Minnesota
Feeding Our Future: Minnesota AG Ellison faces GOP questioning
Ellison answers tape recording questions
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison faced the Republican-dominated House fraud committee on Monday, answering questions about the $250 million pandemic era Feeding Our Future fraud.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) – Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison faced the Republican-dominated House fraud committee Monday to answer questions about Feeding Our Future.
Feeding Our Fraud
AG on tape:
The GOP has called a recently released recording “disturbing” – saying Ellison offered support for criminal defendants in the country’s largest pandemic scam.
A month before the FBI raided the Feeding Our Future headquarters, at least a few of its fraudsters had a meeting with Ellison.
“We need you in this fight with us,” the group implored Ellison in December 2021.
The group identified as the Minnesota Minority Business Association complained to Ellison that East African businesses faced racism from state agencies.
“April 30th, I got shut down,” said Abdulkadir Nur Salah, the now-convicted former owner of Safari restaurant.
Feeding Our Past
Dissecting the call:
Ellison acknowledged knowing the restaurant in the recording, but he says at the time all he knew about what would become the Feeding Our Future scandal was that a judge had ruled against the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) stopping payments to some vendors. He didn’t arrange the meeting and said he didn’t know exactly who he was talking to.
Republicans were skeptical of Ellison’s professed confusion.
“Why do you say now that you didn’t know who he was when he clearly told you who he was, and why are you offering help to these people to work against your client (MDE)?” asked Rep. Patti Anderson, (R-Dellwood).
“What’s the help that these people got?” Ellison said. “No help. I mentioned DHS, and yet they were talking about MDE, so it’s not clear. It wasn’t clear. It’s apparent that in that conversation, it wasn’t clear to me what agency they were even discussing.”
“It should be no surprise that they’re talking about MDE because it’s almost on every page of my transcript: MDE, MDE, MDE,” said Rep. Marion Rarick, (R-Maple Lake).
Ellison said the tape proves a couple of things: He listened to constituents with complaints that would be important to him, but then he told them to put it all in writing.
Bottom line
You can hear it:
And in the end, he didn’t help them, even when they offered campaign contributions.
“Of course, I’m here to help,” he told them in the recording. “But let me be clear. I’m not here because I think it’s going to help my re-election.”
“When offered help in my campaign, I rejected it on the tape,” Ellison told the fraud committee. “You can hear it. I didn’t know I was being recorded. That happened.”
Ellison acknowledged the fraudsters tried to use racism as a shield to not be investigated, but said ultimately, it didn’t work.
Minnesota
Hughes scores in debut for Wild, who defeat Bruins for 4th straight win | NHL.com
The 26-year-old defenseman finished with three shots in 26:55 of ice time in his first game since being traded to Minnesota by the Vancouver Canucks on Friday for defenseman Zeev Buium, forwards Marco Rossi and Liam Ohgren, and a first-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft.
“It’s been a whirlwind for sure,” Hughes said. “I’m just looking forward to kind of getting my feet on the ground and get with the team here and get in a day-to-day lifestyle here. But definitely the last 48 hours have been a lot, but I was excited to go play the game.”
Kirill Kaprizov had two goals and an assist, Hartman had a goal and two assists, and Matt Boldy had a goal and an assist for the Wild (19-9-5), who extended their winning streak to four games and home point streak to 12 games (10-0-2). Filip Gustavsson made 29 saves.
“The crowd was electric I think just from the … I would say warmups to the introduction and then throughout the game,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “So, it was great to see the building like that and the guys perform the way that they did. So, it was a great combo.”
Alex Steeves and Andrew Peeke scored, and Swayman made 25 saves for the Bruins (19-14-0), who had won four straight.
“They’re a very good hockey team,” Boston coach Marco Sturm said. “They’re built pretty big, they play the right way, they play pretty hard, and they go to the net really hard, too. So, that’s something I mentioned, even between periods. That’s something we have to learn. And even if teams like that, we have to learn from that, and that shows we’re not there yet, and that’s a good thing, I think.
“Do we like the end results? No, but we had our chances in the first, even in the second period, and those are the chances that you have to use, otherwise it’s going to get hard against a team like that.”
Jared Spurgeon put Minnesota ahead 1-0 at 10:11 of the first period with a wrist shot through traffic as Swayman was screened by Marcus Johansson on a power play.
Minnesota
Perennial candidate Kendall Qualls wins Minnesota GOP gubernatorial straw poll
Minnesota
Minnesota weather: How cold it got on Saturday
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Temperatures dropped into the negative Saturday, with the coldest temperatures in the morning.
How cold it got in Minnesota Saturday
By the numbers:
Here is how cold the temperatures got in Minnesota:
- Hinckley: -20 degrees
- Bemidji: -20 degrees
- Ely: -18 degrees
- Brainerd: -18 degrees
- Detroit Lakes: -18 degrees
- Hibbing: -17 degrees
- International Falls: -17 degrees
- Duluth: -16 degrees
- Alexandria: -12 degrees
- St. Cloud: -12 degrees
- Cambridge: -11 degrees
- Grand Marais: -10 degrees
- Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport: -6 degrees
- Red Wing: -6 degrees
- Morris: -6 degrees
- Hutchinson: -5 degrees
- Rochester: -5 degrees
- Mankato: -3 degrees
- Windom: 0 degrees
- Marshall: 0 degrees
Here are the lowest wind chills across Minnesota from Saturday:
- Bemidji: -37 degrees
- Ely: -35 degrees
- Duluth: -34 degrees
- Brainerd: -32 degrees
- Detroit Lakes: -32 degrees
- Hibbing: -31 degrees
- Alexandria: -29 degrees
- Hinckley: -27 degrees
- Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport: -24 degrees
- St. Cloud: -24 degrees
- Willmar: -22 degrees
- Cambridge-21 degrees
- Grand Marais: -21 degrees
- Hutchinson: -21 deegres
- Morris: -20 degrees
- Faribault: -18 degrees
- Mankato: -18 degrees
- Marshall: -17 degrees
- Red Wing: -16 degrees
- Owatonna: -16 degrees
- Windom-12 degrees
Cold continues Sunday
What’s next:
The Twin Cities are under a cold weather advisory that is expected to last through Sunday morning, so residents should prepare for frigid conditions if they have plans to be outdoors.
Sunday will be slightly less frigid with temperatures climbing above zero. However, it will still feel like 10 below zero in the afternoon.
Milder and warmer temperatures are expected to return for the work week.
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