Minnesota conservatives already knew Keith Ellison met with Somali fraudsters accused of stealing millions.
Now a leaked campaign video shows him bragging about a different kind of vote grab entirely.
Ellison used the exact same line about noncitizen voters that he once told a national news anchor.
Ellison Said the Exact Same Thing to Katie Couric Back in January
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison stood on a stage Monday night for Peggy Flanagan.
He wasn't talking about jobs or the economy.
He was talking about who Democrats plan to turn out this November.
The RNC Research account caught it on tape.
Ellison told the crowd there's a pool of untapped voters Democrats intend to activate.
"We gonna get them all this election," Ellison said.
Watch that clip again and notice what came right before that line.
Ellison rattled off three categories in one breath: newly eligible eighteen-year-olds, people who stayed home last time, and people who weren't even citizens yet.
He lumped noncitizens into his turnout math like it was just another box to check.
Ellison told Katie Couric almost the identical thing back in January, describing the same three groups of voters Democrats need to organize, right down to the noncitizens.
That's not a gaffe.
That's a rehearsed talking point.
The Video Drops as Federal Prosecutors Circle Minnesota's Voter Rolls
Here's why Ellison's timing looks so bad.
The Trump Justice Department isn't playing around on this one.
Roughly two dozen noncitizens have already been arrested, prosecuted, or convicted for voting in federal elections in the past few months, with about 90 more cases working through the pipeline.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon has already put election officials on notice.
"This is not some idle threat," Dhillon warned.
Republican election attorney Justin Riemer warns Minnesota's fraud-riddled systems could become a "canary in the coal mine."
Translation: if it can happen with childcare money, it can happen at the ballot box.
Ellison knows exactly what that scrutiny looks like up close.
He's the same attorney general who sat down with members of a Somali family accused in a $14 million federal child nutrition fraud scheme, offering to help them fight investigators while they offered his campaign votes and dollars.
Six members of that family have since pleaded guilty or entered no-contest pleas.
Now he's on video mapping out a plan to mobilize noncitizens for the candidate he personally endorsed to replace Tina Smith in the Senate.
Peggy Flanagan is that candidate.
Flanagan made her own headlines last December, showing up in a hijab specifically to defend the Somali community caught in that same fraud scandal.
Democrats want you to believe this is all coincidence.
Attorney general meets fraudsters, attorney general endorses a candidate, attorney general brags about turning out people who weren't legally allowed to vote last time.
Republicans aren't buying the coincidence, and neither should you.
Flanagan is locked in a bruising DFL primary against Rep. Angie Craig, decided August 11, with national money pouring into both campaigns.
Ellison just handed the eventual nominee a gift she never asked for.
Every ad Republicans need practically wrote itself Monday night.
The tape is out there, and the Justice Department is already knocking on Minnesota's door.
Democrats can spin this however they want.
Ellison treated a federal crime like a turnout strategy, and he said it out loud instead of hiding it.
Think about what he's actually the top law enforcement officer for.
Minnesota's attorney general is the guy supposedly protecting the integrity of the ballot box.
The Justice Department isn't guessing about this problem either.
Investigators have already accused a former Kansas mayor of voting in an election he had no legal right to touch.
He's not alone.
Prosecutors have similar cases stacking up from Hawaii to New Jersey.
Minnesota isn't immune to the same scrutiny playing out everywhere else.
Every one of these cases started the same way Ellison's video did, with someone insisting it couldn't possibly be happening at scale.
Now the sitting attorney general is caught on camera describing the exact strategy federal prosecutors are racing to stop.
Republicans in Minnesota don't need to manufacture outrage over this one.
Ellison manufactured it himself, on camera, twice.
Sources:
- Rusty Weiss, "Keith Ellison Brags Dems Will 'Get 'Em All' — People Who Were Non-Citizens Last Election," RedState, July 20, 2026.
- Staff, "DOJ Expands Noncitizen Voting Crackdown as Investigators Review Scores of Additional Cases," YourNews, July 14, 2026.
- Staff, "DOJ Crackdown Reveals More Noncitizens Charged With Illegal Voting," AMAC, July 2026.
- Madelin Fuerste, "Minnesota Fraud Case Is a 'Canary in the Coal Mine' for Government Systems," Fox News, 2026.
