Revealed: Walz struggled to deal with unrest after police violence

Reporting Highlights

  • Behind the Scenes: Democrats portray Gov. Tim Walz as a progressive hero. Republicans call him an extremist. Emails obtained by ProPublica and the Minnesota Reformer suggest he is neither.
  • Unavoidable Compromise: In 2021, police accountability activists pushed Walz for reform. Senate Republicans pushed back. Few people were satisfied with the result.
  • Law and Order: Former President Donald Trump says Walz was slow to respond to unrest. But after police killed Daunte Wright, Walz was criticized for being too heavy-handed.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

In the spring of 2021, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz faced multiple crises.

The trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd was coming to a close. As the one-year anniversary of Floyd’s death approached, authorities were preparing for the kind of unrest that had damaged or destroyed long stretches of the city in 2020. Meanwhile, a package of police reform bills was stalled in the divided Minnesota state Legislature.

Then, on April 11, 2021, a police officer shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in the northern Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center, touching off a fresh round of protests, clashes with the police, and criticism of Walz after he sent in hundreds of officers and armored vehicles that had been readied in anticipation of the trial’s aftermath.

In the midst of all this, Walz still saw an opening to bring police reform to Minnesota and provide a national model for systemic change. He feared the 2021 session would be his last, best chance to do so. But he told the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who made repeated trips to Minneapolis during the upheaval after Floyd’s death, that local politics were getting in the way.

“I wish I could report more on our progress,” Walz told Jackson in a call transcribed by a staff member. “Both you and President Obama mentioned that Minnesota should be the state that could get this right. That’s a responsibility that we have in Minnesota.”

The clamorous close of the 2021 legislative session, and Walz’s role in trying to enact police reform in response to the police killings of Floyd and Wright, plays out in a cache of thousands of internal emails from the Walz administration obtained by ProPublica and the Minnesota Reformer. The emails were requested that summer by independent journalist Tony Webster, but the administration only recently finished turning them over. Webster shared them with the news organizations.

Though the emails are limited, covering about 11 weeks from April to June 2021, they provide a closer, more detailed look at how Walz tried to leverage his influence on the legislative process. They reveal a politician who seems to be a careful listener in one-on-one conversations with grieving mothers and Black activists, freely giving out his personal cellphone number and invitations to the governor’s mansion.

And they show how Walz struggled to balance the need for order in the streets against his credibility with activist allies, while simultaneously trying to bridge the ideological divide between progressives in his party and pro-law-enforcement conservatives.

“He likes being liked,” former state Rep. Patrick Garofalo, a Republican, said of how Walz operates. “He’s thinking about political survival, and it’s nothing more complicated than that. The guy’s not an ideologue.”

Since Vice President Kamala Harris selected Walz to be her running mate, the governor has rocketed to national prominence, praised by Democrats for his progressive “Midwestern dad” image while labeled a “dangerously liberal extremist” who wants to defund the police by Harris’ opponent, former President Donald Trump. Walz has never advocated defunding the police.

The Trump campaign has also tried to cast Walz’s response to the 2020 unrest as weak and ineffectual, despite the fact that, at the time, Trump praised Walz for deploying the National Guard, calling it a “beautiful thing to watch.”

In the end, Walz emerged from the 2021 special legislative session with a compromise bill on police reform that seemingly satisfied no one. For some Democrats, it didn’t go far enough. Many called the bill a disappointment. Some Republicans felt it went too far. The next year, facing reelection, Walz received no major law enforcement endorsements.

“He is not a radical,” said Michelle Phelps, a University of Minnesota sociology professor and author of “The Minneapolis Reckoning.” “He is, I think, a sort of a vanguard of what a more progressive, but still centrist, liberal Democratic wing of the party could look like.”

In response to questions, Teddy Tschann, a spokesperson for Walz, said in a statement that the governor “is committed to bringing people with different views and backgrounds together to find common ground and get things done.”

After Wright was killed, as demonstrations escalated outside the Brooklyn Center police station, texts streamed into Walz’s phone.

“Can you please get those cops out of there and send in the national guard?” one Democratic lawmaker texted him.

That night residents, protesters and journalists in Brooklyn Center met with members of Operation Safety Net, an aggressive coalition of Minnesota National Guard soldiers, state troopers and local police who used tear gas and flash-bangs to clear the streets. A prominent union leader texted Walz less than 24 hours later: “Escalating with tanks and national guard is not helping. You can calm the situation, but this isn’t the way.”

An attorney representing 30 national and local media organizations would later write to Walz with a detailed list of documented abuses the group said journalists were subjected to at the hands of law enforcement, warning that the state agencies under Walz’s control seemed to have no regard for the First Amendment.

Despite renewed tension and unrest, emails from Walz staffers document his outreach to members of Black activist groups and the families of people killed by police in Minnesota. On April 20, the day a jury found Chauvin guilty of murdering Floyd, Walz staff logged phone conversations with the Floyd family, the Rev. Al Sharpton and former President Barack Obama. In one phone conversation on the anniversary of Floyd’s death — a day on which Walz called for 9 minutes and 29 seconds of silence acknowledging the length of time Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck — Walz reflected on his own “inherent racial bias.”

“I wanted to be thoughtful and be intentional around race and the murder of George Floyd. I am trying to learn this year,” he said, according to a staffer’s transcript of a call with the leader of a local foundation. “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a lot of villages to raise a governor.”

With Walz, some advocates felt acknowledged in a way that was initially refreshing.

“The governor looked me in my eyes and said, ‘John, I need you to get me some legislation,’” said Johnathon McClellan, president of the Minnesota Justice Coalition, a racial equity nonprofit that advocates for social justice reform. “He understood the protests. He understood what the people were asking for.”

Walz received a flood of advice and opinions on what the next legislative steps should be, some from less-expected entities. The Minnesota Business Partnership, a group representing the CEOs of companies like 3M and Cargill as well as other business leaders, urged Walz to advocate for training policy changes and measures to make it harder to hire police officers who’d engaged in misconduct, while stressing that the group was broadly pro-law enforcement.

“Minnesota’s reputation matters,” said Charlie Weaver, the partnership’s executive director at the time. “If we had a reputation as a hostile environment for minority workers, that’s a big problem for our large companies.”

The Walz administration leapt at the chance to arrange a meeting between lawmakers and Weaver, a former chief of staff for Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty. “We need their help pushing key issues in the Senate,” wrote one policy adviser.

But the leadership of the Republican-controlled Senate criticized broader reform efforts as “anti-police.” Behind the scenes, according to an internal memo, the Senate agreed to just three of the dozens of proposals the Democrat-controlled House had advanced and Walz had supported.

“I wasn’t going to take things that I knew would hinder a good police officer from doing their job, and also hinder us from getting quality police in the future,” said then-Senate majority leader Paul Gazelka in an interview.

In response, Walz brokered a meeting between Gazelka and Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence. The group’s founder, Toshira Garraway, lost her fiance in 2009 after he was chased by the St. Paul police and later found dead in a bin at a recycling facility. She wanted to advocate for a bill eliminating the statute of limitations on wrongful death suits against police. (Garraway did not respond to requests for comment.) Gazelka said that the request for the meeting, coming straight from Walz, was unusual.

“I certainly was willing to do that, and did listen to them,” Gazelka said.

That meeting took place on June 3, 2021, the same day that a U.S. Marshals Service task force shot and killed Winston Smith Jr. in a parking garage in Minneapolis while trying to arrest him on an outstanding warrant. Walz’s office once again put the National Guard on notice and made repeated requests to the Biden administration to address its role in the incident and ease pressure on local authorities.

“DOJ in DC is a hard ‘no’ on doing a press conference,” staffers wrote in the days after Smith’s death. A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment.

Walz couldn’t avoid blowback, even from prominent local activists with whom he shared a cordial relationship. A letter sent by Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and the founder of the Racial Justice Network who was in contact with the administration throughout the spring, demanded that Walz create an independent entity to investigate Smith’s death, criticizing the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as hopelessly biased. Staff from both Walz’s office and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety wrote a draft of a response that said the BCA, which investigates incidents where police kill people, had the administration’s “utmost trust and confidence.” Although Levy Armstrong could not confirm that she got the reply, the BCA retained control of the case.

Protests over Smith’s death continued until a drunk driver plowed into a group of demonstrators, killing one woman and injuring others. The next day, on June 14, the Minnesota Legislature entered a special session with no movement on police reform and the threat of a government shutdown looming over negotiations. Roughly 38,000 potential layoff notices had already been sent to state employees, and Walz and Senate and House lawmakers had two and a half weeks to come to an agreement. Republicans were particularly eager to pass a bill that would end Walz’s COVID-19-era emergency powers.

“It was very nerve-wracking,” said House Speaker Melissa Hortman, a Democrat. “There were two pressures coming for a shutdown: the Republicans were interested in shutting down the government if the governor didn’t give up his emergency powers. My caucus was interested in shutting down the government if we didn’t have some public safety reforms.”

After the first day of the special session, Walz staffers noted that Senate Republicans had “retracted policy concessions” and seemed “withdrawn from negotiations.” Around the same time, Walz policy advisers were also doing damage control after sending an email that erroneously announced that the Minnesota Justice Coalition and Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence had pared down their list of desired legislation from nine bills to four, prompting an angry press release from the groups: “WE WANT TO MAKE IT CRYSTAL CLEAR THAT WE MADE NO SUCH AGREEMENT.” Kristin Beckmann, then Walz’s deputy chief of staff, admonished the policy advisers for speaking out of turn.

“This is a major set back in that trust. It’s really frustrating,” she wrote. Beckmann did not respond to requests for comment.

The emails end in mid-June with Walz’s schedulers batting away invitations and meetings to allow for all-day negotiation sessions while staffers tried to craft messaging for increasingly anxious state employees. “We’re getting a lot of internal pushback that we haven’t been able to provide enough information,” one state communications worker wrote.

Reform advocates had been urging Walz for weeks to take a hard-line stance during the final budget negotiations, even allowing the government to shut down to force more sweeping changes. But the governor made it clear that was a line he would not cross, according to staff notes on the conversations.

Walz said that he “had concerns over shutting down the government and that this hurts many of the people the administration is trying to help. He said he was hopeful on a few items passing this year,” according to the summation of a phone call with McClellan, the president of the Minnesota Justice Coalition. “He made it clear it was unlikely that everything he’s pushing for will pass.”

The notes proved prophetic. Three days before the deadline, Walz, Gazelka and Hortman announced a deal. The final bill included new restrictions on no-knock warrants, a law requiring 911 operators to alert mental health crisis teams under certain circumstances, and the creation of a kind of warrant that doesn’t require police to take suspects into custody. The package also included salary increases for state law enforcement, money for body cameras and enhanced penalties for the attempted murder of officers.

Through an executive action, Walz also directed state law enforcement agencies to turn over body camera footage from deadly police encounters to the affected families within five days.

Garraway’s bill to eliminate the statute of limitations on wrongful death suits against the police hit the cutting room floor, as did bills that would disallow police from making a number of equipment-related traffic stops, like ones for expired registration tags, and a bill that would form a civilian oversight board. In an interview with The Washington Post, Walz said he felt he’d “failed” Garraway.

At the end of one of Walz’s last press conferences that session, Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and one of the people the Walz administration had kept in close contact with that spring, pushed through reporters to ask Walz to veto the compromise bill, saying it actually provided more cover for police. Walz, looking tired, listened, addressed Hussein by his first name and said he would not veto the bill.

“This is the challenge of democracy,” Walz said. “There are going to be a lot of people in this moment [who] see this as not acceptable. I understand that.”

