meeting,48 AG Ellison also claimed he was unaware of the issues being raised by the fraudsters, including that MDE was not approving site sponsorships and attempting to withhold payments in some cases. This was either a lie or shocking ignorance – as Attorney General, he and his office had been defending MDE against Feeding Our Future since they first filed their lawsuit against the Department back in November, 2020 – more than a year earlier.

According to a report,49 “At 30:38, Ellison interrupts, saying, “This is the first I’m really hearing about it.” At 37:08, Ellison says, “This has not come to my attention until now.”

These private statements in December 2021 completely contradict his September 2022 press release and his office’s on-going defense of the Dept. of Education.

Despite serving as Defense Counsel to MDE in the lawsuit since November 2020, when he met with the fraudsters who were suing his client, MDE, in December 2021, Attorney General Ellison said to the fraudsters, “let’s go fight these people,” meaning his own client.50

Clearly, the Committee had questions for Attorney General Ellison about these contradictory statements and the Committee expressed frustration that he declined to attend the hearing. It defies reason that he could be representing MDE in a lawsuit against the Department by Feeding Our Future and then pretend to have no knowledge of the case when he meets with them privately, against the interests of his client, months later.

Minnesotans demand and deserve transparency and accountability from elected officials.

Finding: AG Ellison has not pursued all of the civil remedies available to hold fraudsters accountable and recover taxpayer dollars.

Despite claiming in his letter declining to attend our hearing in April 2026 that he had no prosecutorial power in the Feeding Our Future case, later in the same letter he states that he had a prior commitment: “a trial that is beginning tomorrow, April 21 — the very day of the hearing at which you have invited me to testify — my office is beginning a civil trial against Emadeldin Ibrahim, who we allege defrauded the State by claiming to provide meals to children in 2020

46 Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, presentation of the Attorney General’s Office, testimony of Attorney General Keith Ellison, Apr. 28, 2025.18:31 47 Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, “For Two Years, Attorney General Ellison’s Office Has Held Feeding Our Future Accountable,” Sept. 26, 2022. 48 https://files.americanexperiment.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/D1-710-2021.12.11-Keith-Ellison- New_Recording_37.m4a?v=1744144670&_gl=1*yx3ylx*_gcl_au*MTUxMzU1NDE5Ny4xNzc4NDYxMDE2 49 Bill Glahn, “Keith Ellison Caught on Tape in Recording of Conversation with Feeding Our Future Figures,” Alpha News, Apr. 9, 2025. 50 Bill Glahn, “Feeding Our Future: Keith Ellison Caught on Tape!,” Center of the American Experiment, Apr. 9, 2025.

that we will prove he did not. This is a civil trial under the False Claims Act, not a criminal trial.”

The Attorney General’s ability to pursue civil action against fraudsters is exactly what the Committee was interested in learning about. The key question is why didn’t Attorney General Ellison use that same civil authority to go after Partners in Nutrition (PIN) aka Partners in Quality Care (PIQC), Feeding Our Future, or Gar Gaar Family Services aka Youth Leadership Academy – all site sponsors in the food nutrition scandal.

Gar Gaar Family Services, which has been accused of defrauding taxpayers of $23 million, was “dissolved” by the AG’s Office, but the assets were required to be transferred to another non- profit. Parter in Nutrition (PIN), which bilked taxpayers for $250 million – as much as Feeding Our Future - was not dissolved, but merely prohibited from future participation in federal nutrition programs. Even if criminal charges have not been filed against these entities, why were civil remedies not pursued?

When we first posed these questions to AG Ellison in our April 28, 2025 hearing, he and his staff declined to provide details on these cases.51 The Committee had intended to press for additional details but could not as AG Ellison declined to attend the 2026 hearing.

The Committee heard testimony from Bill Glahn, a Policy Fellow with the Center of the American Experiment, who has extensively tracked and covered fraud in Minnesota. Mr. Glahn explained that the Attorney General’s office has taken minimal action against the criminals in the Feeding Our Future scheme: Mr. Glahn: “I can’t find another example where the Attorney General has sued a food vendor for misspending or misappropriating, but clearly he has the power to civilly go after vendors for recovery of dollars that were taken out of the food program.”

Due to Attorney General Ellison’s absence, the Committee was unable to further question actions taken by his office to hold fraudsters accountable or reclaim stolen public funds.

Finding: Individuals affiliated with Feeding Our Future continue to federal receive payments for CCAP services:

The federal prosecution of individuals involved in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme has revealed that nearly all of the top food sites in the program were fraudulent. While a large number of food site operators have already been charged, many more are likely still under investigation, and many of them continue to bill the government for other services in the meantime.

The Committee analyzed the 323 food sites sponsored by Feeding Our Future and focused in on taxpayer-funded child care centers. Of the Feeding Our Future food sites, the Committee identified 69 licensed childcare centers that have billed Minnesota for CCAP. 31 of these

51 Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, presentation of the Attorney General’s Office, testimony of Attorney General Keith Ellison, Apr. 28, 2025.

daycares continue to remain licensed and eligible to receive state money at the time of the hearing.

Summary:

Feeding our Future is not only the nation’s largest COVID-era fraud scheme, but it also exposed the mismanagement and negligence of Minnesota’s political elite. At least three leading Minnesota politicians, Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Representative Ilhan Omar played critical roles in creating and enabling the Feeding our Future fraud scheme.

Their negligence and, at times, outright support for the fraudsters, created a permission structure for future wrongdoers. The result was a climate where a fraud expanded exponentially and Minnesotans will paying for this malfeasance for a generation.

Next Page: CCAP funded Feeding Our Future food sites.

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