Free Republic

ringleader in Minnesota’s massive Feeding Our Future scandal has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to purchase a not-guilty verdict with a staggering $120,000 cash bribe. Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 37, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud for his role in the brazen plot to bribe a federal juror during his 2024 fraud trial, the Justice Department announced Friday. Farah had already been sentenced to 28 years in prison for helping steal tens of millions of dollars from a taxpayer-funded program intended to feed needy children during the COVID pandemic. But stealing from hungry...

In May 2024, the Biden administration announced that it was providing $220 million in aid to Yemen which the United States had been at war with since the start of that year. Even while the US Navy was engaged in what the Associated Press would describe next month as the “most intense combat since World War II” with Yemen’s Houthi Jihadists, the U.S. Mission to Yemen boasted of having provided “nearly $5.9 billion” in aid beginning with the Obama administration, of being “the largest donor of humanitarian assistance” and urged that “other donors must join us in stepping up” to...

🚨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

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...

If the Somali fraudsters produced a Netflix special, the title would be “C.R.E.A.M.: Cash Rules Everything Around Minnesota.” And the center of this fraudulent universe might very well be Ilhan Omar. Once a woman with negative net worth is now listed as a multimillionaire in Congress. How coincidental that this multi‑billion‑dollar fraud scandal detonated in her own district. Back in 2019, Omar’s financial disclosure looked like the starter pack of a millennial fresh outta college: more debt than dollars. Fast forward to 2024, and her household reports a combined net worth between $6 million and $30 million — a 3,500...

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....

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.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Tuesday that his agency is looking for “creative ways” to give public school students access to more meals, including a way to provide them breakfast, lunch and dinner year round. “We have focused on efforts to try to figure out ways in which we can expand in those time periods when youngsters may not have access to school meals,” Vilsack said in remarks at the liberal Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. That includes giving students access to meals “across the school day, across the school year and across the calendar year,” he...