Free Republic

Key points covered: Arrest of Alexander Soofer (former executive director of Abundant Blessings charity in California), charged with wire fraud for allegedly misusing ~$23 million in government funds meant for homeless housing and food to finance a lavish lifestyle (mansion, luxury vehicles, vacations, private school tuition). The arrest was announced by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California. Broader commentary links this to other alleged Democrat-connected frauds, including the Minnesota "Feeding Our Future" scandal (involving $250 million in child nutrition funds), where a convicted fraudster reportedly claims leaders like Gov. Tim Walz and AG Keith...

The Trump administration has justified its ongoing immigration crackdown in Minnesota by citing a need to curb fraud and pointing to a widening scandal involving members of the Somali American community. Yet prosecutors say the mastermind of the state's biggest fraud scheme to date was not Somali but a White woman — 45-year-old Aimee Bock. In an exclusive interview from her jail cell, Bock defended her conduct, admitted regrets and argued that state officials who she worked with should bear some of the blame. It was the first time Bock spoke publicly since she was arrested for her role in...

An Islamist radical recruited to Somalia from Minneapolis inspired the would-be “Texas Terror” killers, who were gunned down in Garland, Texas Sunday night by a sharp-shooting law enforcement officer before they could carry out their mass-murder plot at an art exhibit sponsored by First Amendment heroine Pamela Geller. It’s just the latest example of how and why Minneapolis—and specifically the congressional district of Muslim Democrat Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) —has become ground zero for the threat to the United States from Islamist terror groups such as ISIS and Al-Shabaab. ... The terrorist threat emanates from the Minneapolis neighborhood known as...

At least six career prosecutors in the Minneapolis U.S. Attorney's office — including Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson — have resigned as the office continues to face pressure to treat the investigation of the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE officer as an assault on a federal officer case. Thompson also previously served as the acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota; he was appointed by President Trump in June and served in the position until October. He resigned from the attorney's office along with Harry Jacobs, Melinda Williams, Thomas Calhoun-Lopez, Ruth Schneider and Tom Hollenhurst. Two sources familiar...

As the details of Minnesota’s widescale social services fraud blew up on social media over the Christmas holidays, it was hard to miss the contrast between the reaction of Republicans and Democrats. While Republicans were outraged, Democrats minimized and denied the very existence of the problem. With each new revelation of systemic fraud against the American taxpayer, we’re seeing a common denominator. Fraud protections have been deliberately bypassed in the pursuit of progressive political goals. Whether by incompetence or design, Democratic policies have turned the federal treasury into a piggy bank for fraudsters. American taxpayers have always been a fat...

At today's House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) about the fraud in Minnesota.

The founder of an infamous Minnesota-based nonprofit convicted of hatching a $250 million welfare fraud scheme was ordered by a judge last week to forfeit her Porsche, designer handbags and millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains. Aimee Bock, the 44-year-old mastermind behind the Feeding our Future scandal, was found guilty in March on federal charges of wire fraud, bribery and conspiracy in connection to the nation’s largest COVID-19 fraud scheme. Bock, who along with dozens of predominantly Somali co-conspirators pilfered pandemic relief funds from a federal program meant to feed hungry children in need, is awaiting sentencing for her lead...

Some of the Minnesota Somalians convicted in the Feeding Our Future scheme reportedly enjoyed luxurious lifestyles with money stolen from the federal government, the news coming as the state is under scrutiny regarding more alleged fraud. The fraudsters stole hundreds of millions of dollars in federal COVID relief money and apparently used it to fund lavish lifestyles and not feed needy children, the New York Post reported Saturday. Their rich lifestyles included condos, luxury cars, and real estate in Kenya, the outlet said, citing court documents. ne of those involved, 43-year-old Liban Yasin Alishire, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to...

Somali operators of daycare centers and other social services receiving tax dollars, many fraudulently, are also donating shares of their looted funds to the Democratic Party, say citizen journalists, and others. The New York Post, for instance, found that Minnesota Democrats were the happy recipients of $50,000 in campaign donations from many of the now convicted felons who ran the Somalian Feeding Our Future organization that stole some $250 million in Minnesota welfare funding. For another example, X user Cam Higby looked at some of the numbers in Washington State and found that 80 percent of all donations made by...

🚨HOLY CRAP🚨 My jaw is on the floor… Aimee Bock, the ringleader of the Feeding Our Future COVID fraud scheme, is listed as the contact for at least FORTY SEVEN taxpayer-funded "child cares" in Minnesota, according to an official state database. These locations must be investigated for potential further fraud @TheJusticeDept

Five of the 10 Somali daycare centers that were visited by Nick Shirley in his viral exposé on alleged fraud in Minnesota were also meal sites for the fraud-laden "Feeding Our Future" organization. The case surrounding fraud with "Feeding Our Future" has seen over 90 people charged and at least 60 people have been convicted. According to the Minnesota Star Tribune, half of the 10 daycare facilities that were visited by Shirley were also connected to Feeding Our Future as "meal sites." Altogether, the five daycare businesses got nearly $5 million from Feeding Our Future between 2018 and 2021. The...