How Trump is distorting what happened to Jaleel Stallings to attack Kamala Harris

On Tuesday, the Trump campaign accused Vice President Kamala Harris of encouraging people in 2020 to bail out of jail a St. Paul man who tried to kill Minneapolis cops five days after George Floyd’s police murder.

Trump’s “war room” posted on X that Harris raised money to bail Jaleel Stallings out of jail after he was “charged with the attempted murder of two police officers” alongside a photo of Harris laughing and Stallings’ mug shot.

“Kamala Harris is radically liberal and dangerously incompetent,” the post said.

It’s true that Stallings was charged with attempted murder, but the Trump campaign fails to mention that Stallings was acquitted by a jury of all charges and one officer involved in the incident later pleaded guilty to felony assault on Stallings, and apologized to him.

On the night of May 30, 2020, Stallings was standing in a parking lot on Lake Street with a few others when suddenly shots rang out from a white cargo van that had been slowly creeping down the street before coming into view from behind a building. Two rounds were fired at the group.

Stallings was hit in the chest with what he thought was a bullet. He immediately drew his pistol and fired back at who he thought might be white supremacists that the governor had warned were fanning the flames of protest. He later testified that he purposely missed, aiming low, toward the front of the van, hoping to scare off whoever had shot at him.

Suddenly members of a SWAT team piled out of the unmarked van yelling, “Shots fired!” Stallings realized they were police, dropped his gun and lay face down on the pavement, arms spread-eagle, videos show.

He’d been shot with one of the plastic projectiles the SWAT team had been firing at people out past a curfew as police struggled to get control of the city amid protests, arson and riots. Even though they were firing “less lethal” projectiles, under MPD policy, officers weren’t supposed to target a person’s head, neck, throat or chest “unless deadly force is justified,” because they could cause permanent damage or death.

Thinking someone had just tried to shoot them, the officers beat Stallings bloody for 30 seconds, and beat and Tasered his acquaintance for two minutes. Stallings was hospitalized with a fractured eye socket. Stallings is clearly beaten and bloody in his jail mug shot, but he had a weird smile on his face. He later said he was just happy to be alive.

Then-Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman released a statement painting Stallings as a would-be cop killer.

Two years later, Freeman would say the cops lied about what happened, and called the case “justice run amok.” But immediately after the incident, the case made national headlines based on charging documents that said Stallings fired at a uniformed SWAT team.

The case made headlines again when the Minnesota Freedom Fund paid $75,000 cash to get Stallings out of jail. He had no prior criminal record.

After Biden campaign officials donated to the Freedom Fund, then-President Donald Trump’s War Room used the case to raise money, tweeting that “Jaleel Stallings is a would-be cop killer who was in jail for firing at police during ‘peaceful protests.’ Now he’s free thanks in part to Biden campaign officials who donated to pay bail fees.”

And then everybody moved on, until Stallings went to trial a year later.

Stallings’ attorney Eric Rice obtained the officers’ body camera videos, which told a different story than what police and prosecutors had told the public.

Months after the trial, the Reformer was the first to report that Stallings had been exonerated. He’d claimed self-defense, and after a five-day trial, was acquitted by a jury of eight charges, including two counts of attempting to murder police officers.

The city later settled a civil lawsuit with Stallings for $1.5 million, and another lawsuit filed by his acquaintance, who’d been beaten and tasered, for $645,000.

And yet Stallings continues to be tarred and used for political gain.

U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota posted on X Monday that Harris once supported “a bail fund for Minnesota criminals who should have stayed behind bars.”

The Trump campaign followed suit Tuesday with its post highlighting Harris’ June 1, 2020 post encouraging people to donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Spurred on by celebrities like Seth Rogen, Steve Carrell and Harris, the tiny bail fund was overwhelmed with over $30 million in donations, which it used to bail out over 2,000 people as part of its goal of ending the cash bail system in which only people without money have to sit in jail awaiting trial, often at the expense of jobs, housing and family support.

The bail fund was established in 2016 by a University of Minnesota grad student, Simon Cecil, and due to its meager resources initially focused on bails of up to $1,000.

The bail fund has been excoriated for bailing out a twice-convicted rapist and a man who was charged with second-degree murder three weeks after his release, but stands by its decision to bail out Stallings over four years ago.

“We’re really proud of having paid for (Stallings),” spokesperson Noble Frank said last year.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and X.

The Minnesota GOP is broke and struggling to contain the fringe

Minnesota Republicans haven’t won a statewide race since 2006, and thus far they have failed to recruit a serious 2024 challenger against U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar — likely because candidates don’t want to play the part of the sacrificial lamb.

During a Saturday meeting of the GOP State Central Committee, a group calling itself Rebuild the MNGOP will try to remove state party leaders, including party Chair David Hann.

They aren’t expected to succeed, but it counts as another distraction as the party tries to regroup following a series of electoral defeats culminating in the devastating 2022 election. That’s when Democrats won a surprising trifecta and spent the next six months turning Minnesota into a progressive model for the rest of the nation.

“If this was a football team … we would call this a rebuilding year,” said former GOP operative Michael Brodkorb. “They hit rock bottom on Election Day.”

Despite recent history, however, Republicans have at least some reason for optimism. The likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump nearly won the state in 2016, and a wave of Republican candidates rode his coattails to majorities in both the House and Senate that year. A recent MinnPost poll shows Trump in a dead heat with President Joe Biden.

The war in Gaza has revealed deep divisions in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, especially in the Senate, where more than a dozen members recently condemned state Sen. Ron Latz for comments he made about Palestinian children.

Although the state Senate will not be on the ballot next year, the House DFL maintains a narrow 70-64 advantage. Republicans say a backlash is brewing against the 2023 session’s taxing and spending that took the state from a $17 billion surplus into a potential budget deficit.

Still, if Republicans are to win again in Minnesota, they face some major challenges.

“We’re just lost,” said Amy Koch, a Republican lobbyist and former Senate majority leader. “I don’t know how we pull out of this.”

The Reformer talked to current and former GOP operatives, who identified three broad problems: Money, messaging and MAGA.

$53 in the bank

After a devastating 2022 election, Republicans were left reeling. Some big donors threatened to leave the state, and at one point this year, the party had just $53 in cash on hand and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

Hann took over as chair of the party in 2021, after a federal sex trafficking scandal related to a prominent donor and allegations of a toxic work environment led to the fall of former Chair Jennifer Carnahan.

Hann promised to erase the party’s debt, but hasn’t been able to yet, which he’s blamed in part on the cost of dealing with the Carnahan fallout and subsequent litigation with her. (She told party activists in a recent email that Hann is merely deflecting blame.)

John Rouleau, executive director of the Republican-aligned Minnesota Jobs Coalition, said the state party had to pay Carnahan’s severance with a maxed-out line of credit.

Federal Election Commission reports show the party with $145,000 cash on hand and $414,000 in debt. The most recent state campaign finance report, which doesn’t include any 2023 data, shows $8,000 cash on hand and $76,000 in debt.

Rouleau said donor interest has picked up, and he expects the party to put up decent fundraising numbers heading into 2024. After a sweeping loss, donors’ natural reaction is to pull back and reassess, he said.

A Republican insider, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal party matters, said Hann is capable and has credibility with the donor class, and it’s not fair to attribute the party’s money problems to him. Replacing him with a right-wing zealot would put the party in dire straits, he said.

“Any chair would be in the current situation,” he said. “If you think the 414 ($414,000 in debt) is bad now just wait until you get zero dollars coming in the door.”

Messaging: ‘Nobody wants to give money to that’

Koch attributes fundraising woes to bad messaging from bad candidates. She said Republicans who are tired of the DFL trifecta and “woke nonsense” need to stop putting up candidates who can’t win, and stop with the “horrible messaging.”

“It’s not something people want to give money to when you’re just angry all the time and you don’t stand for anything and you’re not winning. And you have campaigns that are put up there that are not ready for prime time, and they don’t represent their districts and they’re saying wackadoodle things,” she said. “Nobody wants to give money to that.”

Rather than focusing on opposition to the DFL’s wide-ranging legislative agenda this year, for instance, some Republicans were busy comparing President Joe Biden to murderous tyrants Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, claiming there are no hungry people in Minnesota, ranting about schools “teaching kids to be gay,” calling COVID-19 vaccines death shots, and claiming the 2020 election was stolen.

Brodkorb said some Republicans learned from their mistakes, like 2022 GOP nominee for governor Scott Jensen, who has said the party needs to approach issues — most notably abortion — with a more realistic understanding of Minnesotans’ attitudes. (Jensen still, however, continues to raise money off his doctor-against-vaccines persona.)

“I think that the party is slowly climbing out,” Brodkorb said.

‘Bats--- crazy people’

A de-emphasis on caucuses and party endorsements — which tend to elevate the party’s most radical voices — and an early primary election in June would “avoid a lot of the crazy” and attract more mainstream candidates, the GOP insider said. (Elected officials aren’t keen on the early primary, however, because they are at the Capitol into May and restricted from fundraising.)

The GOP source blames social media for giving “bat(expletive) crazy people” a place to communicate, spread misinformation and organize.

Rouleau, with the Jobs Coalition, said the party should focus on its strengths and turn to others for help. In the post-Citizens United age of super PACs, he thinks state parties should focus on finding volunteers, getting out the vote and planning conventions.

Hann has worked to engage the grassroots, doing a “massive tour” around the state, he said.

He’s had his missteps, though. He promoted a right-wing activist connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection who held an event at a Sauk Rapids honky-tonk with Confederate memorabilia.

“That’s exactly what we don’t need,” Brodkorb said. “The party has to stay away from that stuff.”

The party needs to focus on rebuilding, re-examining its goals and reprioritizing, Brodkorb said, or it will have a credibility problem with donors and difficulty attracting quality candidates. The party needs to prove it’s worth investing in, he said.

Koch is dismayed at what the party has become. Conventions, she said, used to be fun even amid insurgent candidacies, Koch said. She chaired the 2008 “dumpster fire of a convention” when an influx of new people showed up to support libertarian icon Ron Paul. But some of his supporters stuck around afterward and got involved in the party.

“I like new people in the party,” she said. “But this is just angry people. Why would anybody want to get engaged with the party? You just go to these conventions, and everybody’s just yelling at each other, and we supposedly believe most of the same things … like conservative principles, fiscal common sense, strong national defense, communist Russia bad.”

Now, however, it’s all about Trump, she said.

“The fringe is never what runs the party. They have to have messages and messengers to bring in the people who’ve left. The everyday, normal, fiscally conservative Republicans. They have to get back to the basics, and get people organized and showing up.”

Mike Lindell’s conspiracy-fueled pillow company fights to survive his election obsession

CHASKA — Pillow mogul Mike Lindell calls up former Michigan state senator Patrick Colbeck, who works for something Lindell made up called the Election Crime Bureau, to talk about press strategy.

Lindell tells Colbeck a press release needs to mention his “offense fund,” to which people can give donations so Lindell can keep funding his election fraud battle now that he’s running out of money.

Lindell says he has a tally of U.S. counties that are eschewing voting machines for paper ballots, but he won’t disclose them to the “horrible media.”

Mid-conversation, Lindell starts brainstorming ideas with his marketing person on a new name for his FrankSpeech social media app — he wants the name to convey something about courage.

“Grit’s a good one,” Lindell says.

Lindell summons an employee and asks what MyPillow offers are being advertised on CNN and MSNBC. Colbeck waits on the phone.

