The FBI is investigating multiple allegations of cheating and chicanery that plagued the Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor party during the endorsement process for Minneapolis City Council last spring, according to two people recently interviewed by bureau agents.

The DFL endorsement conventions for two Minneapolis wards were canceled amid allegations of phony delegates, and the convention for a third ward degenerated into a brawl last spring. 

After that, the DFL State Central Committee voted to mandate in-person endorsing conventions this year, except under extraordinary circumstances, and banned one candidate from ever seeking a DFL endorsement.

The party endorsement, which comes after 60% of local delegates back a candidate, carries no legal weight, but is a big boost in a heavily Democratic city like Minneapolis.

One person who has been interviewed by the FBI civil rights division multiple times — and was asked by the FBI not to talk to reporters — said the agents are investigating the endorsing process but also asked about election fraud.

“They’re very interested in the delegates thing,” he said.

The FBI agents’ take is that in one-party cities like Minneapolis, the endorsement process is key and opens the door to resources like valuable voter lists and data, which become available to the endorsed candidate, he said. The process, the agents told the source, is “ripe for fraud” if people exploit weaknesses in the system.

Another person who was interviewed by the FBI said he was asked about delegate fraud, too, specifically in Ward 6, and any possible fraud in the recent November election.

A spokesman for the state DFL party, Darwin Forsyth, said the FBI has not contacted the state DFL party. “Without more information, there’s not much more we can say about the topic,” he said. 

Briana Rose Lee, chair of the Minneapolis DFL, was also unaware of the FBI investigation and has not been contacted by investigators.

​​Jerry H. Goldfeder, adjunct professor and director of the Voting Rights and Democracy Project at Fordham Law School, said just because FBI agents are making inquiries doesn’t mean anybody will get charged with a crime.

“At this point, I can’t imagine any federal crime that might’ve occurred when it comes to a local nominating convention,” he said. 

Several other attorneys — former prosecutors and election lawyers who did not want to be named because they don’t know the specifics of the case — said it’s possible the agents are looking into violations of the federal Voting Rights Act. The historic civil rights law dictates that the right to vote cannot be denied based on race or color — such as by diluting the vote of a protected class. One attorney said if candidates or campaigns manipulated the endorsement process, that could constitute fraud.

The FBI has been investigating voter fraud in Minnesota for several years, but so far only one person has been convicted of perjury, and the broader investigation hasn’t yielded any news in more than 18 months. 

A federal jury convicted Muse Mohamud Mohamed — a campaign volunteer for and the brother-in-law of state Sen. Omar Fateh — of lying to a grand jury about his handling of ballots during Fateh’s 2020 primary victory over then-Sen. Jeff Hayden. Hayden questioned the integrity of virtual party conventions that year, when Fateh upset him and won the party endorsement.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, Tasha Zerna, said she had no idea why FBI agents are interviewing people about the DFL endorsing process. 

In March, the Minneapolis DFL Executive Committee rejected hundreds of delegate signups for council candidate Victor Martinez in Ward 5 after a campaign volunteer signed up the delegates using the same IP address, and was unable to validate them with paper signup forms. 

Martinez, an Assembly of God pastor who opposes abortion rights and was endorsed by the Minneapolis police union, seemed like an unlikely choice for the heavily DFL ward in north Minneapolis, but signed up an unusually high number of delegates in his challenge to City Council Member Jeremiah Ellison. The DFL ended up canceling the endorsing convention. Ellison said he has not been interviewed by the FBI and wasn’t aware of the investigation.

In Ward 6, another political newcomer, Tiger Worku, signed up the most delegates, while Council Member Jamal Osman had the third most. Another candidate in the Ward 6 race, Kayseh Magan, a former investigator with the Attorney General’s Office, said he noticed over 180 delegates, mostly Worku’s, listed emails through an encrypted email service called Proton. Magan contacted some of the delegates, and some said they didn’t sign up to be delegates for Worku. Some were Republicans. The Ward 6 convention was ultimately canceled altogether.

In Ward 10, a newcomer to politics who announced a day before the deadline, Nasri Warsame, signed up more delegates than City Council Member Aisha Chughtai. Then the Ward 10 May endorsing convention devolved into chaos when Warsame supporters took over the stage as Chughtai was preparing to give a speech. They began shouting, jeering and pushing toward the stage, prompting Chughtai’s supporters to take cover in a back room. 

Police were called and the convention was shut down. Chughtai said over a dozen supporters were assaulted. The Minnesota DFL Central Committee later banned Warsame from ever seeking the DFL endorsement again.