I don’t know why Nick Shirley’s video has gotten so much attention. For the most part the attention is welcome, but it has engendered quite a few misunderstandings. The national commentary in the wake of Shirley’s video has been almost entirely ill-informed. Those who attack Shirley and try to undermine his video are missing the point. Whatever the merits of that video, there is absolutely zero doubt that there has been an enormous amount of fraud in Minnesota’s Somali community. Some of it relates to child care. In fact, child care fraud came to light a decade or more ago....

Embattled Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband’s venture capital firm quietly scrubbed key officer details — including former Obama officials — as scrutiny grows over the family’s skyrocketing wealth, The Post has learned. Omar (D-MN) went from nearly broke to being worth up to $30 million in just a year — as a massive, up to $9 billion fraud scheme involving the Somali community in her district unfolded right under her nose in Minnesota. Close to 90 people have been charged so far, including at least three with direct ties to the lefty Squad member, though she has not been charged. It...

Years before Minnesota welfare fraud captured the nation’s attention, a Somali-American leader of one massive scheme expanded his assets beyond the North Star State, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, a Somali-born naturalized U.S. citizen, used some of his ill-gotten gains to buy property throughout the Twin Cities and Kentucky before the DOJ prosecuted him for using the nonprofit Feeding Our Future to defraud the government of $300 million in COVID-19 relief meant for hungry children, leading to a 28-year prison sentence in August. There are at least 1,687 people of Somali descent living in Kentucky....

Posted on December 27, 2025 by Bill Glahn in Crime, Illegal immigration, Judiciary Rule No. 4 I spent countless hours in 2025 sitting in the back of federal courtrooms in Minnesota observing two types of cases play out: illegal immigration and welfare fraud. The one thing that both had in common was the application of Saul Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals Rule No. 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” It’s a distillation of the Cloward-Piven “overwhelm the system” strategy. Federal bureaucracy was designed to handle a system where we had a few thousand illegal immigrants...

Independent journalist Nick Shirley released a viral video on December 26, 2025, documenting visits to several state-funded daycare centers in Minneapolis. These centers, many catering to the Somali immigrant community, were found empty during operational hours, with no children present and signs of disuse, despite receiving substantial public funding through Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). Shirley’s investigation has uncovered over $110 million in suspicious payments in a single day, building on prior scandals like the Feeding Our Future fraud. The revelations have fueled criticism of Democratic Governor Tim Walz, with Republicans like Rep. Tom Emmer demanding answers and linking...

Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Attorney General, can clearly be heard pledging his support to individuals who would soon become his family’s campaign donors and later Feeding Our Future criminal defendants. His recorded statements flatly contradict his contemporaneous public statements and raise uncomfortable questions about the intersection between political fundraising and constituent services. American Experiment has exclusively obtained the complete 54-minute, 44-second audio file of a private December 2021 meeting between state Attorney General (AG) Keith Ellison and key figures in the Feeding Our Future scandal. As I wrote last week, the audio file was named as Exhibit 710 on the evidence...

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s defense of Somalia’s territorial claims and her opposition to the recognition of an independent Somaliland has been criticized as authorities ramp up investigations into alleged mass fraud in her home state. One analyst argued the corruption scandal allegedly involving Somali communities in Minnesota is relevant when contrasting failures in Somalia and the stability of Somaliland, an autonomous region that Omar has opposed recognizing. Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, claimed highlighting the difference between the two regions "mattered." "The corruption exposed in Minnesota mirrors the governance failures that have plagued Somalia for decades,"...

The Bishop of the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Reverend Jen Nagel, has released a statement, “For the Dignity of Our Neighbors,’ defending Somali immigrants and criticizing ICE amid the backdrop of the Minnesota Frand Scandal. The Minnesota fraud scandals, primarily the Feeding Our Future case, involve the theft of approximately $300 million (with broader losses estimated to be nearly $1 billion) from federal child nutrition and social service programs during the COVID-19 era through fake meal sites, shell companies, and fraudulent claims. Furthermore, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson recently speculated that fraud...

The alleged "mastermind" behind Minnesota’s $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scandal tied to the Somali community is accused of wielding extraordinary power through threats and what the government described as "fake claims of racism." Aimee Bock, who founded the Feeding Our Future nonprofit in 2016, used her growing authority to silence dissent, discourage scrutiny from state regulators and cut off operators who refused to comply, prosecutors said. While other defendants splurged on luxury homes, cars and overseas property, prosecutors said, Bock instead controlled the levers of approval and reimbursement that allowed the scheme to flourish.