Doug Wardlow, a MyPillow lawyer who twice ran for Minnesota attorney general and lost, walks in the office with an update on litigation with a company called MyBooty. Lindell is now having three different conversations at once.

He turns to me and says, “You know all about a Nebraska county going to paper ballots?”

Four conversations.

At MyPillow headquarters in Chaska, Minnesota, religion, politics, pillows and a kinetic CEO fuel a never-ending tornado that Lindell flies around in nearly every minute of every day, selling — always selling — his latest set of sheets, pseudo-Biblical prophecy, election fraud theory, grievance.

So many people are out to get him, he says, and his only defense is to sell more pillows (and bath towels, slippers, coffee, mattress covers and numerous other products).

In the lobby at pillow HQ, there’s a Bible. A devotional. A book called “Jesus Always.” A far-right newspaper called the Epoch Times. A conservative, pro-Israel newspaper called the Jewish Voice.

To find Mike Lindell, listen for the booming voice upstairs, where he’s just returned from several weeks traveling the country. A bevy of women orbit around him, often within earshot in case he bellows out their name with a question or demand.

In the morning, he prepares to do “The Jim Bakker Show” with his chief operating officer and son, Darren Lindell, and his chief marketing officer, Jessica Maskovich. (Three of his four children work for the company.)

“With all the cancellations, we’re expanding into other areas,” Lindell says, explaining why he’s going on the show of a disgraced televangelist.

Walmart, Kohl’s, J.C. Penney, Wayfair, Bed Bath & Beyond and other companies pulled MyPillow products after Lindell’s prominent White House appearance in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, and Lindell has been battling since to save his company, as he fends off lawsuits that could obliterate it. Lindell says he has about 1,300 employees, with more seasonal workers coming for the holidays.

In the main floor call center at headquarters, phones will light up with orders and the ever-present promo codes that will help MyPillow track resulting sales during his media appearances.

Dressed in a light purple dress shirt with a cross necklace peeking out of the collar, Lindell works at a large conference table in his office — never his desk — surrounded by Christian-themed pictures, a closet full of labeled, plastic bins, and an adjoining bathroom and what one presumes is a teal MyPillow towel hanging on the shower door.

Lindell is going over the special offers he’ll promote on Bakker’s show and later, Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. He peppers his employees with questions.

“Can I see Bakker’s drop-in page?”

“What are they paying us on these two?”

“What about slippers?”

Christmas spots will start soon on Fox News, even though Fox won’t let him come on and talk about election fraud anymore, not since voting machine company Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox. Fox settled a separate Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit for nearly $800 million, and Lindell and his company are also being sued by Smartmatic and Dominion for far more than Lindell and his company are worth. Dominion is suing him for $1.3 billion, and Smartmatic for unspecified damages.

A middle-aged brunette woman pops into the office. She does deals with radio hosts across the country.

“We treat every one like it’s our only venue,” Lindell says.

He goes over the questions he’s been given in advance of his appearance on the Bakker show.

Like: “You’ve personally spent millions on the voting machine defamation lawsuits against you and MyPillow. Do you have any regrets?”

“I sure do!” Lindell says, rehearsing his answer. “That I didn’t include ES&S! Ha ha!”

By ES&S, he means Election Systems & Software, an Omaha company that manufactures voting machine equipment.

He says the media thinks he wanted to overturn the 2020 election to get Trump in office — which of course, all evidence indicates he did — but he now claims he would still be sounding the alarm about election security even if Trump had been re-elected.

“This was an attack on our country,” he says. “This isn’t about Donald Trump.” (Just days later, however, he would make another pilgrimage to see Trump at Mar-a-Lago.)

The topic sends him diving into his favorite rabbit hole, lecturing about voting machines — a campaign that has eaten up his personal fortune, and he says commands 80% of his focus. He’s been ordered to pay $5 million to a software engineer who took him up on a challenge to prove him wrong about 2020 election data.

He says he’s spent millions on this quest and his employee-owned company has lost hundreds of millions of dollars amid the fallout, and employees haven’t gotten a dividend in three years.

“We’ve been attacked everywhere from banks to box stores, the media, IRS, FBI,” he says.

The IRS recently filed two liens against his Texas home and land for nearly $9.5 million.

Lindell says the IRS isn’t allowing a deduction related to his effort to offload $10 million worth of oleandrin, a poisonous plant extract and unproven COVID-19 treatment, to other countries during the pandemic.

Lindell bought a stake in a company producing the dubious treatment, but scientists said it was possibly dangerous and his shipments kept getting stymied by the government until the oleandrin expired. He claimed it as a loss on his personal taxes.

He’s still enraged by a Dominion lawyer’s suggestion that he’s spinning election conspiracies to pump up MyPillow sales.

“If it was a marketing thing, I’m smart enough to say we failed,” Lindell says.

He now claims Republicans are also covering up problems with voting machines.

“Republicans were stealing elections,” Lindell says. “Our biggest blockers have been the Republicans to get rid of these voting machines.”

Democrats have also publicly worried about their vulnerabilities, too. Lindell notes that U.S. Sen Amy Klobuchar warned about the vulnerability of electronic voting machines in the HBO documentary “Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections,” which arrived about the same time as the COVID-19 pandemic. The election experts in the film say that the answer is paper ballots counted by computers, so the vote can be audited. Lindell wants paper ballots to be hand counted.

While election experts say no voting system is invulnerable, a coalition of federal cybersecurity and election officials concluded the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.” Hand counting paper ballots is also slower, less accurate and more vulnerable to the very fraud Lindell claims to be fighting.

Lindell switches from preparing for the Bakker show to talking about his conservative social media platforms — where you can watch Lindell TV 24/7. He’s poured millions into creating his own mouthpieces; he says he put $12 million into his nightly Lindell TV show, which has run for two years on his own servers. He says about 4 million people watch FrankSpeech — conservative broadcast network and video platform — per month.

He says he’s persuaded about 200 counties to “go machine free” and hopes to get them all on board next year.

“I just get fired up,” he says.

Then he turns to his marketing guru and says, “Tell me what you want me to wear.”

While Maskovich gets up and grabs the options, Lindell calls for his controller, Michael Thomas.

“So what do we got for money?”

Then he starts a separate phone conversation with his procurement director Bob Sohns, saying, “Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob.”

They’re debating which bills to pay that day.

“They both need to be paid or?” Lindell says. “175 based on last week.”

“Do we need to post-date it so it looks good?”

“Go ahead and mail that one.”

“Pay the 86. Tell ‘em to send a truck immediately … don’t say anything about 175.”

“How much do we have at Lindell Management? Does that include Bannon?”

“Pull those loans.”

Lindell opts to wear the white shirt and blue jacket, then goes into the bathroom to change and starts talking on the phone again.

Wardlow walks in the office looking for Lindell.

Lindell walks out with his dress shirt untucked, talking on the phone.

No one else seems to be talking about fraud in the recent election, but Lindell will talk all day about it: “It was horrific… in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Dallas,” he says.

‘He was a mile-a-minute guy’

This is how it goes all day long.

Lindell estimates he’s in Texas about half the time, and Minnesota about one-third of the time, so when he’s at headquarters, it’s a machine gun of questions, answers, demands, commentary, wardrobe changes, makeup, cameras and lights.

His employees try to get questions answered, documents signed, decisions made, but he’s in motion, jabbering on while often scrawling madly on paper.

Former Chaska Mayor Bob Roepke served on the MyPillow board of directors for several years before leaving in January 2021 after Lindell became enamored with Trump.

“He was really engaged with that relationship,” Roepke says. “We just weren’t aligned in terms of national leadership.”

Roepke decided it was best to resign, but says Lindell is a true entrepreneur who touched every component of his business.

“He was a mile-a-minute guy, going and going and going and then going some more. I’m not sure when he ever rested.”

Lindell helped friends from his past — his journey from crackhead to pillow salesman is legendary — and was committed to his employees, Roepke says.

“We talked about using automation to reduce the workforce, but he didn’t want any part of that,” he says. “It was really important for him to employ those who had challenges in their life.”

Lindell has long followed his instincts, beliefs and sometimes even literal dreams, which took his company far, but now have put it on the line. It’s a privately held company, which means MyPillow’s financial health is opaque. Lindell is the primary stockholder.

‘It was a Hardee’s, not a Wendy’s’

Lindell is hawking products on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast — which one study found had more inaccuracies than any other podcast.

Lindell heads down the hallway to the other end of the building where he’s converted an office into a makeshift TV studio. He sits at a desk in front of bookcases stuffed with bright towels, furry slippers and an array of small, colorful children’s pillows with cartoonish Bible scenes.

On the video monitor, Bannon is talking about George Floyd, then goes to break and tells Lindell, “You got a hot three (minutes).”

While waiting for his segment to begin, Lindell asks for a mirror and dabs makeup onto his face and spritzes on some hairspray.

Since getting dropped by multiple retailers, Lindell says, Bannon regularly has him on the podcast to do “basically a commercial” like those he used to do on mainstream stations to launch his pillows in 2014.

Bannon was charged with duping thousands of people who donated money to “build the wall” on America’s southern border; much of the money was misspent but Trump pardoned him on his way out of office. He has since been recharged and has pleaded innocent.

“They’re tryin’ to bankrupt Mike Lindell,” Bannon says in the leadup to the segment. When they go after Lindell, they’re going after you, Bannon tells his audience.

This kind of manichean, existentialist politics of survival sells — and apparently sells pillows, too.

“Mike Lindell, how do we keep MyPillow open?” Bannon asks to start the hot three minutes.

Yes, Lindell says, the FBI attacked my call center reps but you can buy some “last chance flash sale slippers” for $39.98 or a six-pack of towels for $29.98. Or perhaps sleepwear, quilts, comforters and don’t forget the promo code, the Bannonesque WAR ROOM.

(Lindell later clarifies that it’s not the FBI, but the Minnesota Department of Revenue that is auditing his call center contract employees who work from home.)

“Thanks for working on the plan,” Lindell tells Bannon before signing off.

The plan to secure elections, that is. He has one. It involves a wireless device that monitors polling places to see if voting machines are connected to the internet.

On the podcast again in the afternoon, Bannon praises Lindell for risking his company to investigate election fraud, mentioning the FBI seizing his cell phone while he was in a Wendy’s drive-thru about a year ago.

“Fact check: It was a Hardee’s not a Wendy’s,” Lindell says.

Though today Lindell did have a KFC two-piece meal for lunch.

Feeling the love from a fallen televangelist

In less than half an hour, Lindell is back in the studio to do “The Jim Bakker Show.” Four employees scurry around trying to find a suitable pillow for the segment. It has to be the perfect pillow for the moment. The right size and fluffiness.

Once found, Lindell plumps it up, turns it, preps it, fluffs it until it’s just right and then cradles it in his hands and puts on his trademark salesman smile for the camera, fidgeting with his hands while waiting for the green light.

Bakker is a former televangelist who rode the gospel to fame in the 1970s and 1980s with his “Praise the Lord” show, propelled in part by his glitzy, heavily made-up blonde wife Tammy Faye, who was born in International Falls, Minnesota.

It all came crashing down in the late 1980s amid a sex scandal, criminal indictments and news of Rolls Royces, a jet and an air-conditioned doghouse. He and Tammy Faye broke up, and she died a gay icon for her compassion for LGBT people and HIV patients during the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Jim Bakker served five years in prison for fraud, and now he’s back with a revived TV show and empire — syndicated on Christian television networks — that looks very much like the old one, complete with a new heavily made-up blonde wife named Lori (who bears a striking resemblance to Tammy Faye), a Christian resort in the Ozarks, and several ways to give money money money, such as buying a bucket of end-times survival food.

