A video of Keith Ellison is making the rounds this week. A CNN reporter asks Minnesota's attorney general why he goes on international trips "sponsored by corporate lobbyists". He talks about fentanyl coming in from Mexico. Less than a minute later he says, "I'd like to end the conversation right there."
The clip is real. It isn't new. CNN shot it for an investigation that ran on March 27, 2025, eighteen months ago. It's back because the general election is November 3 and Ellison is on the ballot against Republican Ron Schutz. Townhall, which wrote it up on October 6, says as much: Ellison "was exposed back in March 2025 by CNN" and "it's worth revisiting this as Election Day approaches." An X post the day before called it "BREAKING".
It isn't breaking. But old isn't the same as answered. CNN's question in 2025 was a fair one: why go on trips sponsored by corporate lobbyists? Its reporters had already emailed his office twice about AGA trips. And the records CNN reported raise the questions that matter more: who paid, who else was there, and what got discussed. I can't find anywhere that Ellison's office has addressed any of that since. Here's the part that bugs me more than the clip does. The statement of economic interest Minnesota's constitutional officers file never asks about travel by name.
One plain disclosure before the facts. I ran against Ellison in the August primary and lost. Weigh what follows with that in mind. Everything below comes from documents you can open yourself, and they're listed at the bottom.
What CNN found
The trip was to South Africa in 2023. CNN's article says it was "arranged and funded by the nonprofit Attorney General Alliance," a group called AGA for short. It featured a safari, a stay at a five-star hotel, wine tours and gourmet dinners. The guest list included lobbyists and lawyers for Uber, Amazon and Pfizer. CNN's sentence on who paid is the whole story in one line: "And while the major companies gave hefty donations to the group that organized the trip, the attorneys general joined for free." CNN's companion video adds that costs were covered for attorneys general, "including a flight allowance of up to $26,000."
Minnesota was on the list. An AGA staffer texted an attorney general's aide about the invitation list, "So just keep internal," and CNN reports that the list "included attorneys general for Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, Minnesota and other states." CNN's video puts Ellison on the trip by name: "Also on that trip and part of the suit against Amazon, Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison."
Now the money behind it. Per CNN, AGA "pulled in nearly $27 million in sponsorships between 2019 and 2023". A 2023 AGA document "promised sponsors who contributed $100,000 access to “invite-only events” and speaking slots at conferences not available to donors who gave $30,000." In 2021, AGA's internal documents put Amazon in a "Major Gifts Circle" tier, "which required a $500,000 sponsorship." Pfizer's PAC reported about $3 million in contributions to AGA between roughly 2013 and 2022. And you're chipping in too: "Attorneys general also pay thousands of dollars per year in membership dues using taxpayer funds."
The sponsors don't hide what they're buying. CNN quotes the website of Troutman Pepper Locke, a law firm listed on the South Africa trip, describing the events as a "valuable forum for communicating directly with attorneys general about specific client concerns". That's the sales pitch, in the sponsor's own words.
Where did CNN get all this? From the American Accountability Foundation, which CNN describes as "a conservative organization that obtained them through public records requests." CNN adds, "CNN independently confirmed details in the records." You should know who dug the records up. You should also know a national news outlet checked them before it ran them.
The Amazon problem
On September 26, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and 17 states sued Amazon in federal court in Seattle, alleging it illegally maintained monopoly power. The civil cover sheet lists the plaintiffs, and "State of Minnesota" is one of them.
Here's CNN on what happened next: "Two months after the suit was filed, a senior member of Amazon’s public policy team was listed as an attendee of AGA’s delegation to South Africa. Texts suggest multiple attorneys general involved in the lawsuit also accepted invitations for the delegation."
That case isn't over. The joint status report filed October 2, 2026, lists Minnesota among the plaintiff states, signed by a lawyer in Ellison's office, and the parties are preparing for a hearing on December 4, 2026. So Minnesota is suing a company that was a top-tier sponsor of the group that arranged and funded the South Africa trip, a trip Minnesota's attorney general went on and where that company had someone on the guest list.
Now, what this does and does NOT mean. CNN says it flat: "The documents do not show whether any company representatives discussed active litigation or reached agreements with state officials on any of the trips." There's no deal in the record. I'm not alleging one. The problem is narrower, and it's fixable. Nobody outside the office can check.
What Ellison actually said
Townhall's write-up says "Ellison decided to end the interview." The X post says "He abruptly ends the interview while staring down the reporter." The captions back up the first part: he did end it. They also show what those posts leave out. He talked to CNN on camera, and not everyone did. CNN's video reports, "Neither Carr nor any of the Republican AGs agreed to interviews." New Mexico's Democratic attorney general told CNN he'd talk after a meeting, then "did not stick around like he promised to respond to our questions." Ellison answered on camera. Give him that.
