Latest news with #HouseFraudPreventionandStateAgencyOversightPolicyCommittee
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
House Republicans grill Keith Ellison over 2021 meeting with Feeding Our Future fraudsters
Attorney General Keith Ellison answers questions during a hearing before the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee Monday, April 28, 2025 concerning a recording of his conversations with Feeding Our Future participants. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer) Republicans on the House fraud prevention committee grilled Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Monday over a 2021 meeting with people ensnared in the massive Feeding Our Future scandal, which took place just a month before the FBI shut down the fraud. In a recently unearthed audio recording, Ellison can be heard agreeing with the Feeding Our Future participants that state agencies, i.e., his clients, are discriminating against East African state contractors. The recording was made — without Ellison's knowledge — during his meeting with the vendors in December 2021. One month later, the FBI executed multiple search warrants on Feeding Our Future and other nonprofits. Federal prosecutors say the nonprofit and groups it sponsored fraudulently received $250 million in federal funds to feed hungry children during the pandemic, but the fraudsters used the money on luxury cars, real estate, jewelry and travel. Republican members of the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight and Policy Committee asked Ellison to testify about why he seemed to be siding with the Feeding Our Future participants over the state agencies that were trying to stop the fraud. Ellison said at the time he believed he was meeting with constituents and didn't know they were involved in Feeding Our Future. After the 2021 meeting, Ellison said he spoke with his staff, who informed him that they were bad actors. Ellison said he didn't do anything the Feeding Our Future participants asked of him and refused their fundraising help in the meeting. 'The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. What did I do for these people? Nothing. I investigated after the conversation, and then what did we do? We cooperated (with the federal government) to help get these people found accountable, as they eventually were,' Ellison said Monday. Republicans on the fraud committee prepared clips of the recording and played them for Ellison, and asked him to respond to some of the most embarrassing parts. They questioned why he didn't know the Feeding Our Future participants he met with, especially because his office had been representing the Department of Education in its legal battle with Feeding Our Future for about a year prior to the 2021 meeting. Ellison painted himself as a politician doing run-of-the-mill constituent service and said that he doesn't know every detail of all the cases his office is working on. He argued Republicans were being unrealistic by expecting him to know who the people were because Feeding Our Future and the fraud were at the time unknown. 'It's impossible for any individual to know everything about every file that every agency does. It's simply not how large organizations work. I have highly competent managers working on this … They knew, even if I didn't know every single detail,' Ellison said. 'What I knew was that people in the community said, 'We feel like we're not being treated fairly.'' Republicans on the committee questioned the veracity of Ellison's explanations, particularly that he didn't know with whom he was meeting. 'I've got to believe that you were aware, unless your office is poorly run, which I don't believe. I think it's well-run,' Rep. Patti Anderson, R-Dellwood, told Ellison. Democrats on the committee argued the hearing was a political hit job. Rep. Emma Greenman, DFL-Minneapolis, praised Ellison for his work prosecuting Medicaid fraud and said the committee should be focused on working to protect public dollars, not on nearly four-year-old recordings. 'If the work of this committee is actually serious and not political, what we should be asking is, what are we learning to ensure that we are protecting public funds?' Greenman argued. Ellison closed his remarks Monday by assuring the committee that his office is committed to combatting fraudulent activity. 'I hope we can work together to fight waste, fraud and abuse,' Ellison told the committee. 'I'm not naive. I know that we live in a political world, but if we can leave politics aside and try to figure out how to protect the public dollar, you have a partner in me.'
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Minnesota House fraud committee asks legislators to stop giving money directly to nonprofits
Chair of the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove, spoke at a Capitol press conference on March 24, 2025. Photo by Michelle Griffith/Minnesota Reformer. A bipartisan group of Minnesota lawmakers from the House Ways and Means Committee and a fraud prevention committee asked their fellow legislators to refrain from earmarking funds directly to nonprofits without a competitive grant process this year. Legislators from both parties for years have been giving taxpayer funds directly to nonprofits to complete government work, such as preventing violence or providing food to needy families. State agencies typically award a grant to a nonprofit after performing background checks and analyzing numerous proposals, ultimately giving it to the applicant that best meets their criteria. But Minnesota lawmakers can also go around that competitive process and directly name a nonprofit, granting funds in a budget bill through what are known as legislatively named grants. Those grants have been fraught with problems over the years. The letter to budget-writing lawmakers requests they stop granting money to organizations through legislatively named grants as they draft budget bills for their respective committees in the weeks ahead. The Legislature must pass a two-year budget by June 30, though the Legislature is scheduled to adjourn May 19. 'When you appropriate funds to private entities, we urge you to strongly consider having agencies use a competitive process to select those entities, rather than directly naming them in law,' lawmakers wrote. Legislators are able to propose whatever bills they like, so there's little stopping them from continuing to name nonprofits in bills and granting them funds — other than asking them nicely like in the Wednesday letter. In 2023, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor-led Legislature approved over $1.1 billion in legislatively named grants to nonprofits, with some receiving more money from lawmakers than they normally get in other grants and donations in an entire year. According to a 2023 audit, Minnesota struggles to oversee money it sends out the door. The Office of the Legislative Auditor found 'pervasive noncompliance' with grant management policies, 'signaling issues with accountability and oversight' of the $500 million the state sends out in a typical year. Both competitive and legislatively named grants are supposed to go through the same type of oversight by state agencies, but the Office of the Legislative Auditor has found that agencies have failed to provide the same oversight of legislatively named grants that they do for competitive grants. The OLA has recommended lawmakers stop using legislatively named grants since 2007, or the year the first iPhone was released. Proponents of legislatively named grants say the practice allows smaller, less-established nonprofits an opportunity to receive state funding, as they may be disregarded in a competitive process. A competitive process can also be unnecessary if, for example, a nonprofit is the only organization in an area of Minnesota that provides a particular service, proponents say. 'Direct appropriations may be the best fit for some circumstances, such as where there is only one private entity that can meet the identified need,' the lawmakers wrote. 'But this should be the rare exception, rather than a general process. Additionally, the entity should be specified by name rather than using a session-law description for which only one entity could qualify.' Last year, Democratic lawmakers passed a bill requiring companies like Uber and Lyft to contract with a nonprofit advocacy organization to provide driver services. The bill appeared tailored to describe the Minnesota Uber/Lyft Drivers Association. The organization has been accused of fraud and deceptive trade practices by Uber and Lyft drivers.
