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...

NEW: Multiple sources tell me & colleague David Spunt that the federal magistrate in Minnesota who refused to sign off on an arrest warrant for Don Lemon is Douglas L. Micko and that his wife works as an Assistant Attorney General in Minnesota AG Keith Ellison's office.

(RNS) — Leaders of Cities Church, the Minneapolis congregation whose worship service was disrupted by anti-ICE protesters, are considering legal action against the activists, saying the group that invaded the church on Sunday (Jan. 18) “jarringly disrupted our worship gathering.” In a statement issued Tuesday, the church leaders said the protesters “accosted members of our congregation, frightened children, and created a scene marked by intimidation and threat. Such conduct is shameful, unlawful, and will not be tolerated. Invading a church service to disrupt the worship of Jesus — or any other act of worship — is protected by neither the...

He’s making America safe again. President Trump lauded the work of his “patriot” ICE agents as he flashed mugshots of some of the most heinous illegal immigrant criminals the administration has rounded up in Minnesota for deportation — the “worst of the worst” among the thousands arrested in the last year. “These are all from one state — out of many,” Trump marveled at a White House press briefing marking the first full year of his second term in the White House. “Many of them murderers … do you want to live with these people?” the president asked as he...

Nolte: According to Democrats It’s Okay to Storm a Mosque During Worship Service. Democrats, including a state attorney general, are all over the media saying it’s okay for protesters to storm a mosque during a religious service. Obviously, they are not saying that in those precise words. But when a scumbag attorney general like Keith Ellison (D-MN) says that anti-ICE/pro-rapist-murderer-child-molester protesters storming a Christian church during services for the express purpose of disrupting and intimidating attendees is “First Amendment activity,” he’s saying it’s okay to storm a mosque to disrupt an Islamic worship service.

A "racial equity" and "restorative justice" nonprofit funded by Minnesota taxpayers is calling for donations to a new bail fund that’s helping free anti-ICE agitators and illegal immigrants detained in Minneapolis. The Legal Rights Center, which Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison led for five years, is promoting the People’s Bail Fund of Minnesota through Know Your Rights MN, a Legal Rights Center project that provides legal information and resources for activists. The project’s website was updated Thursday to include a link to the bail fund, which only secured nonprofit status last week and is actively "accepting requests for ICE protest...

Somewhere out there in the great cosmos, Saul Alinsky is cackling with glee over the way Democrats are providing top cover for the commie radicals running roughshod over the rule of law in Minnesota. The latest elected official to earn Alinsky's approval, while also making a mockery of law and order, is Minnesota's Attorney General himself, Democrat Keith Ellison. Ellison, who is Muslim and the top law enforcement officer in the state, appeared Monday on Don Lemon's livestream to discuss the Sunday ambush of services at Cities Church in St. Paul by a horde of anti-ICE agitators. Lemon, it should...

00:30:30 AMNA NAWAZ: I also want to put to you another piece of news today. We heard from the Border Patrol, Bovino, who said on FOX the Department of Justice is also sending additional prosecutors to Minnesota to process those immigration cases. What's your reaction to that? KEITH ELLISON: Well, I mean, quite honestly, I mean, it -- I'm not shocked, 00:31:09 because the -- President Trump is making sure that he is targeting our state, which is odd because we are not a state that has the most immigration in America. Many other states have dramatically higher rates of...

🚨 BREAKING: Stephen Miller just declared that Tim Walz, Mayor Frey, and Keith Ellison are committing an INSURRECTION with their obstruction of federal law enforcement TOTALLY AGREE! Invoke the INSURRECTION ACT, and TAKE BACK CONTROL in Minneapolis! 🔥

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is facing new scrutiny over a 2021 audio recording of him meeting with members of the Somali community who would soon be convicted of defrauding millions of dollars in taxpayer money. In the recording, now obtained by Fox News, the would-be fraudsters can be heard asking Ellison to help them secure more funding, before the conversation then turns to campaign donations. "The only way that we can protect what we have is by inserting ourselves into the political arena. Putting our votes where it needs to be. But most importantly, putting our dollars in the...

The ongoing Somali fraud scandal has brought an end to Governor Tim Walz’s political career in Minnesota. He announced this morning that he will not seek a third term. Here is Walz’s full statement via KTTC: In September, I announced that I would run for a historic third term as Minnesota’s Governor. And I have every confidence that, if I gave it my all, I would succeed in that effort. But as I reflected on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all....

“The left can act with an insane decentralized unanimity typically seen only in the insect kingdom.” —Curtis Yarvin. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, flummoxed.All winters are winters of discontent, but some winters are more discontented than others, and this one is like being stuck in a smoke-filled sod hut on the lonely prairie, with lice crawling under your hair-shirt, while a sleet-storm rages outside. . . . And it was only just Christmas days ago! Immigrants, legal and otherwise, are the gifts that keep on giving. Minnesota is acting all indignant now over the discovery that its many thousands of Somali...

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...

A federal jury in Minneapolis Wednesday convicted Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and former restaurant owner Salim Said on charges of wire fraud and bribery in a trial that followed a lengthy investigation into an alleged scheme to fleece taxpayers out of $250 million by exploiting government child nutrition programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jurors deliberated about five hours before finding Bock, 44, guilty on all seven counts. They convicted Said, 36, of all 21 charges, which also included five counts of money laundering. U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel ordered Bock and Said jailed and did not set a...

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....

A Minnesota mom lost her breath and had to abruptly end her speech during a press conference on Wednesday that was organized after President Donald Trump’s administration paused federal child care funding. The Department of Health and Human Services announced earlier on Wednesday that it was freezing all child care funding after independent journalist and YouTuber Nick Shirley reported that several Minnesota daycare centers were empty and appeared to be inactive — despite receiving millions of taxpayer dollars. A department official told ABC News it would release the funds “only when states prove they are being spent legitimately.” In response,...

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...

The attorney general of Minnesota has identified the culprits responsible for all the car thefts in his state. And the culprit is the car manufacturers of course.

Senator John Kennedy reads an internal memo from the Minnesota Attorney General's office They openly say they did not stop the Somalia immigrant fraud because Democrats would lose votes “Here's what a fraud investigator in the Attorney General's office said. She said, There is a perception that I'm quoting now, that forcefully tackling this issue would cause political backlash from the Somali community, which is a core voting block for Democrats” Seriously, how are Democrats not getting raided and thrown in prison

Most people don't know the real story behind Ilhan Omar, Keith Ellison and the Islamo-Communists that have destroyed Minnesota. Why? Because the influencers and fake news feed information to us in bits and pieces for maximum outrage, clicks and cash - so we never grasp the whole picture. That’s by design.