The administration of MN Gov. Tim Walz went out of their way to praise the help given by Feeding Our Future (FOF), the free-food fraudsters, amidst the Afghan refugee crisis in the fall of 2021.
You may recall that Minnesota sought to take a leading role in resettling refugees from the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. From MPR News,
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is extending a welcome mat for refugees from Afghanistan.
In a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday, Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan offered to work with the federal government to continue Minnesota’s history of welcoming refugees by assisting with the resettlement of people fleeing Afghanistan.
In fact, during the one-year period from September 2021 to September 2022, the Walz administration reported taking in more than 1,300 Afghan refugees.
Apparently, the state Dept. of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) played some role in the refugee effort. At the time, DEED was headed by Commissioner Steve Grove, who would later go on to become publisher of the Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper.
A lot of fuss has been made recently about Exhibit 710 from Aimee Bock’s defense exhibits in the recent courtroom trial where she was found guilty on all charges. Exhibit 710 is an audio recording of a meeting between MN Attorney General Keith Ellison and several individuals involved in the Feeding Our Future scandal. Heard on the recording leading the discussion is Abshir Omar, a Feeding Our Future consultant. Omar himself has never been accused of any wrongdoing in the case. The tape was never introduced during the trial of Feeding’s founder and CEO, Bock.
Exhibit 711 (published here), also not introduced at trial, includes an exchange of emails between Abshir Omar and a DEED Asst. Commissioner Anisa Hajimumin, the head of the agency’s Immigrant and Refugee Affairs effort.
I previously documented how Anisa’s position at DEED was funded by a private corporation headquartered in California.
She would eventually leave DEED to work for a nonprofit, Somali Community Resettlement Services (SCRS). The nonprofit SCRS itself has been linked to the Feeding Our Future scandal. Neither Anisa, nor anyone else from SCRS, has been accused of any wrongdoing in the case.
But, what we are left with is a state government official, appointed by Tim Walz and Steve Grove, praising the work of Feeding Our Future and Amy Bock. At the time (Oct. 2021), Feeding Our Future was under active investigation by the FBI and locked in a death struggle with another state agency, the Dept. of Education.
It should be noted that Steve Grove’s Star Tribune has yet to cover the story of the Keith Ellison/FOF audio recording, despite significant coverage from KARE-11, WCCO, Fox 9 and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Curious.