Lindell and the Bakkers chat by video briefly before the show begins.

The Bakkers ask about American Express, which Lindell says reduced MyPillow’s credit line from a million dollars to $100,000 in September. He says his company “had to use debit cards” to get by until they got a new card.

“Demonic,” Lori says.

Jim Bakker wants to know why they don’t like Lindell.

“Because I want to get rid of the electronic voting machines,” Lindell says.

“The bottom line is they don’t want me talking anymore,” he says.

“They hate you as much as Trump I guess,” Jim Bakker says.

During the on-air segment, the Bakkers are adoring fans, repeatedly saying, “We love you.”

Jim Bakker commiserates, saying “the left” has been trying to take him off TV for years. Then he claims he lost $20 million through lawsuits.

Lindell is undeterred.

“They’ll never stop my voice,” he says, even though, as he acknowledges to Bakker, “My money is gone.”

“I’ll keep going,” he says.

‘I don’t think he’s demanding; he’s particular’

Lindell told the Bakkers his employees have been great throughout the storm. And also, “I treat every employee like my only employee.”

But clearly he can be abrupt and demanding and rarely says “thank you” or “please.”

“I don’t think he’s demanding — he’s particular,” says Jennifer Pauly Hunter, vice president of tech services for MyPillow.

He wants to know the price of the promoted products down to the penny, and debates whether it’s the right price point. He needs the pillow to look just right on TV. He needs the perfect outfit for the interview.

Pauly Hunter has worked for MyPillow for over 11 years. Her sister is an office manager there. Her mom works in shipping. Her cousin is tech coordinator for the warehouse. Her other sister and a cousin also used to work there.

“It’s a family thing,” she says.

She started as a temp in the call center to make gas money while she was going to school to be a health care administrator.

Technology always came easy to her and Lindell spotted her talent, so she took classes and now has an office adjacent to the call center, where operators take calls 24/7 in row after row of cubicles, including weekends and holidays.

If you’re loyal and want to learn a skill, Lindell will support you in that, Pauly Hunter says.

If you have a death in the family — like when her uncle died — he’ll send flowers and cards.

Sometimes she wears a MyPillow hoodie in public, and people will make comments like, “You work for a crazy man.”

“Sometimes it hurts my feelings,” Pauly Hunter says. “Because I know how passionate and how much Mike cares.”

The political stuff is “one little fraction of his life,” she says.

Sarah Cronin, Lindell’s chief of staff, is a Chaska High School graduate who started out stuffing pillows, and now has a spacious corner office that once belonged to a bank president.

“It’s always exciting to come to work,” she says.

She’s filling in for Lindell’s assistant today, a job that includes manning his phone, heeding his demand that every call and text be answered immediately. She gladly offloads the phone to Pauly Hunter mid-morning.

Lindell jokes that every journalist in the country has his cell phone number, as well as 500 employees (no joke).

‘Tell me another problem’

Back at the conference table, Lindell is on the phone with his controller, Thomas.

An employee walks in and Lindell asks about numbers. She says they’re “up 15,000.” In other words, MyPillow sales were up $15,000 for the day compared to the same moment in time the day before.

Lindell says each afternoon they should be at about a half-million dollars in sales.

“Bannon’s at 29-five,” an employee tells him. That means their commercials had generated $2,950 by that point.

“So is he happy?” Lindell asks.

“He wants to do $100,000 today,” the employee says. In other words, Bannon wants MyPillow to make $100,000 today, not knowing the company normally makes about five times that, Lindell says.

Wardlow quietly walks in the office again. He tells Lindell they need to sign the Deutsche Bank settlement and talk about the MyBooty lawsuit.

Lindell says he’s meeting with all the attorneys general in the nation. (A meeting with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison seems doubtful.)

After some discussion, they settle on a new name for his social media app: Courage.

“What else you got?” Lindell says. “Tell me another problem.”

They talk about FrankTV and some coming “big-name hosts” he won’t disclose — although Roger Stone’s name comes up. (Also convicted of crimes and pardoned by Trump.)

As Lindell wraps up the call, he booms joyously, “What was that movie? Get back out there and sell sell sell!”

(It’s “Trading Places,” a movie about how you can easily lose it all.)

‘It’s hard to have lawyers who don’t believe in what you’re doing’

Lindell returns from an interview about LifeWave phototherapy patches — which several employees are wearing and swear cures migraines and other ailments.

Pauly Hunter goes over Lindell’s “to do” list.

“You still need to call Mar-a-Lago and your lawyer,” she says. He’s going to Florida to meet with the CEO of PublicSquare — a right-wing business digital directory — and meet with Trump at his Palm Beach resort.

He calls an attorney interested in representing him in lawsuits with voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion.

“It’s hard to have lawyers who don’t believe in what you’re doing,” Lindell tells the lawyer.

He’s fine with the retainer. He asks if they have a plane so they can meet up while he’s traveling.

“Something has to be filed Monday with Smartmatic,” Lindell says.

He later says he and MyPillow decided to part ways with the attorneys because the bills were $2 million per month. They’re going with a new firm that is “10 times cheaper,” he says.

The Minneapolis and Washington law firms told federal judges they’re owed millions in legal fees.

“I have a pickup truck and two houses: in Texas and Florida,” Lindell says.

But he still leases a private jet, as he has for years.

And now he’s off and talking about the various places that are moving away from voting machines. He claims he gets the most pushback from Republicans, which dovetails with one of his messages of the day, that he’s not actually the partisan Republican he’s been made out to be.

“I was neither party before all this happened,” he says.

If voting machines can be manipulated, who’s doing the manipulating? He’s not sure, but thinks the CIA is involved, and the Deep State, and the “uniparty.”

His wife, Kendra, calls. After eight years of dating, they married last spring.

“I’m really in the mood for California crust (pizza),” he tells her.

That night, Lindell does an online-streamed show, where he talks about election security and takes calls — during which he’s occasionally distracted by his phone, from which he says he runs his business, eschewing a computer.

Brian in Minnesota wants to know if he ever got his cell phone back from the FBI. No he didn’t, he says, and there are pictures of his grandkids on it.

“They’re turning up the heat on MyPillow because they know our plan is gonna work,” he says.

He leaves the office at 7 p.m., and says he’ll spend the next four hours at home reading 433 emails and 73 texts before returning at 8 a.m. tomorrow.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

MN GOP in chaos as MAGA delegates vow to remove state party leadership

A contingent of right-wing Republicans wants to remove the leaders of the Minnesota Republican Party, including Chair David Hann, at the Dec. 9 meeting of the State Central Committee. A group of delegates and alternates to the State Central Committee laid out their case in a letter for removing Hann, who was elected in 2021 after a federal sex trafficking scandal and allegations of a toxic work environment led to the fall of former Chair Jennifer Carnahan.

The state Republican party has been financially struggling — in part due to the cost of dealing with the Carnahan fallout — and divided over former President Donald Trump.

The insurgent group claims Hann failed to responsibly manage GOP resources and maximize support for 2022 candidates, contributing to a dismal election for Republicans in which Democrats won a trifecta.

Hann said everything alleged in the document was “well known” when state officers were elected in December.

“There’s nothing of substance in it,” he said. “I just would hope no journalist would report allegations without any basis.”

Larry Doose, chair of Mille Lacs County Republicans and a State Central Committee delegate, said he is one of over 100 delegates and alternates to the State Central Committee who signed onto the letter seeking new leadership, out of about 900 total. They need two-thirds to vote with them to succeed.

Doose said that’s a high bar, but he’s hopeful that “once people see the truth,” they’ll vote for new leadership.

“If they survive this then the people like me that have a problem can at least say we got heard … and we can all move on,” he said.

He said the group — which has dubbed itself Rebuild the MNGOP and is predominantly made up of the MAGA wing of the party — has been pushing to correct the problems for a couple months, and finally decided to go public.

“There’s a lot of displeasure with our leadership,” Doose said. “Basically we want to move on and elect our candidates and not have this be a distraction.”

He said Rebuild the MNGOP is composed of newer people in the party, like him, who got involved after the 2020 election “because of what we saw happening” as well as other longer term Republicans.

“What unites us the most is the leadership; we have recognized that the leadership will not own up to problems or mistakes that they’ve made,” he said. “And there’s this sense of entitlement among them.”

The complaint alleges Hann has mismanaged donations to the party, jeopardizing its ability to raise money and receive national committee funds next year. They say the party paid off millions of dollars in debt from 2017 to 2021, but is now again hundreds of thousands of dollars in the red. That’s in part because the party paid $52,000 to vote electronically at the 2022 convention — instead of using “tellers” as was the procedure for decades — and spent $128,000 for audio/visual services at the convention instead of using the Rochester Civic Center’s audio/visual equipment.

Federal Election Commission reports show the party with $145,000 cash on hand, but $414,000 in debts. The most recent state campaign finance report, which doesn’t include any 2023 data, shows $8,000 cash on hand, and $76,000 in debts.

Doose and other signatories want details on attorneys working on litigation for the party, including their billable rates.

The complaint also alleges Hann violated the rights of state convention delegates in May 2022 by extending the raucous convention an hour past the set adjournment time, even though many delegates had left. They claim changes to the constitution made in that last hour were invalid, including extending certification of affiliates from one year to two and initially certifying the Hispanic Republican Assembly of Minnesota.

Doose said after delegates were told to leave, the convention reconvened and they “rammed through” a bloc of amendments. The group alleges Hann did not properly re-certify affiliate groups.

Doose said it’s important because once the party aligns with an affiliate group, that gives the affiliate influence in the party and a vote at the state convention, so when re-certifying them, “We are taking a look at their values and making sure they align with our party.”

In the runup to the convention, the State Central Committee failed to formally recognize a number of affiliate groups that add diversity to the party, including the Log Cabin Republicans of Minnesota and Asian American Republicans of Minnesota. The complaint demands to know how many events were held by the party to support affiliates last year, and how many events are planned next year.

The convention — where many candidates appealed to the very loud MAGA segment — was so heated that convention-goers were warned to leave their sling shots, flamethrowers, potato guns, large knives, irritant sprays and “hoards of insects” at home. (Real guns were fine.)

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

Conservative activist connected to MAGA riot to train Minnesota Republicans

The Benton County Republican Party is hosting an event Saturday featuring a right-wing activist connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Scott Presler is a 6-foot-5 rising star on the right known for his Fabio-like hair and organizing volunteer trash cleanups and voter registration drives in large cities, where he decries Democratic leaders who he says help “foreign nationals” and “illegal aliens” instead of veterans.

He planned so-called “stop the steal” rallies and was on the Capitol grounds the day of the insurrection, which he has described as “the largest civil rights protest in American history.”

The Minnesota event will be held at a Sauk Rapids country roadhouse that displays a large collection of Confederate memorabilia and whose owner was convicted in connection with hitting a Black man with his Ford Bronco.

The chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, David Hann, mentioned Presler’s event in a recent newsletter, calling him a “nationally recognized speaker and activist, widely considered to be an expert in grassroots organizing.” He said Presler will talk about canvassing, voter registration and chasing alternative methods of voting like absentee and mail-in voting.

Asked about the event, interim executive director of the state Republican Party, Andy Aplikowski, said in an email the state party has no connection to the “planning of the event” and referred questions to a local party official, who has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Presler claims he’s trained over 10,000 activists in 30 states.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has dubbed Presler the lead activism strategist for anti-Muslim hate group ACT for America, saying he was the main coordinator of the group’s “March Against Sharia” rallies in 2017.

