Gandi Mohamed, a 45-year-old at the center of one of Minnesota's largest fraud cases, is expected to plead guilty or enter a no-contest plea at a change-of-plea hearing scheduled for Thursday, according to court records. Mohamed would become the sixth member of his family to plead guilty in a scheme that prosecutors say siphoned $14 million from the federal child nutrition program.
The plea comes as Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and former Gov. Tim Walz face intensifying questions about what they knew, and when, about a sprawling fraud operation that exploited federal dollars meant to feed children. Both are set to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which convened a hearing on March 4, 2026, at the U.S. Capitol to examine the alleged misuse of federal funds intended for Minnesota social services and Medicaid programs.
The timing could not be worse for Ellison. A 2021 recording places him in a meeting with members of the Mohamed family and other members of Minnesota's Somali community, a meeting now under a harsh spotlight.
In that recording, as Fox News Digital reported, one Somali community member told Ellison:
"The only way that we can protect what we have is by inserting ourselves into the political arena. Putting our votes where it needs to be. But most importantly, putting our dollars in the right place. And supporting candidates that will fight to protect our interests."
Ellison's response on the recording: "That's right." At the time of the meeting, the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden had not indicted anyone in the fraud case.
After that meeting, Gandi Mohamed, the same man now expected to plead guilty, gave Ellison the maximum $2,500 campaign donation. Ellison returned the donation to the Department of Justice in 2025, well after the fraud had become a national story.
Ellison has denied wrongdoing. In an April 2025 op-ed for the Minnesota Star Tribune, he wrote:
"I took a meeting in good faith with people I didn't know and some turned out to have done bad things. I did nothing for them and took nothing from them."
That defense asks voters to accept a remarkable coincidence: that the state's top law enforcement officer sat with people who were actively defrauding a federal nutrition program, collected a campaign check from one of them, and noticed nothing amiss. The fact that he returned the money years later, only after the scandal became impossible to ignore, does not strengthen his case.
Fox 9 Minneapolis reported that Mohamed is the sixth member of his family to plead guilty in the scheme. Prosecutors say the operation fraudulently claimed to be serving meals to children while pocketing the $14 million in federal funds. The scale of the family's involvement, six members now convicted, raises obvious questions about how such a concentrated fraud ring operated for so long without detection or intervention by state officials.
Bill Glahn, a policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, told Fox News Digital that while the convictions matter, the public deserved more. He said:
"It's good that he and his co-conspirators have all been convicted in the case, however, a courtroom trial would have been a useful exercise to show the public the scope and scale of the fraud."
Glahn has a point. Plea deals resolve cases efficiently, but they also keep details out of public view. When the fraud involves taxpayer money on this scale, and when elected officials are under scrutiny for their proximity to the defendants, a full trial would have given Minnesotans a clearer picture of how the scheme worked and who enabled it.
The broader Minnesota fraud scandal has drawn sharp criticism from across the political spectrum. Accusations of massive fraud tied to Democratic leaders have kept the story in the national spotlight for months.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on March 4, 2026, was convened specifically to examine the alleged misuse of federal funds intended for Minnesota social services and Medicaid programs. Walz testified at the hearing in the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., and Ellison is also set to face congressional questioning.
The hearing marks a significant escalation. Federal lawmakers are no longer content to let Minnesota handle its own mess. When a state's top elected officials take meetings with people later convicted of defrauding a federal program, and when campaign money changes hands in the process, Congress has every reason to demand answers.
The confrontation between lawmakers and Walz has already generated national attention. A viral exchange at the fraud hearing underscored the intensity of Republican scrutiny of the former governor's role.
Dalia al-Aqidi, a Republican running for Congress in Minneapolis against Rep. Ilhan Omar, has been among the most vocal critics of Ellison's conduct. She told Fox News Digital that the attorney general's ties to the fraudsters amount to a fundamental breach of public trust.
"Our Attorney General, Keith Ellison, is not only looking the other way but doing so after taking donations from these very fraudsters. This is a betrayal of every Minnesotan who trusted him with that office."
Al-Aqidi said voters in her district are "furious" and that she has rolled out a five-point plan to prevent fraud before it starts. She framed the issue not just as a financial scandal but as a failure that harms the most vulnerable people the programs were designed to help.
"This isn't just about taxpayers, it's about people who really need food and housing. Preventing fraud isn't complicated, it just takes the political will to stop this type of abuse. It's clear that this scheme is being used to buy votes, and that has to stop."
That last point deserves emphasis. The federal child nutrition program exists to feed children. Every dollar stolen from it is a dollar that did not reach a child who needed a meal. The people harmed most by this fraud are not abstract budget line items, they are kids in low-income communities who went without.
The broader fraud allegations against Minnesota officials have become a defining issue in the state's political landscape heading into the next election cycle.
Significant questions remain. The specific charges and statutes tied to Gandi Mohamed's case have not been detailed publicly. The "$9 billion" figure referenced in connection with the broader scandal lacks a clear breakdown in available reporting. And the identity of the Somali community member heard on the 2021 recording urging political engagement and financial support for sympathetic candidates has not been disclosed.
Most importantly: what did Ellison do after that 2021 meeting? Did he flag the attendees to investigators? Did he take any steps to scrutinize the organizations involved? Or did he simply pocket the $2,500 donation and move on? His op-ed says he "did nothing for them." The question is whether doing nothing, when the state's top law enforcement officer hears people talking about protecting "what we have" by putting "dollars in the right place", is itself a failure of duty.
This is not an isolated incident of Democratic officials facing legal trouble over their proximity to fraud. Federal agents recently raided the homes of two Democratic sisters in a New York migrant shelter bribery probe, part of a pattern that should concern anyone who believes public office carries obligations beyond self-enrichment.
Ellison's defense, that he took a meeting in good faith and some of the people turned out to be criminals, might satisfy his supporters. But for the taxpayers of Minnesota, and for the children whose meals were stolen, "good faith" is not an accountability standard. It is an excuse.
Six members of one family have now pleaded guilty. The attorney general sat with them, heard their pitch, and cashed their check. And the people who were supposed to be fed went hungry. That is the story Minnesota's leaders still have not adequately explained.
