The Washington Free Beacon has published my column on the Nick Shirley video and after. Here it is: “Bring in More Prosecutors: Finally Ending Minnesota’s ‘Never-Ending’ Somali Fraud Schemes Requires Reinforcements.” Please check it out.
It’s a long column, full of links, but it could have been longer. These points also bear on what is to be said:
• Joe Thompson is the chief prosecutor of the Feeding Our Future and follow-on fraud cases. He leads a small team of prosecutors — five, including himself — handling these challenging and difficult cases. He does not have the capacity to charge all cases that could be charged. He has to pick his shots. The daycare cases are not at the top of the list at the moment.
• The massive public-programs fraud that has proliferated under Governor Walz and the Democrats virtually defies belief. Since it features a large of Somali perpetrators from a key Democrat constituency, the state’s authorities have been missing in action.
• Attorney General Keith Ellison, I’m looking at you, you hustling clown. Ellison’s nonfeasance (at best) should be a scandal all by itself.
• Thompson has done a heroic job to publicize the fraud and lead the prosecution of appropriate cases.
• Former United States Attorney Andrew Luger presided over the charges brought against the first 47 defendants in the Feeding Our Future cases. The cases have followed the scenario that he described at the press conference he called to announce the charges in September 2022.
• As of last count, 78 defendants have been charged in the Feeding Our Future case. Fifty defendants have pleaded guilty and seven were convicted following two long trials. The second of these trials resulted in the conviction of Aimeee Bock and Salim Said. Bock was the ringleader and Said one of her biggest partners in crime.
• I believe the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota has charged a total of 98 defendants in the Feeding Our Future and follow-on cases.
• As I say, these are challenging cases. Many prosecutors would have charged Bock and a few other defendants, declared victory and called it a day.
• Those complaining that Tim Walz should be charged sound to me like loudmouths at the end of the bar who have had too much to drink. Walz is certainly guilty of an old-fashioned kind of political corruption magnified to the nth degree by an absurdly creative welfare state. He has compiled the worst record of any governor in the history of Minnesota. There oughta be a law. But is there? Cite the federal statute that would support an indictment leading to conviction suppoted by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
• Thompson should be recognized by the Department of Justice’s David Margolis Award for Exceptional Service. At the least, those of us outside the department can say thank you and express the wish that he remains at the helm of these cases. He is the man for the job.
• My friend Dan Rosen is the United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota. He promoted Joe Thompson to First Assistant United States Attorney. I believe he sees this as I do, but more knowledgeably from the inside.
• I thought “reinforcements” was spelled “reenforcements” despite the squiggly underline that appeared as I wrote on Google Docs. I hope that’s the only mistake I made in writing the column and these related comments, but I doubt it.