“The nationwide events attracted various factions of the radical right, including white nationalists, neo-Nazis and anti-government extremists — all of whom were united by anti-Muslim animus,” SPLC reported.

The Minnesota event will be held at Rollie’s Rednecks and Longnecks, which has an extensive collection of Confederate memorabilia on display.

Minnesota was the first state to volunteer troops to the Civil War effort, and 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment played a crucial role in the all-important victory over the pro-slavery regime at Gettysburg.

“Those eight companies of the 1st Minnesota are entitled to rank as the saviors of their country,” President Calvin Coolidge said while dedicating a memorial to William Colvill in Cannon Falls in 1929.

The bar — which bills itself as one of the top honky-tonks in the nation — was briefly deleted from the state’s tourism website after some residents objected to the bar’s glorification of the Confederacy, the Star Tribune reported in 2020.

The bar is owned by Roland Hogrefe, who was convicted in 2011 of striking a Black man with his Ford Bronco in St. Cloud after he swerved at and exchanged insults — including racial epithets — with a group of Black men walking along a road. He ran into a man who had come out of his apartment to see what the ruckus was about. A juvenile related to the victim fired three shots at Hogrefe’s Bronco as it left the scene.

He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an injury accident, and was sentenced to 366 days in prison — with all but 90 days suspended.

Rollie’s website recounts how the restaurant’s founder got country singer Stonewall Jackson (who was named after the infamous Confederate traitor) to play at the restaurant when it opened, as a tribute to his father, who was a “huge fan” of the singer.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

Conservative law firm challenges new Minnesota law restoring voting rights to felons

A conservative law firm is challenging the constitutionality of a new Minnesota law restoring voting rights to felons once they’re released.

Previously, felons had to wait until they were off probation or parole and had paid their fines or restitution. About 55,000 Minnesotans who have been convicted of a felony but aren’t imprisoned are eligible to vote in the next election.

On behalf of a conservative outfit, Minnesota Voters Alliance, the Upper Midwest Law Center filed a lawsuit challenging the law, which went into effect in June.

The lawsuit argues the new statute exceeds the Legislature’s authority under the Minnesota Constitution, which says felons lose their right to vote until the right is restored to them. But it doesn’t specify the timing, so the DFL-controlled Legislature stepped in this session, restoring voting rights as soon as a person’s incarceration term is done.

Rep. Cedrick Frazier, DFL-New Hope, chief author of the House bill, released a statement saying he’s confident the lawsuit won’t prevail, calling it an attempt to suppress the franchise and create confusion and fear among those who have had their voting rights restored.

“Although disappointed, I am not surprised by this lawsuit and I remain weary and highly skeptical of groups that seek to limit access to our democracy, as we all should,” he said.

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in February that the previous law banning felons from voting was constitutional. The Upper Midwest Law Center said in a press release that the Supreme Court ruled civil rights are restored upon completion of a felon’s sentence, but the new law restores the right to vote to people still on supervised release, i.e., before their sentence is complete and “directly contradicting constitutional law.”

James Dickey, senior counsel for the law center, said in a release that felons on supervised release, work release or probation don’t meet the constitution’s requirements.

“If the Legislature wants to fundamentally change our constitution, they have an avenue to do that and can put a constitutional amendment before the people of Minnesota,” he said.

The Minnesota Voters Alliance bills itself as an election integrity watchdog and has sued Secretary of State Steve Simon and counties over election administration.

Rep. Emma Greenman, DFL-Minneapolis, is a national voting rights attorney and said she is not surprised to see the Minnesota Voters Alliance and the Upper Midwest Law center bring another lawsuit “in pursuit of their goal of rolling back the freedom to vote.”

“While I’m confident the right to vote for Minnesotans on probation and parole will survive this meritless challenge, this is a shameful attempt to use the legal system to sow doubt and confuse voters in order to suppress the vote,” she said.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

10 more indicted in Feeding Our Future fraud

Ten more people were indicted Monday for misappropriating and laundering money they got through a federal child nutrition program prosecutors say was bilked out of more than $250 million in Minnesota.

That brings the total number of people indicted to 60. So far, six people have pleaded guilty.

The feds have seized $66.6 million in bank accounts, real estate and other property, including $4 million worth of vehicles. U.S. Attorney Andy Luger said the money was spent on fancy cars from Teslas to BMWs to luxe resort vacations, and even a deposit on an airplane.

One even laundered money by purchasing a laundromat, Luger said.

“The song of the Feeding Our Future scandal remains the same,” Luger said during a press conference.

Just like the first 50 people indicted, the defendants are charged with falsely claiming to have fed thousands of needy children daily, generating fake invoices to make it appear they were buying large amounts of food, but spending much of the money on themselves. They’re charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery.

And the investigation isn’t over.

Among those charged is a prominent woman in the Bloomington area, Ayan Farah Abukar, 41, who was lauded as an “outstanding refugee” in 2021 by the state Department of Human Services, the Reformer reported in October.

Abukar founded Action for East African People, which she enrolled in the federal child nutrition program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future and another unnamed company. She’s charged with falsely claiming to serve up to 5,000 children a day at sites in Bloomington, Minneapolis, Savage, and St. Paul from October 2020 through 2022.

Abukar is charged with fraudulently receiving about $5.7 million in federal funds, paying over $330,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee and spending millions on real estate, including a 37-acre commercial property in Lakeville. She’s accused of using the money to deposit a quarter of a million dollars towards the purchase of an aircraft to be delivered to Nairobi, Kenya.

Luger said among the most brazen schemes he’s seen is that of Kawsar Jama, 41, of Eagan, who claimed to be feeding 2,560 meals per day to needy children in Pelican Rapids, which has a total population of about 2,500.

Luger said the names of the children she claimed to feed didn’t match school records, and she reached out to a friend to “help her invent names.”

Jama didn’t go to the trouble of renting a fake food distribution site, as most of the defendants did, but forged a phony lease instead, Luger said.

She’s charged with submitting $3.7 million in fraudulent claims for federal funds, some of which she spent on living expenses, real estate, and vehicles, including a Tesla Model X and Infiniti QX56 SUV.

Also charged are:

Abdikadir Kadiye, 51, of Minneapolis, was the president of Hobyo Health Care Foundation, and is charged with falsely claiming to have served at least 445,000 meals to children in Minnetonka, Eden Prairie and Minneapolis throughout 2021. Kadiye submitted over $1.1 million in fraudulent claims for federal funds, some of which he spent on vehicles (including a $105,000 2022 BMW sport utility vehicle), airline tickets, real estate, and $20,000 towards the purchase of a laundromat.

Abdulkadir Awale, 50, of Bloomington, was the principal of Karmel Coffee, LLC and Sambusa King, Inc., and the CEO of Nawal Restaurant. All three of Awale’s businesses were enrolled in the federal program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future and an unnamed company. Awale claimed to provide over 3.6 million meals from April 2020 to January 2022, submitting $11.8 million in claims. He’s accused of paying at least $83,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee and using some of the money to make mortgage payments and cash withdrawals and purchase vehicles, including a Freightliner Cascadia truck.

Khadra Abdi, 41, of Minneapolis, was the principal of Shafi’I Tutoring & Homework Help Center, which she enrolled under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. Abdi is charged with falsely claiming to have served 1.1 million meals to needy children at her site in Hopkins between April 2020 and December 2021, submitting over $3.4 million in claims. Abdi is accused of paying at least $17,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee and using some of the funds to make credit card payments, cash withdrawals and buy clothing.

Sade Osman Hashi, 45, of Minneapolis, was the principal of Great Lakes Inc. and Safari Express, which he enrolled in the program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future and another company. Hashi is charged with claiming to have served up to 2,500 meals daily to children at his site in the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis between September 2020 through 2022, fraudulently receiving about $5.7 million in federal funds. The feds say Hashi paid over $150,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee and used some of the funds to make cash withdrawals and convert approximately $133,000 to cryptocurrency.

Sharon Denise Ross, 52, of Big Lake, was the executive director of House of Refuge Twin Cities, a non-profit which she enrolled in the federal program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future and an unnamed company. Ross is charged with claiming to have served thousands of children daily, fraudulently receiving $2.8 million, some of which she spent on real estate, vehicles and payments to family members.

Luger said the following were charged and are expected to plead guilty soon are:

Mohamed Ali Hussein, 53, and Lul Bashir Ali, 57, both of Faribault, enrolled Somali American Faribault Education and Lido Restaurant in the program, under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. Hussein is charged with falsely claiming the SAFE site in Faribault served up to 2,500 children a day, seven days a week. Lul Ali is charged with falsely claiming Lido Restaurant in Faribault served up to 1,600 children a day, seven days a week. Hussein and Lul Ali received over $5 million in federal funds, and the feds say Hussein paid more than $100,000 in kickbacks to a Feeding Our Future employee.

Mulata Yusuf Ali, 38, of Minneapolis, is charged with theft of government funds involving the federal child nutrition program from December 2020 through January 2022.


Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

Former Minneapolis police officer charged with assaulting Jaleel Stallings

The Minnesota attorney general filed an assault charge Wednesday against a former Minneapolis police officer, accusing him of beating Jaleel Stallings five days after George Floyd’s police murder.

The incident occurred after Stallings fired at a SWAT team that was driving around shooting 40mm marking rounds — or rubber bullets — at curfew violators from an unmarked van. Justin Stetson, who was part of the SWAT team that night, was charged with third-degree assault for the beating of Stallings, for which the maximum sentence is five years’ imprisonment and a $10,000 fine.

The charges are just the latest fallout from the Stallings case, which also led to a $1.5 million city settlement to Stallings, whose eye socket was fractured in the beating.

Stetson, 34, is charged with repeatedly striking Stallings for nearly 30 seconds, even though Stallings had surrendered, was lying prone on the ground, “posed no imminent threat,” and didn’t resist arrest or Stetson’s use of force, according to the criminal complaint.

Former law enforcement officer Ian Adams completed a use-of-force review of the case, and concluded in a Dec. 16 report that Stetson’s use of force was “unreasonable, excessive, and contrary to generally accepted police practice.”

Stallings wound up hospitalized and charged with eight crimes.

Stetson no longer has an active peace officer’s license in Minnesota, according to the attorney general. Court documents say he lives in Nowthen, Minnesota.

The charge resulted from a state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigation into the incident. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office referred the case to the Attorney General’s Office last spring, months after the Reformer reported on the incident. .

The charging document says shortly before 11 p.m. on May 30, 2020, the SWAT team was driving westbound on Lake Street in an unmarked van with the sliding door open, flanked by a parade of other police vehicles with no lights or sirens on.

Stallings and three others were standing in a parking lot between 14th and 15th Avenue South when the van came into view from behind a building. Almost immediately, the SWAT team — including Stetson — began firing on the civilians without warning.

Stallings was hit in the chest, and thought he’d been hit by a bullet, so he fired three rounds with his pistol in the direction of the van, purposely missing to try to scare the shooters off, he later testified. Stallings is an Army veteran who had a permit for the pistol and at the time was a truck driver. Stallings was acquitted by a jury after claiming self-defense.

Only when the officers yelled “shots fired!” and jumped out of the van and ran toward Stallings did he realize they were cops, he later testified. He tossed his gun and dropped to the ground, lying flat on the pavement with his arms outstretched.

Although Stalling was already down, Stetson grabbed his handgun and yelled at Stallings to get on the ground. Stetson said, “He’s down” and “he’s on the ground” while running toward Stallings, suggesting he knew that Stallings was down and not a threat.

