Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison says a conservative group is trying to “smear” him for political reasons in a response to secret audio recordings posted by the Center of the American Experiment.

The nearly hour-long audio recording includes a conversation between Ellison and a group of East African business leaders in 2021, some of whom later were charged in the $250 million “Feeding our Future” federal criminal fraud case.

“Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Attorney General, can clearly be heard pledging his support to individuals who would soon become his family’s campaign donors and later Feeding Our Future criminal defendants,” the center posted on its website. “His recorded statements flatly contradict his contemporaneous public statements and raise uncomfortable questions about the intersection between political fundraising and constituent services.”

In the recording that was part of potential evidence in the Feeding Our Future trial but never introduced in the trial, Ellison is heard saying he would help them if state agencies tried to shut them down.

“This has my attention,” he tells the group. “I’m extremely frustrated by it, but we are in the middle of the battle with the agencies now. And I can tell you now (Governor) Walz agrees with me that this piddly, stupid stuff running small people out of business is terrible.”

Though a spokesperson, Ellison says the meeting was initially supposed to be with one friend of his in the attorney general’s office suite. “When the AG arrived, he was surprised to find others present but agreed to meet with them,” says a spokesman in a written statement. “It is a shame that these fraudsters tried to exploit the Attorney General’s good faith engagement, but they were not successful. Nothing happened as a result of the meeting. Feeding Our Future was raided by the FBI in January of 2022, and the people who orchestrated this plot are sitting in prison.”

Ellison also points out his office later defended the Minnesota Department of Education when Feeding Our Future sued the department when it tried to stop making payments.