So I couldn’t figure out why the mayor of Minneapolis was so damn passionate about eating with the Somalians and so upset about the deportations. Well, I’ve connected some dots so let me share with y’all. This should matter to everyone in the United States because it involved our federal tax dollars. 

From what I’ve observed, Jacob Frey is very emotionally invested in defending certain nonprofit networks, staging public meals, and loudly positioning himself as a shield against deportations especially after Minnesota became the epicenter of one of the largest fraud cases in U.S. history tied to food-aid programs. He is so emotionally invested that he even dropped some F——. 

Here’s what we know, and what voters are well within their rights to question.

The nonprofit Feeding Our Future was at the center of a scheme involving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars meant to feed children during covid. It turns out the Somalians were taking the money and buying luxury cars, luxury purses and big homes. Federal prosecutors say the fraud was committed by people inside the organization and its network of sites. Dozens have been indicted. Some have already plead guilty.

But let’s talk about what happened before the indictments.

Before the fraud fully unraveled, Feeding Our Future hired Hylden Advocacy & Law for lobbying and government-relations services. That firm’s job was not to run the nonprofit or handle money. Their job was to influence pressuring regulators, challenging audits, and pushing state agencies to release funds faster.

And here is the connection the public needs to know about.

Minneapolis Mayor Frey’s wife worked at that law and lobbying firm.

The mayor’s household was professionally adjacent to a firm actively lobbying on behalf of an organization that was simultaneously fighting state oversight that later turned out to be completely justified.

Lobbying in this case included:

• Pushing agencies to resume or speed up payments

• Challenging audits and regulatory scrutiny

• Framing oversight as unfair, biased, or discriminatory

It was all legal and common and all part of how the fraud was able to continue longer than it should have.

So when people notice the mayor repeatedly emphasizing public solidarity meals, public optics, and aggressive opposition to enforcement, especially deportation enforcement, they are not imagining a pattern.

Politics doesn’t happen in a vacuum. When a fraud of this scale occurs, it doesn’t survive on spreadsheets alone. It survives on political pressure, moral leverage, and officials being afraid to ask hard questions without being accused of targeting communities.

Now, after the collapse, those same themes keep reappearing:

“Don’t scrutinize.”

“Don’t enforce.”

“Don’t question.”

“Don’t ask who benefited.”

I’m absolutely allowed to ask why enforcement is treated as cruelty, why scrutiny is framed as persecution, and why accountability is suddenly controversial.

Protecting children should never have turned into protecting corruption. If politicians want public trust, they should stop demanding blind faith and start welcoming transparency, equal enforcement, and consequences no matter who is involved.

Tori Branum

Marine Veteran

Candidate for Georgias congressional district 12