Stetson kicked Stallings in the face and head about four times, punched his head some six times, lifted his head and slammed it down into the pavement once, and delivered about five knee strikes to his face while calling Stallings a “f***ing piece of s***,” according to the charging document.

All the while, Stetson gave Stallings no other verbal commands until he finally told him to put his hands behind his back. Bodycam videos show Stallings repeatedly trying to cooperate, saying “Listen, listen, sir, I’m trying to.”

After Sgt. Andrew Bittell grabbed Stallings’ hands and held them behind his back, Stetson continued to hit Stallings with his fists. After handcuffing Stallings, Bittell sat him up and kicked him in the ribs as Stetson continued hitting him in the head.

Even after his sergeant, Bittell, told Stetson to stop hitting Stallings, he continued. Bittell said, “That’s it; stop it,” but Stetson continued the beating until Bittell grabbed his wrist and said, “It’s OK.”

Stetson beat Stallings so badly he said his hands and feet hurt afterward, and wondered aloud whether he broke his hand, according to court documents.

Although Bittell has not been charged with a crime, body camera videos show he kneed and punched Stallings in the stomach, chest and back.

Bittell and Stetson later testified they used force because Stallings was resisting arrest and they feared he was armed, although neither frisked him before beating him.

Earlier that night, Bittell had told the SWAT team that if they saw any groups of people to “call it out” and “f*** ’em up, gas ’em, f*** ’em up.”

“The first f***ers we see, we’re just hammering ’em with 40s,” he said before the SWAT headed out on Lake Street that night, referring to 40 mm projectiles.

Stetson said during questioning in a court hearing that some members of the SWAT team enjoyed firing the marking rounds at civilians at times, but said they were trying to “gain back control of the city.”

“It was five nights of a complete riot where the city was burning down,” he said.

As Stallings’ case played out, key details emerged that often contradicted what officers told investigators after the incident. Stetson acknowledged in court that he never told the investigating officers he shot Stallings first, or that he beat him.

Asked why he continued to beat Stallings even after both his hands were behind his back, Stetson said Stallings wasn’t complying with him.

“Again, emotions were high, I just shot — got shot at. I thought I was going to die.”

Stetson could not be reached for comment, and Stallings and his attorney declined to comment.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman recently said he erred in prosecuting Stallings, but said MPD officers lied to prosecutors about the case.

Stetson had been employed with MPD since at least 2011, and underwent over 1,200 hours of training, including use of force and de-escalation training, according to the charging documents.

The officers also beat and repeatedly Tased a friend who was with Stallings, Virgil Lee Jackson Jr. Jackson sued the city and won a $645,000 settlement. No charges have been filed against those officers.

All five officers on the SWAT team that shot at Stallings had multiple complaints lodged against them when the incident happened, but almost all of them were closed with no discipline issued.

Prosecutors did not tell the defense — as constitutionally required — that Stetson had previously been reprimanded for failing to report his use of force. The FBI is also investigating the Stallings incident.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

GOP candidate Tyler Kistner has repeatedly suggested he saw combat, but he didn’t

During his first bid for Congress in 2020, Republican candidate Tyler Kistner repeatedly suggested he saw combat while in the U.S. Marine Corps, despite military records that say otherwise.

A spokesman says Kistner was referring to the fact that he led combat missions, advising and assisting “partner forces” against violent extremist organizations in the non-combat region of North Africa.

If he saw combat, he would have received a combat action ribbon, and Kistner acknowledges he never earned one. The military considers combat to be engaging with the enemy on the ground in a combat zone.

Several local TV stations recently took down an ad saying Kistner had “four combat deployments” at the request of VoteVets, a progressive veterans organization supporting U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, who is in a tight rematch with Kistner in the 2nd Congressional District.

VoteVets asked KARE, KSTP, KMSP, WCCO and several streaming services to take down the ad. The group said Kistner served four overseas tours — not four combat deployments — in non-combat regions such as Japan and Korea. The ad, paid for by the GOP Super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund, ran in various outlets Sept. 11-29, according to VoteVets.

Kistner’s military record was also a matter of debate when he ran in 2020, losing to Craig by 2 percentage points.

In the run-up to the 2020 GOP nominating convention, Kistner called himself “the most decorated military member” in the race. One of his Republican opponents, Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. Erika Cashin, called on Kistner to release his DD214 form — military service records that would indicate whether he served in armed combat.

Initially, Kistner declined, citing the need for confidentiality, telling the Prior Lake American newspaper, “Even basic details could help foreign adversaries and put other service members at risk.”

After the newspaper itself requested the military records and additional candidates called on Kistner to release the records, Kistner relented. His DD214 shows he was honorably discharged at the rank of captain. Kistner shared the records in an email to supporters in 2020, writing that he had never claimed to be a combat veteran. That prompted Cashin to put out a press release outlining multiple times Kistner used language that would lead a listener to think he was a combat veteran:

During a January 2020 candidate forum, Kistner said he put his enemy “six feet under.”

In a March 2020 candidate forum, Kistner said “I’ve been on the wrong end of a loaded weapon.”

In an April 2020 virtual town hall with the Minnesota Young Republicans (41:45), Kistner referred to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and said, “I’ve been in such conflicts.”

She said she never saw combat in the Air Force, either, but said Kistner implied that he did, which she said influenced GOP delegates who went on to endorse him.

The Reformer has obtained additional examples of Kistner implying he saw combat action:

During a February 2020 candidate forum, Kistner said, “I’ve been in fights, I’ve been in combat. I know exactly what it’s gonna take.”

In October 2020, during a Voice of India Community Town Hall, Kistner said, “As a veteran, I deployed to the front lines six months at a time, and my family was back in this country.”

In a March 2020 candidate forum (48:40), Kistner said “I’ve had guns drawn on me overseas in defense of our nation.”

According to the Marine Corps awards manual, service members must engage the enemy, be under hostile fire, or be physically attacked by the enemy to be awarded a combat action ribbon. The manual says, “The principal eligibility criterion is that the individual must have rendered satisfactory performance under enemy fire while actively participating in a ground or surface combat engagement.”

Kistner campaign consultant Billy Grant said Kistner’s “six feet under” comment was a reference to Marine Special Operations combat missions Kistner led where the “partner force effectively killed more than eight violent extremist organizations in the North African region.”

As the commanding officer, it wasn’t Kistner’s job to fire his rifle, but he was in charge of the maneuvering and coordination of all personnel and support, Grant said. The “partner force” — referring to allied countries’ military forces — in three combat missions did exchange and receive fire, Grant said, and had seven casualties after an improvised explosive device exploded. Kistner facilitated the evacuation of seven injured allied personnel, he said.

Grant said Kistner’s comment about being on the “wrong end of a loaded weapon” and having guns drawn on him “while in defense of our nation” was a reference to when he got into an argument with one of the allied military commanders, who pulled a pistol on him.

“Ultimately, the argument was resolved and nobody was hurt,” Grant said. “No weapon was fired during this situation.”

Kistner’s comment about having been in “such conflicts” as the Afghanistan and Iraq wars was a reference to his involvement in the broader war on violent extremists, in which American forces were battling some of the same foes as in Afghanistan and Iraq, Grant said.

In North Africa, Kistner dealt with foreign ISIS fighters returning to their home countries after the fall of the ISIS caliphate in Iraq, Grant said. Kistner led three combat missions against “these same ISIS fighters from Iraq,” he said.

Regarding Kistner’s comment that he’s been in “fights” and “combat,” Grant said Kistner received an award citation for leading three combat missions in North Africa, where he was responsible for command and control of U.S. and allied nation forces.

Kistner is not the first Republican of late to face questions about his service record. U.S. House candidate J.R. Majewski’s Ohio campaign went into a tailspin after the Air Force couldn’t corroborate his claim that he served in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Majewski’s military record was scrutinized after the Associated Press reported that Majewski never deployed to Afghanistan; he’d done a six-month stint helping load planes at a Qatar air base.

“It dishonors those who have served,” VoteVets Chair Jon Soltz said of Kistner’s statements. “It is also totally disqualifying. Voters should hold Kistner responsible for misrepresenting his service and allowing this lie to perpetuate.”

Cashin said while Kistner served with honor, she wants to make sure veterans are given “appropriate due” for their service.

“You always want to represent your service with honor and integrity,” she said.

She was in the military for 26 years, and sent people to deployment and received bodies back at Mortuary Affairs at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

“I understand the implications of trying to overstate what you’re doing,” she said. “Don’t misrepresent what your service means.”

Asked if she supports Kistner for Congress, Cashin said she no longer lives in Minnesota and hasn’t been paying attention to the race.

“He has served his country,” she said.

Anyone who serves, she said, “is definitely someone to be admired.”


Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

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What you need to know about tomorrow's Minnesota primary

Minnesotans who haven’t voted in the primary election have a final chance Tuesday, with a number of high-profile races including a DFL primary challenge for U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar from former Minneapolis City Council Member Don Samuels; a DFL primary challenge for U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum from progressive activist Amane Badhasso; a winnowing of the field to determine the next Hennepin County attorney; and, a special election in the 1st Congressional District to determine who will serve out the remainder of the late U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn’s term.

Democratic and Republican voters will also help shape the future of their respective parties in legislative races, with a bevy of highly competitive primaries that will also weigh heavily on the November election.

Your primary questions, answered:

How do I vote?

Here’s where to find your polling place.

Use the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website to find your polling location, which candidates are on your ballot and even register to vote. Minnesotans can register online prior to Tuesday on the Secretary of State’s website or on-site on Election Day with identification.

Most polling places are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Voters can only choose candidates from one political party.

Find more information about the election, registering to vote, what kind of identification is needed, and what candidates are on your ballot here.

How many Minnesotans have voted so far?

As of Friday, more than 107,000 absentee ballots have been accepted for the state primary election, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. This is far fewer absentee ballots compared to the 2020 primary election, in which nearly 544,000 ballots were accepted. Minnesotans were likely seeking more absentee ballots in the early months of 2020 because of COVID-19.

This year’s absentee ballot submissions appear to be on par with the last non-pandemic primary election, 2018, when almost 144,000 were accepted, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

What’s so special about CD1?

Voters in the 1st Congressional District, which covers much of southern Minnesota, have a bit of a confusing day: They’ll elect a new member of Congress to serve out Hagedorn’s term after he died in office earlier this year. That race features Republican Brad Finstad, who worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the administration of former President Donald Trump, against DFL candidate Jeff Ettinger, the former CEO of Hormel Foods.

Voters in the 1st will also vote in a primary election. Finstad was endorsed by the GOP, but he faces state Rep. Jeremy Munson, who has received support from national figures like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

What are some high-profile races on the DFL side?

Omar is serving her second term in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, covering Minneapolis and its inner-ring suburbs. Samuels, currently CEO of MicroGrants — a nonprofit that gives small grants to low-income people — is challenging Omar. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has endorsed Samuels.

Samuels successfully campaigned last year against the amendment that would have replaced the Minneapolis Police Department with a Department of Public Safety; Omar supported the amendment.

In the DFL primary for Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District, covering St. Paul and eastern suburbs, longtime incumbent McCollum, who is serving her 11th term, is facing challenger Amane Badhasso.

McCollum is DFL-endorsed; Badhasso, born in Ethiopia, has worked for a number social justice causes.

Are there statewide races to watch?

The only major contest is on the Republican side, where the Republican primary for Minnesota attorney general is between candidates Jim Schultz and Doug Wardlow. Schultz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is GOP-endorsed. Wardlow was the 2018 GOP nominee. He has worked as general counsel for MyPillow, the Minnesota company founded by 2020 election denier and Trump loyalist Mike Lindell.

