Surely some of the accused are guilty and surely many of these people are correctly identified as Somalis. No one here is arguing with that and neither am I. However, I __do__ note that much of the language is speculative about motivations of persons such as Democrats and Minnesotans. Moreover, there is an interesting timeline and federal accountability angle that is being completely ignored.
Example: One of the biggest frauds in these cases is a
federal program even IF being administered by the Minnesota Dept of Education, i.e. the funding started with the federal Dept of Agriculture. Likewise, these are
federal crimes even if occurring mostly in this one state and many other federal crimes by different groups occurred across the country, even if these people are the focus of this news piece. As a logical consequence that means that federal agents are the ones who do the charges and investigations, or at least mostly so. Additionally, these crimes began during the pandemic in 2020 when Trump was President and what did they take advantage of in order to commit their fraud? It was regulatory waivers by the
federal Dept of Agriculture that created gaps and opportunity to commit these fraudulent acts in that was in 2020, i.e. when Trump was President. While Trump has been very much in favor of destroying regulatory red tape, I won't blame him 100% for this since during the pandemic there was a bipartisan effort to streamline things. However, the fraud did begin on his watch or at least no one is focusing on that and a completely different narrative could be constructed by focusing on Trump's involvement here. Lastly, the observations about the fraud began in 2021 after Biden became President and this is when competent federal agents began investigating. In other words, we could say that the Biden administration began looking at data in April 2021 and this increased suspicion escalated and transformed into investigative work to finally search warrants based on probable cause in January 2022. Note that we're still discussing federal work on the fraud and the state of Minnesota was not playing a role because these were not state crimes.
The above is one example of the different perpetrators and schemes, crimes. All do not fit the same timeline or route to commit federal offenses.
Here is more data on this example and the timeline from a government DoJ
website:
The Federal Child Nutrition Program and Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme
As set forth in the information, Hassan and others devised and carried out a scheme to defraud the Summer Food Service Program and Child and Adult Care Food Program (together, the “Federal Child Nutrition Program”), a program designed to provide meals to hungry children. MDE administers the Federal Child Nutrition Program in Minnesota.
Beginning in April 2020, Aimee Bock, the founder and executive director of Feeding Our Future, oversaw a massive scheme to defraud the Federal Child Nutrition Program carried out by sites under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. Bock and Feeding Our Future sponsored entities that submitted fraudulent reimbursement claims and fake documentation while purporting to serve hundreds and, in many instances, thousands of children per day. Bock and her company sponsored the opening of nearly 200 Federal Child Nutrition Program sites despite knowing that the sites intended to and did submit fraudulent claims.
While using Smart Therapy to defraud the EIDBI autism program, Hassan also used Smart Therapy to engage in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme to defraud the Federal Child Nutrition Program. Hassan enrolled Smart Therapy in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future in July 2020.
Shortly after enrolling in the program, Hassan began submitting fraudulent claims to Feeding Our Future. Hassan fraudulently claimed that Smart Therapy was serving breakfast and lunch to exactly 300 children a day, 7 days per week. Hassan prepared and submitted fraudulent meal counts, attendance rosters, and invoices in support of the fraudulent claims. Hassan submitted fraudulent invoices purporting to show that a food vendor company called S & S Catering provided meals to be served at the Smart Therapy site. By April 2021, Hassan claimed to be serving approximately 1,200 meals per day to children, 7 days per week, at Smart Therapy.
Between 2020 and 2021, Hassan claimed to have served nearly 200,000 meals to children at the Smart Therapy site, for which she claimed to be entitled to approximately $465,000 in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
“Abusing publicly funded health care programs for personal profit is an act of duplicity, greed, and a betrayal of the most vulnerable in our community,” said Special Agent in Charge Alvin M. Winston Sr. of FBI Minneapolis. “The alleged fraud by Hassan resulted in the theft of millions of dollars intended to serve and support children in need. The FBI and our partners will not stop pursuing those who unscrupulously exploit government programs. We will secure justice for the taxpayers of Minnesota.”
This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Health and Human Services – Office of Inspector General, the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, and the United States Postal Inspection Service.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rebecca E. Kline, Harry M. Jacobs, and Daniel W. Bobier are prosecuting the case.
An information is merely an allegation, and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Updated September 24, 2025
