Conservative group says voter fraud is taking place in Minnesota
WASHINGTON - A new investigation by the conservative group Project Veritas alleges voter fraud in Minnesota.
The newly released video by the group starts with a Snapchat video, which has since been taken down, shows several envelopes on the dashboard of a man's car. James O'Keefe, who heads Project Veritas, says the man is Liban Mohamed, bother to Minneapolis city council member Jamal Osman, and a campaign worker for Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.
There is a translation which says Mohamed says “All these here are absentee ballots look at these my car is full. Today we got 300 for Jamal Osman.
O'Keefe relies on interviews with what he calls a whistleblower, Omar Jamal who appears on-camera, and a "Minneapolis political worker" who's phone calls are recorded, to back those claims.
"It’s all seniors and they took every ballot. Every single ballot they just knock on the door and say your ballots come? Give it to me, give it to me," a woman says on the phone call.
A New York Post headline puts it this way: "Trump calls for investigation into Rep. Omar over ‘ballot harvesting’ claims"
A National Review Article outlines "evidence of a cash-for-votes scheme. possibly involving Ilhan Omar’s re-election campaign.
The Project Veritas video shows an on-camera interview with Omar Jamal, an advocate for the Somali community who O'Keefe calls a "whistleblower."
“Ali Isse, whose deputy director for Ilhan Omar here in Minneapolis, is part of people who are using cash to get votes," he said.
These claims have not been independently verified by Sinclair.
Additionally, state law in Minnesota does allow a third party to collect up to three ballots for other people. Some call this "ballot harvesting"
Rep. Ilhan Omar's campaign did not return requests for comment, but according to an article in Newsweek.
"Omar casually dismissed the claims on Monday. She responded to one of President Donald Trump's tweets about the accusations with a gif mocking the amount he allegedly paid in tax in 2016 and 2017."
Meanwhile, President Trump in a tweet Monday called the operation illegal, asking for federal officials in Minnesota to review the matter.
On the other hand, critics warn of the tactics used by Project Veritas in the past.
"He has a right-wing agenda and a history of doctoring video to suit that agenda," said Mark Feldstein, a Journalism Professor at the University of Maryland, who teaches undercover reporting as part of one of his classes.
"One of the key facts that I teach is that you cannot create a crime that doesn’t already exist. You have to watch what happens and remain a neutral fly on the wall. James O'Keefe is no neutral fly on the wall," he said in an interview Monday.
Additionally, several liberal groups in Wisconsin told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel they believe they were targeted by Project Veritas, claiming two men using false identities infiltrated the groups, " to try and bait employees into agreeing to use illegal methods to conduct voter registration in Wisconsin.”