What are some DFL legislative races to watch?

House District 62A includes south Minneapolis neighborhoods like Stevens Square, Whittier and Lyndale, and is home to many immigrants and communities of color. DFL-endorsed Aisha Gomez is serving her second term in the House. Her opponent is Osman Ahmed, who previously worked as an outreach director for U.S. Sen. Tina Smith. State Rep. John Thompson in District 67A on the East Side of St. Paul was tossed out of the House DFL caucus after a series of controversies. He faces the DFL-endorsed Liz Lee, who worked on Capitol Hill in Washington. In Senate District 56, former Rep. Erin Maye Quade left the DFL endorsing convention because she was in labor. She faces Justin Emmerich, who has been a legislative assistant to Sen. Nick Frentz. In Senate District 62, DFL-endorsed incumbent Omar Fateh is running to keep his seat. A Senate ethics panel recently recommended he receive a minor sanction for not reporting a campaign expenditure. He’s being challenged by Shaun Laden, who is the president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 Education Support Professionals and helped lead a union strike of Minneapolis teachers and support professionals in March.Next door in Senate District 63, the DFL-endorsed candidate is Zaynab Mohamed, who is Fateh’s sister-in-law. She faces attorney Todd Scott. In Senate District 65, longtime Sen. Sandy Pappas faces labor leader Sheigh Freeberg, in a race the Reformer featured recently as a generational contest.

How about legislative Republicans?

Republicans are hopeful they’ll take the Legislature in November, but first they have a series of intramural battles in which established candidates and incumbents face upstarts who want to push the party rightward. Many of the latter candidates are backed by a group called Action 4 Liberty. Here’s some of the races:

In her first run for public office, a Prior Lake woman nicknamed “Nurse Natalie” Barnes upset Sen. Eric Pratt to win the party’s endorsement for newly drawn Senate District 54. Action 4 Liberty candidate Tom Dippel was endorsed over Rep. Tony Jurgens, R-Cottage Grove, in the newly drawn Senate District 41.Mark Bishofsky, a Stillwater respiratory therapist who says he was terminated for refusing to get vaccinated, was endorsed by Republicans in House District 33B in Washington County over school board member Tina Riehle.Albert Lea bistro owner Lisa Hanson is challenging first-term Republican Sen. Gene Dornink in the new Senate District 23, even though Dornink was endorsed by the party. She defied a pandemic shutdown order to keep her restaurant open and went to jail over it.Bret Bussman of Browerville, who trains soldiers on how to operate military vehicles, was endorsed over Paul Utke, R-Park Rapids, for the Senate in District 5 in central Minnesota. Rep. Steve Drazkowski, who was so dissatisfied with House Republicans that he co-founded his own far-right Republican caucus, was endorsed over Rep. Barb Haley, R-Red Wing, to fill Senate District 20 seat, vacated by Sen. Mike Goggin. In House District 20A, business groups are spending money to support Jesse Johnson of Cannon Falls over Pam Altendorf of Red Wing.

Hennepin County attorney race

Finally, the state’s largest collection of prosecutors sits in the Office of the Hennepin County Attorney. Current County Attorney Mike Freeman is leaving. Seven candidates in this nonpartisan race are vying for the job, and the two with the most votes will move on to November:

DFL-endorsed Mary Moriarty, former Hennepin County Chief Public DefenderMartha Holton Dimick, current Hennepin County judgeRyan Winkler, current House majority leaderTad Jude, former state senatorPaul Ostrow, former Minneapolis City Council member and an Anoka County assistant county attorney Jarvis Jones, a local attorneySaraswati Singh, a former assistant attorney general and current assistant Ramsey County attorney

How about school levies?

We’ll get a good idea about suburban voter sentiment toward education when south Washington County residents decide on a big school levy there. Voters will decide on a referendum pushing local per pupil spending up $350 per student. A second question will ask voters to spend more on school technology.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

Top MN Republican candidate part of Cleta Mitchell's national push to recruit 'army' of activists to watch elections

Kim Crockett, Minnesota Republicans’ presumptive nominee for secretary of state, is part of a national right wing network recruiting an army of activists to become poll workers, stoking fear among Democratic voting rights activists that they’ll seek to intimidate voters.
The nationwide network is led by Cleta Mitchell, a Republican lawyer who tried to help former President Donald Trump flip the Georgia election results and has become a key figure during the recent hearings of the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Mitchell was on the phone with Trump when he pressed the Georgia secretary of state to “find” enough votes to win the state — a special grand jury is now investigating their election interference.

Mitchell is a former Democratic Oklahoma lawmaker who is now a conservative election lawyer who resigned amid “concern” at her law firm about the Trump call.

Mitchell said in a March podcast interview that Republicans didn’t pay enough attention to the mechanics of elections — from campaign finance to election laws — until 2020, when they were “awakened,” presumably by Trump’s frequent false claims of fraud and attempt to overturn the election he lost.

Crockett said Mitchell isn’t new to her. “I’ve actually known her for quite some time,” she said of Mitchell in a YouTube interview with Max Rymer, president of Nativ3 Digital Marketing and a consultant to Crockett’s campaign. Crockett did not respond to a request for comment.

Crockett is part of the Election Integrity Network, or EIN, which is being run by the Conservative Partnership Institute, a think tank founded by former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint in 2017 to support conservatives on Capitol Hill. Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is a senior partner, and Mitchell is a senior legal fellow at CPI.

Crockett said EIN meets twice a week, with the Heritage Foundation leading one meeting, and Mitchell the other. She told Rymer the RNC knows it “missed the mark” in 2020, and she’s been “blown away” by the humility displayed by RNC leaders who “didn’t listen” in 2020.

Crockett and Mitchell think their group helped Republican Glenn Youngkin defeat former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race last year.

In the runup to the Virginia governor’s race, Mitchell said she helped organize “task forces” and trained more than 4,000 poll workers and observers.

“I know a lot about the task force that won that state,” Crockett told Rymer. “And I said OK if they can do this, we can do that in Minnesota.”

(A more likely explanation for Youngkin’s victory: He received more votes, as often happens in off-year elections when the other party controls the White House. According to Reuters, Youngkin won due to a wave of red enthusiasm: the number of Republican votes grew by more than 40% compared to the 2017 gubernatorial contest while Democratic votes increased by about 10%.)

These activists researched election officials’ social media and political donations to see if they were Republicans or Democrats, Mitchell said.

“It’s like being a parent: You gotta be there, you gotta be watching,” she said on the podcast. “You gotta be in those election offices. You gotta learn how it works and be there. You gotta be in those nursing homes, and make sure they’re not stealing the votes of elderly voters in nursing homes and homeless people — the most vulnerable voters.”

Claims like these of widespread election fraud were repeatedly debunked after the 2020 election by dozens of judicial decisions, Republican election officials in states like Georgia, as well as then-Attorney General William Barr.

Crockett suggested she is close to the levers of power in the movement.

“I saw Gov. Youngkin win,” Crockett told Rymer. “They won and I saw how they did it.”

Crockett has been pushing an “Eyes on Every Ballot” initiative and is recruiting election judges and ballot board members as she campaigns across Minnesota.

Minnesota Republicans, who haven’t won a statewide race since 2006, have also been recruiting more Republican election judges.

Minnesota has about 30,000 paid and volunteer election judges who help administer elections. They greet voters, accept ballots and help voters who have questions at the polls. Although the major parties submit lists of election judge nominees to the secretary of state’s office, most are recruited by local election officials.

Local election officials — city and county employees — then train election judges and oversee them, while trying to ensure party balance among them, which can be challenging in heavily Republican or Democratic areas.

Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, hosted a training event in Buffalo that was advertised with a photo of Uncle Sam urging people to get involved, saying “Did you know that in the 2020 election there were 20,000 Democrat (sic) election judges in MN and only 3,000 Republican judges? Do your part to restore democracy.”

The DFL likely did recruit more poll workers than Republicans, but the office of Secretary of State Steve Simon couldn’t confirm those numbers.

Max Hailperin, a retired computer scientist who consults on election systems, has said Crockett and other conservatives seem to think putting eyes on every ballot — as opposed to persuading more voters to support their candidates — will foil election fraud and flip elections.

Hailperin said he fears if Republicans win due to typical mid-term dynamics, their victory will only bolster conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen.

Indeed, the New York Times reported that at the urging of the Election Integrity Network, conservative activists converged on Fairfax County, a Democratic stronghold, “combing through voter registration applications, undeliverable mail and other materials” and eating up county workers’ time with dozens of information requests and informal interrogations.

The Times report continued: “On Election Day, Republican poll watchers in 13 polling places were observed being disruptive, hovering too closely or taking photographs, according to reports that elections workers filed to the county.”

The Fairfax County Registrar Scott Konopasek resigned in part due to the bombardment, saying he’d never seen anything like it in 30 years.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

Minnesota GOP fears the worst at upcoming convention – asks attendees not to bring zip-ties or flamethrowers

Minnesota Republicans may be confident going into the November election, but party officials are apparently expecting the worst at their state party convention this weekend in Rochester.

A flier that a longtime GOP activist posted to social media included a lengthy list of items Republicans have been asked to leave at home: sling shots, flamethrowers, potato guns, cowbells, radio jamming devices, large knives, animals, “excessive amounts” of zip-ties, irritant sprays (“unless personal”) and “hoards of insects.”

Although guns are allowed — obviously — the list of prohibited items illustrates the strange mood of the Republican Party, as 2,200 delegates meet to endorse candidates for constitutional offices, including governor, in an effort to break a statewide losing streak that is now 16 years on.

Republicans head into the convention buoyed by an opportunity to take over the Legislature and perhaps even the governor’s mansion, as inflation and the traditional mid-term advantage for the party out of power provide a stiff tailwind.

But it’s also a party still in the throes of the chaos unleashed by former President Donald Trump, with activists fighting about who is the authentic red hat, fights over process and rules, and candidates desperate to appeal to the party’s loudest — and often most extreme — voices.

Although intra-party fights are nothing new, this year’s convention season has featured a striking mistrust, bordering on paranoia.

That lack of trust has extended beyond the usual suspects — Democrats — to their own peers.

On Thursday, the state central committee voted to ban videotaping of its meeting, which GOP operative Jennifer DeJournett said she’d never encountered in 23 years of Republican politics.

After banning video, Republicans eliminated all affiliate groups, including the LGBT group Log Cabin Republicans, which was possibly the true target of the move.

After thirstily imbibing conspiracy theories about voting machines for the past 18 months — including from high-profile Minnesota pillow salesman Mike Lindell — some campaigns pushed for paper ballots rather than an electronic voting system at the convention. The party plans to use an electronic system, but said it will be prepared to use paper ballots “as a backup in an emergency.”

The party appears to be gearing up for a repeat of the disruptions at local GOP conventions this spring, when upstarts associated with Action 4 Liberty — a right-wing, anti-vaxx, anti-mask, “stop-the-steal” group on the fringes of the GOP — challenged establishment candidates.

The right-wingers had some success in winning or blocking endorsements in local conventions, and have become known for throwing sharp elbows: Rep. Joe McDonald, R-Delano, and Rep. Nolan West, R-Blaine, were forcibly removed from Action 4 Liberty caucus trainings.

The GOP previously announced plans to vet volunteers, charge campaigns for volunteers and bar people who “publicly attack” the party or its endorsed candidates from attending the state convention.

