In 2021 videos, Sen. Omar Fateh brags about intervening with state agencies
Two videos, both produced in 2021, show the Minneapolis mayoral candidate speaking about his advocacy work on behalf of private companies providing social services funded by state government (taxpayers). Here is an edited version of his remarks:
What’s significant about the timing? In 2021 Sen. Fateh accepted campaign contributions totaling $9,500 from ten (10) individuals later indicted in the Feeding Our Future scandal.
Donors to the Minneapolis Democrat included Defendant Nos. 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 24, 25, 63, and 67 in the case. Of those, two have since pled guilty and been convicted (Guilty Pleas Nos. 14 and 16). The Feeding Our Future scandal involved two federal free-food programs overseen by the state Department of Education (MDE).
Court records indicate that only 5 of the 10 defendants/donors have addresses in Minneapolis.
Fateh was first elected to the state senate in 2020 and reelected in 2022 to a four-year term. He currently serves as chairman of the senate’s Higher Education Committee. Earlier this month, he announced a run for Minneapolis mayor in the November 2025 election, challenging the incumbent, and fellow Democrat, Jacob Frey.
The first video is from an event held on May 7, 2021. It can still be accessed here on Facebook.
Omar’s remarks to the crowd begin at the 5:10 mark, where he ticks off a list of issues facing “the Somali community.” At the 5:19 mark, Fateh complains about:
the state coming after our businesses, from our childcares, to our homecares, to our adult daycares. These are things that I helped organize against for the past few years…beginning with fighting for our child daycare centers.
At the 7:32 mark, Fateh touches on the free-food distribution programs operated by his campaign donors during COVID:
making sure that our kids can not only get an education, but they have food to eat, mostly because our Somali businesses connecting with MDE providing school lunches and dinners to these kids.
The second video is available here, also on Facebook, and is taken from an event that runs nearly three hours. The event is the 1st Annual Somali-American Elected Officials Town Hall and was held on December 12, 2021:
The significance of the event’s timing is that it occurred approximately five weeks before the FBI raids on Feeding Our Future.
Sen. Fateh first raises the subject at the 29-minute mark of the video, accusing state government of “targeting” “our immigrant businesses.” He specifically mentions (29:03) the state Departments of Education, Human Services, and Health.
The video returns to the subject at the 1 hour 34 minute 10 second mark with an audience question regarding business owners working in “the care economy” (1:34:30). The questioner complains that:
The state of Minnesota has been targeting Somali business owners and Muslim business owners unfairly for a long time.
[As an aside: In later years, some Feeding Our Future defendants would go on to assert a similar “selective prosecution” defense. This approach would appear to imply that the entire program was fraud-ridden and that the state chose to prosecute only Somali businesses.]
Fateh’s reply begins at 1:35:10 mark of the video. Unsurprisingly, he does not reject the premise of the question.
Fateh goes on to list his advocacy work on behalf of Somali business owners in the grocery, restaurant, assisted living, group home, and home care industries. At 1:37:20, Fateh mentions his work connecting business owners “with Assistant Commissioners and Directors” to resolve problems.
Mediating between your constituents and businesses located within your district, on the one hand, and state government agencies, on the other, is certainly within the job description of a state senator. Defaming state agencies and government bureaucrats is not.
U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minneapolis) was also at the event, and she takes a crack at answering the same question at the 1:39:54 mark. At 1:41:30, she asserts, without evidence, that the only “powerless” small businesses in the state are Somali.
The complete three-hour event features a number of elected officials from all levels of government. The event appears to have been backed by a nonprofit, the Somali American Elected Officials Network (SAEON, no hyphen).
According to records maintained by the MN Secretary of State’s (SOS) office, the nonprofit Network was founded in December 2021 by Sen. Fatah and then-St. Louis Park city council member (now Mayor) Nadia Mohamed. The company is now shown as “inactive” on the SOS database. We are unable to locate any tax-exempt-status application or IRS tax returns filed by the entity.
Fateh’s remarks documented above closely track with reporting on another 2021 video in which he appears but is no longer available. In February 2022, the Sahan Journal reported that,
Last summer [2021], Omar [Fateh] attended a public event with Feeding Our Future Executive Director Aimee Bock and criticized the state Department of Education’s decision to pause funding for the nonprofit.
Aimee Bock, of course, would go on to become Feeding Our Future Defendant No. 1. The Journal adds,
In a video of last summer’s event, Omar [Fateh] stated that he met with state officials about the state’s actions to pause the funding. That video, posted on YouTube by Xogmaal Media, a local independent Somali news outlet, was removed from public viewing one day after the [FBI] search warrants became public.
Xogmaal Media, coincidentally, is owned by Feeding Our Future Defendant No. 49. At the time, Fateh issued a statement implying that he too was bamboozled by the free-food fraudsters.
As part of this proposed mayoral program for Minneapolis, Fateh states that:
I have deep ties in our community and have worked on issues such as environmental and racial justice through restorative urban planning, including reparations to Black neighborhoods destroyed by highways.
Good luck, Minneapolis!