The re-election campaign for Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison has now returned $12,500 in campaign donations made by five (5) men associated with the infamous Feeding Our Future fraud scandal. The returned donations are reflected in a report filed with the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board by his campaign treasurer early last month for the period of calendar year 2025.
Gandi Yusuf Mohamed made the now-returned $2,500 donation on December 20, 2021, just a little more than a week after Ellison met in-person with Gandi’s sister, Ikram Yusuf Mohamed, and other figures linked to the free-food fraud scandal.
Ellison returned Gandi’s donation in May 2025, a little more a month after an audio recording of that December 2021 meeting was made public.
Ikram Mohamed was reportedly the individual who made the December 2021 recording. She was charged in the case in January 2024, as the 63rd overall defendant. Ikram pled guilty last week in the fraud and faces up to ten years in federal prison for masterminding a $15 million free-food fraud.
Gandi was charged in the same federal indictment, as Ikram, along with five other defendants, all of whom have (or will) plead guilty in the case. Gandi alone remains to face a jury trial scheduled to begin next month at the federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis.
The other three donations were also accepted by Ellison on December 20, 2021, but not returned until December 31, 2025, the last possible day eligible for inclusion in the reporting period. Each man had also given $2,500 in 2021, the maximum-allowed contribution for an attorney general candidate. None of the three have been accused of any wrongdoing.
The last donor listed, Khalid Omar, has the most interesting backstory. In May 2024, Minnesota Reformer reported that Omar testified on behalf of Feeding Our Future defendant Mukhtar Shariff, who was convicted in the case.
The Reformer described Omar as the director of the Dar Al-Farooq mosque of Bloomington, MN. In Omar’s December 2021 donation to Ellison, Omar listed his employer as Bloomington Public School District.
Omar’s LinkedIn account lists his employers as the Bloomington Schools in addition to the political nonprofit ISAIAH, as a community organizer.
As recently as late November 2025, Omar appears in local media as a spokesman for the nonprofit. WCCO reported on a protest against Pres. Trump held in Minneapolis,
“We know what our president has done. It is a attack on our community,” said Khalid Omar, an organizer for ISAIAH.
KSTP quotes Omar at the same event,
“So, this has been very scary, lot of people are very fearful,” declared Khalid Omar, a Dar Al-Farooq board member.
Last month, the Washington Free Beacon has reported Omar’s affiliation with a new nonprofit, the Human Development Fund (HDF), based in Michigan.
The Free Beacon reports,
HDF founder and CEO Abdirahman Kariye is an imam at Dar Al-Farooq, a predominantly Somali mosque near Minneapolis that served as a food distribution site for Feeding Our Future. HDF director of fundraising events Khalid Omar is a director of Dar Al-Farooq.
Kariye also testified on behalf of Shariff in that 2024 trial. The Free Beacon reminds readers that Omar served as master of ceremonies at a June 2021 event celebrating the work of Feeding Our Future founder (and now convicted felon), Aimee Bock.
Omar’s fellow Ellison donor, Mahad Hassan (see above), also appeared at the same June 2021 Bock event.
Omar’s work for HDF is confirmed by recent posts made to his LinkedIn account.
Ellison had previously returned a $2,500 donation from another Feeding Our Future defendant, Liban Alishire, back in 2022, soon after Alishire’s 2022 indictment in the case. Alishire would later plead guilty.
Also in 2022, Elllson returned a $2,500 donation from another notorious fraudster, Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX crypto-currency fame.
Perhaps the Bahamas address should have been a red flag.
There is one more unreturned $2,500 donation worth noting. Khadija Ali served as the CEO of the free-food nonprofit Youth Leadership Academy, d/b/a Gar Gaar Family services.
Keith Ellison, as Attorney General, sued Gar Gaar, forcing the nonprofit’s dissolution in 2024. From an AG press release,
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced today that he has reached a settlement with Minneapolis nonprofit Youth Leadership Academy d/b/a Gar Gaar Family Services (“Gar Gaar”), that requires the organization to dissolve in the wake of its violations of state laws concerning self-dealing and governance.
Ellison noted, “Gar Gaar participated in the federal child nutrition program in the summer of 2021.” He added, that Gar Gaar was found to have an “inability to account for the use of over $2 million in federal funds.” Ali herself was never personally charged with any wrongdoing, However she signed the settlement agreement on behalf of Gar Gaar, and is mentioned in the body of the document on three occasions.
Notwithstanding the terms of the settlement agreement, Ellison has retained Ali’s 2021 donation and went on to pocket an additional $400 in donations from her in 2025.
No hard feeling, I guess.
