Hot to Meitrodt | Power Line

Over the weekend the Star Tribune published a revisionise account by business intern Emmy Martin and reporter Jeffrey Meitrody on the total losses in the Feeding Our Future trials and related cases. The story reported that the losses proved in the two Feeding Our Future trials to date amounted to an amount short of the nearly $300 million claimed. Martin and Meitrodt wrote: “A review of court records shows the alleged fraud uncovered to date is closer to $152 million, though that number is expected to grow as ongoing state and federal investigations into the state programs continue.”

According to the Star Tribune’s subsequent CORRECTION, that number was short $66 million by virtue of a substantial oversight: “[T]his story did not include two significant fraud cases involving a separate sponsor in the meals program. Federal prosecutors obtained convictions against five people involved with Empire Cuisine & Market and a guilty plea from the owner of Haji’s Kitchen. Prosecutors said those two entities defrauded the government of $66 million[.]”

What happened? They don’t say. Other than that, the story still slurped mightily. For reasons set forth in “Wrong again,” I still don’t think they have it right.

This afternoon, howeer, the Star Tribune published Meitrodt’s purported explanation of the accounting in their story as corrected. The headline refers to “alleged fraud” in the two cases with seven guilty verdicts. That’s an error too. The jury has rendered guilty verdicts on the fraud.

Government Exhibit X-1 at the second trial put the total amount lost to the fraud scheme proved up in that case at $246 million. Meitrodt’s explainer implies that it involved double counting. I don’t see it and I still don’t think they have shown their math or explained the admitted oversights in the original story.

I sat next to Meitrodt throughout the second Feeding Our Future trial. I thought he would be embarrassed by his byline on the story. He sent me the URL of his explainer late this afternoon with this message:

Hi Scott,

Interesting how I went from one of the “best” reporters covering fraud in Minnesota when I was sitting next to you in court to someone whose work is “grossly stupid, incompetent, lazy, and false.”

Wow.

Anyway, thanks for supporting mainstream media!

Jeff

https://www.startribune.com/how-we-analyzed-alleged-fraud-totals-in-minnesota/601543149

I responded to Meitrodt:

From: Power Line Date: Thu, Dec 11, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: ‘How we did it’ story
To: Meitrodt, Jeff

Jeff: My reference was to the story, not to you personally. I assumed the erroneous nature of the story was attributable to the intern who had the first byline, but if you’re claiming credit for the work, so be it.
Scott

Meitrodt wasn’t done with me:

From: Meitrodt, Jeff
Date: Thu, Dec 11, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Subject: Re: ‘How we did it’ story
To: Power Line

The math was all mine. As I recall from the trial, math and objective analysis was [sic] not your strong suit.

I like to think that subject/verb agreement is a strong suit.

Meidtrodt still had more to unload:

From: Meitrodt, Jeff
Date: Thu, Dec 11, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Subject: Re: ‘How we did it’ story
To: Power Line

I remember telling colleagues how I had to spoon feed you the evidence, because you couldn’t keep it all straight. So hearing you criticize our work is like hearing my dog complaining about my cooking.

I posted long daily trial reports on Power Line. Interested readers can form their own judgment about Meitrodt’s assessment of my work.

What’s it all about? The original story began with President Trump. Prosecutors Joe Thompson and his colleagues may be casualties of the Star Tribune’s daily war on Trump. It’s a war akin to real war in which truth is the first casualty.

This past Monday KARE 11’s Lou Raguse took up the issue posed by Meitrodt in an interview below with Jana Shortal. It is a useful review. I wonder if Lou was the recipient of any nasty messages from Meitrodt yesterday.

I think it’s fair to say that, despite its best efforts, the Star Tribune is not exactly driving the narrative on this huge story. Ignore the prefatory claim of yet another “exclusive” and witness this evening’s CBS News segment on the Feeding Our Future case.