President Donald Trump on Monday called for the U.S. Attorney of Minnesota to investigate claims of ballot harvesting that were unearthed by a watchdog group.
“This is totally illegal. Hope that the U.S. Attorney in Minnesota has this, and other of her many misdeeds, under serious review??? If not, why not???” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Trump was referring to an investigation by Project Veritas, a watchdog group that shared video footage of a man they identified as Liban Mohamed bragging about collecting hundreds of ballots for his brother, then-City Council candidate Jamal Osman.
“Numbers don’t lie. Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentees’ ballots. Can’t you see? Look at all these, my car is full. All these are for Jamal Osman,” the man said in one video recorded in July.
The man said in the videos that he was collecting the ballots to help his brother win the special election for the City Council seat representing Ward 6. The election was held the same day as the Democratic primary for Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) congressional seat. Ward 6 is part of her district.
Minnesota law lets a “designated agent” return an absentee ballot for a person but such agents are prohibited from serving more than three absentee or mail voters in one election.
Omar Jamal, chair of the Minneapolis-based Somali Watchdog Group, told Project Veritas that he believes Mohamed was working for Omar and Osman.
“It’s an open secret. She will do anything that she can do to get elected and she has hundreds of people on the streets doing that,” he said.
Conversations that the watchdog group said Jamal secretly recorded allegedly show Mohamed giving instructions to him about how to have someone request a mail-in ballot and have it filled it out. Then, it’s “taken away” from the person who voted, the man alleged to be Mohamed said.
“Liban didn’t get it [ballots] in a unique way, he just get them the way everybody before him, or even, maybe even after him will do, which is go to the elders, you know, probably, maybe, bait them, and collect, help—to them, and he’s helping them,” Jamal said. “So I think that’s the process of collecting from the seniors, from their buildings.”
A Somali translator also alleged a connection with the purported scheme and Omar while an unnamed source claimed Somalis were traveling to Minneapolis to vote before going back to their real residences elsewhere. Omar is Somali-American.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Erica MacDonald didn’t answer phone calls on Monday morning and her voicemail was full.
Representatives for Omar and Osman didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Hennepin County Attorney Jeff Wojciechowski told a Project Veritas journalist that the ballot harvesting described to him was “illegal, and we will be investigating.”
Mohamed said on Twitter in response to the video, “This is not me and my voice Fake news mr @JamesOKeefeIII.”
James O’Keefe is the CEO of Project Veritas.
Mohamed later deleted the tweet.
In a missive that was also deleted, Mohamed added, “Y’all making me more famous I’m screaming #BlackLivesMatter.”
In another post, he told O’Keefe: “You’re making me more famous buddy and the real story is present [sic] trump 2016-2017 tax returns.”
Trump said on Monday that he would win Minnesota because of Omar “and law enforcement.” He also said that his administration “saved Minneapolis,” referring to sending the National Guard to quell unrest earlier this year.
From The Epoch Times
