Minnesota's Democrat machine thought they could run cover forever.
The scam got so massive the feds had to step in.
And one disgusting video from Keith Ellison exploded in his face after a $9 billion scandal.
Attorney General posts fraud-fighting video as state drowns in fraud
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison posted a video Friday bragging about his office's war on scammers.
"Scammers thought Minnesotans were easy targets," Ellison declared in the video showing him in boxing gloves. "They were wrong. From student loan scams to fake utility callers, we shut them down this year — fast."
The video featured Ellison as some kind of tough-guy fraud fighter, calling it his "Scam Stopper Showdown."
There's just one massive problem with Ellison's self-congratulatory performance.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson held a press conference the same week revealing that up to $9 billion in fraud has been stolen from Minnesota taxpayers.
"The magnitude cannot be overstated," Thompson stated. "What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It's staggering, industrial-scale fraud."¹
Thompson described what he called "fraud tourism" — criminals traveling to Minnesota specifically because they knew "taxpayer money could be taken with little risk and few consequences."²
The internet had a field day with Ellison's tone-deaf video.
Social media torches Minnesota's top law enforcement official
GOP Senator Ted Cruz blasted Ellison's video with a simple message: "Arsonist claims to be fire fighter."³
GOP Congressman Tom Emmer ripped into Ellison for ignoring the massive theft happening on his watch.
"Spare us your feign outrage, Keith," Emmer posted on X. "You've done nothing but enable and exacerbate fraud in Minnesota. This all happened on your watch."⁴
Former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab, who worked on the Feeding Our Future fraud case, called out Ellison's complete failure.
"Scammers were right," Teirab wrote. "Minnesota was an easy target. That's why they stole literally BILLIONS of dollars from us."⁵
Conservative columnist Dustin Grage noted the situation got so bad prosecutors created a new term for it.
"You're kidding right?" Grage posted. "They literally created a new term called 'fraud tourism' to describe how easy it was to defraud Minnesota taxpayers."⁶
Conservative communicator Steve Guest connected the dots to where some of that stolen money may have ended up.
"No s—, Sherlock," Guest wrote. "Minnesota was an easy target. Per CBS News, $9 BILLION worth of Medicaid fraud happened right under your nose. And the largest funder of Al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia is the Minnesota taxpayer."⁷
Ellison's office initially responded that his Medicaid Fraud Control Unit won "more than 300 convictions and $80 million in judgments" over the last seven years.
But $80 million in recoveries means nothing when $9 billion walked out the door while he was supposed to be watching.
Audio recording exposes Ellison meeting with fraudsters
The timing of Ellison's video made it even worse.
Audio recordings surfaced showing him meeting with Somali business leaders tied to the Feeding Our Future scandal in December 2021.
In the recording, Ellison can be heard telling the group "Of course, I'm here to help" and promising to "Let's go fight these people" — meaning state agencies trying to stop the fraud.⁸
At one point Ellison states "Walz agrees with me that this piddly, stupid stuff running small people out of business is terrible."⁹
Shortly after that meeting, campaign donations flowed to Ellison's campaign from individuals later charged or convicted in the $250 million Feeding Our Future scheme.¹⁰
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer sent Ellison a letter alleging the attorney general offered assistance to perpetrators in exchange for political donations.¹¹
The fraud in Minnesota started with the Feeding Our Future nonprofit stealing $250 million from federal child nutrition programs.
From there it spread like cancer through housing assistance programs, autism treatment services, and medical transportation billing.
Thompson announced that two Philadelphia residents traveled to Minnesota after hearing it was "a good opportunity to make money" and allegedly submitted $3.5 million in fraudulent claims.¹²
Federal prosecutors have charged 78 defendants in the Feeding Our Future case alone, with more than 56 pleading guilty.¹³
But Ellison wants everyone to believe he's the tough fraud fighter taking on scammers.
The brazen nerve of posting that video while Minnesota drowns in the worst state-level fraud scandal in American history tells you everything you need to know about Keith Ellison.
¹ Fox News, "Magnitude 'cannot be overstated': Feds say Minnesota fraud may be more than $9B," Fox News, December 18, 2025.
² Tom Hauser, "Thompson describes what he calls 'fraud tourism,'" X, December 18, 2025.
³ Ted Cruz, "Arsonist claims to be fire fighter," X, December 19, 2025.
⁴ Tom Emmer, "Spare us your feign outrage, Keith," X, December 19, 2025.
⁵ Joe Teirab, "Minnesota was an easy target," X, December 19, 2025.
⁶ Dustin Grage, "They literally created a new term called 'fraud tourism,'" X, December 19, 2025.
⁷ Steve Guest, "And the largest funder of Al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia is the Minnesota taxpayer," X, December 19, 2025.
⁸ Bill Glahn, "Feeding Our Future: Keith Ellison caught on tape!," American Experiment, April 9, 2025.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Amy Curtis, "Did Minnesota AG Keith Ellison Help Somali Non-Profits Defraud State Taxpayers?," Townhall, December 2, 2025.
¹¹ Andrew Mark Miller, "Keith Ellison's anti-fraud video sparks backlash over Minnesota $9B scandal," Fox News, December 22, 2025.
¹² CBS News, "'Fraud tourists' traveled to Minnesota after a friend told them state programs were 'a good opportunity to make money,'" CBS News, December 19, 2025.
¹³ U.S. Department of Justice, "78th Defendant Charged in Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme," November 24, 2025.