Former GOP operative Michael Brodkorb — who has chaired GOP conventions — called the move unprecedented.

The party also asked all statewide campaigns to submit a list of their volunteers one week before the convention and said it would charge campaigns up to $30 per volunteer to conduct criminal background checks on them.

Unprecedented, perhaps, but not necessarily irrational given the party’s recent entanglement with former top donor and operative Anton Lazzaro, who is set to go on trial after being charged last summer with sex trafficking of a minor.

David FitzSimmons, who is chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach, told the Reformer last month that state party officials “have to be mindful” of the chaos created at some local conventions.

Police were twice called to the Morrison County Republican convention in Little Falls in March to deal with an “unruly crowd” after right-wing activists took over the convention floor.

GOP political consultant Amy Koch said while she likes grassroots movements and shaking up the status quo, Action 4 Liberty seems to be little more than a self-aggrandizing venture for its leaders.

“Everyone is the enemy,” she said. “It’s an easy message — which is, everyone is not conservative enough … and doesn’t put up a fight.”

Action 4 Liberty President Jake Duesenberg did not respond to a request for comment.

Based on what the group has accomplished during convention season, Koch said, the movement is “a bigger deal than people give it credit for.” The state convention will be a test of their true impact.

Clay County may have two sets of delegates

In addition to the 2,220 expected delegates, another 22 delegates from Clay County may show up uninvited after a power struggle divided the county party.

A faction of Clay County Republicans stood by former chair Edwin Hahn when he refused to step down after some members voted to remove him March 8.

They elected a new chair, Rod Johnson, who has said Hahn harassed delegates, bullied people and put his personal beliefs over the party platform, by opposing mask mandates at school board meetings, for example.

Hahn called it a coup d’état orchestrated by Calvin Benson, who is the son of former gubernatorial candidate Michelle Benson and does outreach for Fischbach.

Hahn has ignored the state party’s order that he “cease and desist” representing himself as chair, and continued to hold weekly meetings with his supporters.

The state party canceled the Clay County convention amid the power struggle, so the Hahn faction held its own convention in a Glyndon farmhouse, electing delegates they said would attend congressional and state conventions.

Which means two groups of Clay County delegates could show up at the state convention, a dilemma the credentialing committee will likely have to sort out.

Brodkorb said while every major party deals with some level of chaos in an election cycle, he’s never seen anything “quite like this” since he first attended a convention in 1996.

“It’s a little bit of a perfect storm for chaos,” he said, noting that legislative redistricting always causes disagreements, too. “There is a level of extremism inside the party that is very uncomfortable for me… extremism that I find so unsettling and unnerving these days.”

Suspicion, accusations and conspiracies began sprouting after the Feb. 1 precinct caucuses, where there were discrepancies between the number of people who attended the caucuses and the number who voted.

The new rules could add tension and drama to the convention, Brodkorb said. While it’s important to crown winners, it’s also important to make sure the people who lose don’t leave angry.

“I think they’re trying to do whatever they can administratively to have there be an orderly convention,” Brodkorb said.

The big question this weekend is whether the party can coalesce around its candidates for statewide office.

The major candidates for governor — who each hope to win the party endorsement with 60% of the delegates — include former state Sen. Scott Jensen, a family physician who rose to prominence making claims about COVID-19 and vaccines that medical authorities have rebuked. He was recently in the news for suggesting Secretary of State Steve Simon should be imprisoned.

State Sen. Paul Gazelka, who has roots in the religious right, has received the backing of a major statewide police organization and former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, though he faces mistrust from some in the grassroots due to years of legislative dealmaking with Democrats.

Former Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek joined the race late and lost his own 2018 reelection.

Kendall Qualls was defeated by U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips in 2020, but has shown impressive fundraising skill.

Dr. Neil Shah is the favorite of the hard right like Action 4 Liberty, especially during debates.

Given the possibility of a chaotic convention or no endorsement, a competitive primary seems possible.

Party bigwigs like U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer have pleaded for unity, telling a crowd recently that he narrowly lost his campaign for governor in 2010 because “Republicans were splintered.”

“So I say to any candidate out there, if you think you’re going to undermine the credibility of the state convention, think again,” said Emmer, who leads the party’s congressional election effort in Washington.

FitzSimmons said he doesn’t think the far-right factions and new convention rules will make it harder for the party to unify afterward.

“The party always comes together for the most part,” he said. “Somehow we find a way to move on.”

Moving on is one thing, but winning is another.


Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

NOW WATCH: Democrats have sprung a trap for Republicans if they refuse to comply with Jan. 6 subpoenas

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A state senator was promoted by a nonprofit -- then proposed $500,000 in state funding for it

Four months after a nonprofit called Somali TV of Minnesota — a YouTube channel with 170,000 subscribers — endorsed his campaign, Sen. Omar Fateh introduced a bill that would give the nonprofit a half million dollars in state funding to provide arts and cultural programming.
Somali TV is a 501(c)(3) organization, a type of nonprofit that risks losing its tax-exempt status if it engages in political activity or endorses candidates.

In June and August 2020, Somali TV ran multiple ads encouraging viewers to vote for Fateh, including one with a website where people could volunteer to work on his campaign. Fateh was an upstart Democratic-Socialist running to unseat influential former DFL Sen. Jeff Hayden.

The station also provided free advertising for other candidates — most, but not all, with Somali backgrounds — including Minneapolis City Council candidate Abdi Warsame in 2013; state House candidate Mohamed Barre in 2019; and city council candidate Jamal Osman in 2021.

Somali TV President Siyad Salah said in an interview that Somali TV doesn’t endorse the candidates, but allows them to send in ads, which the channel runs free of charge.

He said Somali TV changed from a nonprofit to a limited liability corporation a few years ago, but secretary of state documents show the group has always been registered as a nonprofit. When asked about that discrepancy in a followup interview, Salah declined comment.

The IRS says 501(c)(3) nonprofits are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” They cannot contribute to political campaigns or make public statements for or against candidates, and violations can mean revocation of tax-exempt status.

Richard Schmalbeck, a Duke University law professor who specializes in nonprofits, said the law clearly prohibits nonprofits from encouraging people to vote for candidates, whether on websites or in pastoral letters.

The reason for the law is to prevent political groups from abusing the tax-free status afforded to churches, charities and other nonprofits.

IRS enforcement, however, “is not particularly strong in this area,” Schmalbeck said.

Emmett Robertson, a nonprofit attorney at Rubric Legal in Minneapolis, said this type of nonprofit can run advertising, but they must make it available to all candidates on the same terms and not show favoritism toward candidates.

“The facts really matter here,” he said. “A lot of organizations don’t really understand these rules, and, frankly, neither do most attorneys.”

As for Fateh’s bill, Salah said Somali TV has been doing this work in the community for free for 22 years, and Fateh approached him to see if the funding was something he’d be interested in. With state funding, Salah said, the channel could continue to distribute important information about things like COVID-19.

Minneapolis is home to the largest Somali population in North America, and the Minnesota Department of Health turned to Somali TV and other media in diverse communities to try to help overcome vaccine hesitancy. Between 2020 and 2022, Somali TV received nearly $241,000 to do pandemic outreach in a culturally appropriate way, according to MDH spokesperson Garry Bowman.

The Fateh bill (SF2238) would give Somali TV a $250,000 grant in 2022 and $250,000 grant in 2023 from the state’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund to create programming and expand coverage of Somali cultural heritage and history. The program uses sales tax revenue to promote the arts and preserve Minnesota’s history and cultural heritage. No action has been taken on the bill since it was referred to a committee last year.

David Schultz, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and political science professor at Hamline University, said Fateh seeking money for Somali TV after they aired the endorsement of him is — at the very least — a conflict of interest.

“You have the potential here for a quid pro quo,” he said.

Ads urging people to vote for candidates are a violation of federal tax law unless there are “a million disclaimers” on them, he said.

Fateh did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Fateh grew up in Virginia, where he ran unsuccessfully for the school board in 2015, according to MinnPost, and moved to Minnesota later that year.

After an unsuccessful 2018 House race, the outspoken progressive won the DFL endorsement and primary election over Hayden in District 62, which comprises south Minneapolis.

Salah said he has a staff of four and was self-funded prior to the pandemic, when Somali TV began receiving state money through the Department of Health.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

Fearing chaos, Minnesota Republican Party plans to ban critics from state convention

The Minnesota Republican Party plans to vet volunteers, charge campaigns for volunteers and bar people who “publicly attack” the party or its endorsed candidates from attending its state convention next month in Rochester.

The requirements would seem to anticipate a chaotic scene, as the ongoing struggle between mainstream and more radical factions of the party continues.

The party is also asking all statewide campaigns to submit a list of their volunteers one week before the convention, and will charge campaigns up to $30 per volunteer, according to party documents first reported by former GOP operative Michael Brodkorb.

Brodkorb suspects that’s designed to dissuade people from bringing in hoards of people to “run around the convention.”

GOP officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Republicans have been dealing with a chaotic convention season during the past few weeks.

Chaos erupted at some local conventions when candidates associated with Action 4 Liberty, a right-wing, anti-vaxx, anti-mask, “stop-the-steal” group on the fringes of the GOP, challenged establishment candidates. Action 4 Liberty is challenging what their leader calls “weak and feckless” Republicans.

They’ve had some success in winning or blocking endorsements in local conventions.

Action 4 Liberty is known for throwing sharp elbows: Rep. Joe McDonald, R-Delano, and Rep. Nolan West, R-Blaine, were forcibly removed from Action 4 Liberty caucus trainings.

David FitzSimmons, chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach, said charging campaigns more money could just be about paying for the convention.

Campaign finance data shows the state DFL party raised $2.3 million in the first quarter of 2022, while the GOP raised less than $46,000.

As for the restriction on groups attacking the GOP, FitzSimmons noted that the police have had to be called to some local conventions. “You always have to be mindful of that,” he said.

Police were twice called to the Morrison County Republican convention in Little Falls in March to deal with an “unruly crowd” after right-wing activists took over the convention floor.

GOP political consultant Amy Koch said she’s heard from multiple campaigns about the new costs — she heard they’re charging $10 for a kid to stand onstage — which she attributes to the party’s need to cover its costs, and make some money.

“They don’t have any money in the bank,” she said. “There’s no wiggle room.”

The party also plans to bar “groups or individuals publicly attacking the” party and its endorsed candidates from attending the state convention.

That seems to be aimed at Clay County, where the county Republican party is divided amid a power struggle that has two men claiming to be chairman and two groups of delegates planning to go to the state convention.

Edwin Hahn of Moorhead refused to step down as chair after some members of the county party voted to remove him March 8.

Charging for volunteers forces campaigns to be serious about who attends the convention, Brodkorb said.

“Is someone gonna pay $30 to just kinda run around and create chaos?” he said.

If two groups of Clay County delegates show up, the credentialing committee will sort that out.

The party is entitled to prevent people from disrupting the convention and grinding work to a halt, Brodkorb said. “The party has a right to run their convention.”

Koch said the ban on dissenters is unusual. When she chaired the 2008 state convention in Rochester, an influx of new people showed up wanting to let presidential candidate Ron Paul speak.

“The state party can overreach,” she said. “In 2008 they were going a little harder than they needed to.”

Trying to police the party will bring tension and drama to the convention, Brodkorb said. The best way to deal with these factions is to be transparent about the rules, be prepared and enforce them.

“What that will lead to is a very rambunctious, wild convention that won’t bring people together,” Brodkorb said. “Every activist should feel good about the process… even if their candidate lost.”


Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and Twitter.

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