Mark Drake: Keith Ellison let fraud run rampant while fighting American energy companies

Minnesota’s burgeoning fraud scandal is one of the bleakest moments in our state’s history.

Because of inexcusable negligence on behalf of state government officials, fraudsters, mostly of Somali descent, exploited our health care system, programs for the homeless and hungry, and early childhood education programs in a series of schemes even the left-leaning New York Times called “staggering” in “scale and brazenness.”

The phrase “Quality Learing Center” has become a national joke.

The entire episode has resulted in dozens of criminal indictments and convictions, and cost Minnesota taxpayers billions.

It forced Gov. Tim Walz to end his reelection campaign, and rightfully so. But somehow, the state leader who should have been guarding the gates has largely flown under the radar.

Attorney General Keith Ellison should have been leading the charge to break up these well-coordinated fraudulent schemes before they reached this point. However, he did not. Perhaps this was because he was meeting with the people running these schemes, pledging to help them out.

But what was Ellison doing instead of focusing on his job of protecting taxpayers at the height of this unprecedented state fraud scandal?

He was bringing a baseless and politically motivated lawsuit against American energy and industrial companies.

Instead of keeping his eye on the ball and investigating the fraud right in his own backyard, Ellison chose to kick-start a multi-year lawsuit to attack the very companies that help us fill up our cars with gas, keep our houses warm in the winter, and manufacture critical products for agricultural, technological, and industrial use.

Pull back the layers a little further and the lawsuit gets even worse.

Ellison has lawyers in his office to work on the case who are not paid by or accountable to Minnesota taxpayers. Instead, their salaries — and their job descriptions — are funded and controlled by New York University and Michael Bloomberg. That is why state lawmakers previously proposed a bill to prohibit the attorney general’s office from using outside resources for staff.

Further, Ellison hired an outside law firm, the San Francisco-based Sher Edling, which has received money from Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio specifically to sue American energy and manufacturing firms.

That is what we get with Keith Ellison: loyalty to billionaires, movie stars, East Coast academics, and trial lawyers who stand to make millions of dollars.

Thankfully, the U.S. Justice Department has finally stepped in to address this madness. Earlier this month, the department sued Minnesota, claiming that Ellison’s lawsuit wildly exceeds the state’s authority, and that the federal government, not individual states, should regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

But it is a sad day when the federal government must step in to protect Minnesota taxpayers from their own attorney general.

For years, Keith Ellison let unprecedented fraud run rampant throughout our state while he was busy suing American businesses that employ plenty of hardworking Minnesotans and provide critical resources to our state’s economy.

Our state deserves better than that. We deserve an attorney general who works every day to protect our hard-earned state tax dollars, not one who cozies up to the rich and privileged to wage a politically motivated, national legal campaign.

Mark Drake is a veteran communications and research professional. Drake has held senior communications and research positions in support of presidential, statewide and local political candidates.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not represent an official position of Alpha News. 

Mark Drake

Mark Drake is a veteran communications and research professional. Drake has held senior communications and research positions in support of presidential, statewide and local political candidates.