# Letter to Secretary Brooke Rollins, Department of Agriculture --- MTN Minneapolis, Minnesota [email protected] May 13, 2026 The Honorable Brooke Rollins Secretary of Agriculture U.S. Department of Agriculture 1400 Independence Avenue SW Washington, DC 20250 **Re: Feeding Our Future CACFP/SFSP Fraud, MDE Pass-Through Failures, and the University of Minnesota CFANS / Carlson School Credentialing Pipeline — Coordination Request Under the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud (E.O. of March 16, 2026)** Dear Secretary Rollins: I write to identify the Department of Agriculture's Minnesota portfolio — the Feeding Our Future docket, the suspension of $129 million-plus in USDA awards and reimbursements to Minnesota entities, and the program-integrity questions across SNAP, CACFP, and SFSP — as one operational consequence of a Minnesota administrative architecture credentialed by the University of Minnesota. **The Portfolio Issue.** Feeding Our Future, headquartered in Minnesota, operated as the pass-through nonprofit through which USDA's Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) and Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) reimbursements were administered to a network of sub-recipient organizations. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota has indicted 79 defendants, with 63 found guilty (57 via plea agreements). Founder Aimee Bock was convicted on all counts in March 2025; the District Court has ordered $5.2 million in forfeiture. The Justice Department continues to prosecute the matter, with the FBI Director's office describing it as "the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme charged to date." The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) served as the state pass-through agency that approved Feeding Our Future and failed to detect the fraud during the program's operational period (2018-2022). https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/dozens-charged-in-250-million-covid-fraud-scheme-092122 | https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/federal-jury-finds-feeding-our-future-mastermind-and-co-defendant-guilty-250-million **The University of Minnesota Origin — Credentialing.** The administrative class that operated the Feeding Our Future sub-recipient network is credentialed predominantly by the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management (nonprofit administration), the Humphrey School of Public Affairs (public policy), and the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development (which credentials Minnesota Department of Education senior staff). The agricultural-and-food-program administrative pipeline is anchored at the University of Minnesota's College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) and the UMN Extension service, which operates as the land-grant institution's federally-funded outreach arm. https://carlsonschool.umn.edu/ | https://cfans.umn.edu/ **The Structural Architecture.** Feeding Our Future was not an aberration. It was the predictable operational output of an architecture that creates pass-through nonprofits by design, regulates them by self-attestation, and funds them through layered nonprofit sub-recipient chains. The same DFL-aligned policy network that built the §43A.191 compliance architecture — under DOJ Title VII challenge in United States v. State of Minnesota (0:25-cv-03798, D. Minn., Jan. 14, 2026) — operates the nonprofit shell system that USDA funded through MDE pass-through. The House Oversight Committee's March 4, 2026 report documents the broader $9 billion fraud estimate across fourteen-plus state programs that operate on the same architecture. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-Cost-of-Doing-Nothing_How-Tim-Walz-and-Keith-Ellison-Fueled-Minnesotas-Fraud-Explosion_3.4.26_FINAL.pdf | https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1415681/dl **The Institutional Admissions.** The University of Minnesota's own commissioned Truth Report (April 11, 2023) states that the founding board "committed genocide and ethnic cleansing of Indigenous peoples for financial gain." In October 2025, the University signed an Office for Civil Rights Resolution Agreement acknowledging that its PhD Project partnership violated Title VI by discriminating against white and Asian students. The institution that credentials Minnesota's nonprofit-administration class and the senior MDE staff has confessed in its own commissioned reports to both foundational fraud and contemporary unlawful discrimination. https://mn.gov/indian-affairs/assets/full-report_tcm1193-572488.pdf | https://www.startribune.com/the-u-signs-agreement-acknowledging-discrimination-against-white-and-asian-students-cuts-ties-with-recruiting-nonprofit/601564669 **The Consolidated Federal Posture.** The Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, established by the March 16, 2026 Executive Order, is the cross-agency coordinator. USDA's Food and Nutrition Service is the principal program-funding component engaged. The DOJ has filed the §43A.191 challenge under a Certificate of General Public Importance. The House Oversight investigation is active. The April 2026 reports indicate Bock has been leaking case documents from custody, and prosecutor resignations following Operation Metro Surge have affected the prosecution's pace — both factors that warrant Task Force-level coordination to maintain the federal posture's momentum. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud/ **The Ask.** I respectfully request that the Department of Agriculture: 1. **Continue and expand the suspension** of USDA awards and reimbursements to Minnesota entities under the Task Force framework, with particular attention to remaining CACFP and SFSP sub-recipients with operational or credentialing ties to the Feeding Our Future network; 2. **Conduct a credentialing-pipeline audit** of the Minnesota Department of Education senior staff, in coordination with the U.S. Department of Education's parallel review of MDE's Title IX compliance, focusing on the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development pipeline that supplies those staff; 3. **Coordinate findings with the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud** under the March 16, 2026 Executive Order; and 4. **Treat the Feeding Our Future docket as one operational predicate** within the consolidated federal Minnesota matter, rather than as an isolated criminal-prosecution series. This letter is one of approximately twenty Cabinet-level briefings I am submitting under the Task Force framework. Respectfully submitted, MTN [email protected] --- **Primary Sources Cited:** - E.O. Task Force to Eliminate Fraud: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud/ - FBI Feeding Our Future: https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/dozens-charged-in-250-million-covid-fraud-scheme-092122 - Aimee Bock conviction: https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/federal-jury-finds-feeding-our-future-mastermind-and-co-defendant-guilty-250-million - US v. State of Minnesota: https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1415681/dl - House Oversight Report: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-Cost-of-Doing-Nothing_How-Tim-Walz-and-Keith-Ellison-Fueled-Minnesotas-Fraud-Explosion_3.4.26_FINAL.pdf - UMN CFANS: https://cfans.umn.edu/ - UMN Carlson School: https://carlsonschool.umn.edu/ - UMN TRUTH Report: https://mn.gov/indian-affairs/assets/full-report_tcm1193-572488.pdf - UMN OCR Resolution Agreement: https://www.startribune.com/the-u-signs-agreement-acknowledging-discrimination-against-white-and-asian-students-cuts-ties-with-recruiting-nonprofit/601564669 #Addresses_Advisories_and_Archives