But look at what came before the camera and what he said once it was rolling. CNN's video: "Ellison's office had not replied to our two emails asking about AGA trips." Then the question, word for word from CNN's caption track: "Why go on these international trips that are sponsored by corporate lobbyists?" His answer: "Well, so the-- in-- from Mexico, we have a large amount of fentanyl coming through. There are a lot of international issues that we deal with every day."
CNN's narration: "Ellison did not mention South Africa or France in our discussion." Then the line CNN's article printed: "I understand how this game is played… ‘Oh you went on a trip,’" which CNN describes as a reference to reporters trying to "embarrass" politicians. "I understand that thing, but I will say that there is real work that we are doing that is important for our constituents and has a lot to do with the fact that we live in a globalized world." He added, "I get it. I know where you're coming from, and I'm just telling you that we have substantive programs, our constituents that are disadvantaged if we are not having meaningful conversations with international partners." And then, "I'd like to end the conversation right there."
Fentanyl coming across the border is real. And AGA really does run a program in Mexico. Its own website says that partnership "has connected over 27,000 law enforcement officials in Mexico and the United States." So his answer isn't made up. It's an answer to a different question. CNN asked why go on trips paid for by corporate sponsors. Fentanyl from Mexico doesn't explain a safari in South Africa. It doesn't say who paid. And it doesn't say whether the Amazon lawsuit came up on a trip where Amazon's public policy team was on the guest list.
That's the accountability problem in one exchange. Nobody needs to hear an AG say he's sorry for going on a trip. People need to know who paid for it.
He's not the outlier, and that's the bigger problem
Here's a fact that cuts against piling on Ellison. CNN reports that "Attorneys general contacted by CNN largely declined to answer questions about specific matters discussed with business representatives at the meetings." Ellison's non-answer is the norm.
And this isn't a Democrat thing or a Republican thing. When AGA pitched a trip to Spain with "all" expenses covered, Illinois Democrat Kwame Raoul wrote back, "Count me in!" When a staffer for Georgia Republican Chris Carr asked whether AGA covered hotel incidentals, the AGA staffer wrote back, "Like a spa treatment or like food/snacks?" Carr's staffer "clarified he was only asking about food reimbursements", and the answer was, "Just hold receipts or put on room." Ohio Republican Dave Yost and his wife booked business-class seats and airport lounge access for the France trip for over $12,000, and Maryland Democrat Anthony Brown and his wife charged a similar amount. In Utah, an auditor found that former Republican attorney general Sean Reyes had not been "reasonably transparent" and flagged AGA trips he didn't disclose.
Not everybody goes. Arizona's Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, told CNN, "I think it's an intentional move on my part to put my focus here in Arizona." So skipping the trips is possible. Plenty of AGs go anyway.
That's the system I'm going after. A club of elected law enforcement chiefs, from both parties, flown around the world on money from companies whose conduct they police. And in Minnesota, the official's own disclosure form never asks about travel by name.
The other side's best case
AGA and its defenders have answers, and you should hear them in their own words.
Tania Maestas, AGA's deputy director, told CNN her group has nothing to do with litigation involving attorneys general and doesn't act at the direction of private companies. In her own words: "By being in the same room or the same location, that’s not influence. That is not an ability to change the way an AG is going to do something. … AGs are better than that."
Jon Bruning, a former Nebraska attorney general who went to South Africa for his private law group: "I don’t see it as pay for play. I see it as an opportunity for a bipartisan conversation to make America better".
Brian Kane, who runs the National Association of Attorneys General, which co-sponsored the France trip: "Being able to sit down with somebody and understand them as a fellow human being is critically important to being able to understand them within the business setting."
I'll give Kane this much. Anybody who's practiced law knows a hard phone call goes better when you've already met the person on the other end. Attorneys general share problems that cross borders, and fentanyl, trafficking and cybercrime are on that list.
Here's the critics' side, from Richard Painter, the former Bush White House ethics lawyer who teaches at the University of Minnesota: "It’s a whole game of getting the public officials together with the corporate people who in effect lobby to get what they want," and "Public trust is destroyed by this kind of thing."
You don't have to pick between them to fix this. If Kane's right and the trips do real work, posting the receipts costs them nothing. If Painter's right, the receipts are how you'd find out. Either way, the answer is the same.
What Minnesota law says, and what it never asks
None of what follows says a law was broken. It's a description of what the statutes say, and of the hole in them.
Minnesota has a gift ban. Minn. Stat. § 10A.071, subd. 2: "A lobbyist or principal may not give a gift or request another to give a gift to an official. An official may not accept a gift from a lobbyist or principal." Subdivision 3 lists exceptions, including a gift given "because of the recipient's membership in a group, a majority of whose members are not officials, and an equivalent gift is given to the other members of the group". Whether a national nonprofit like AGA is a "principal" under Minnesota's definition, and whether a trip like this fits an exception, are legal questions this piece doesn't decide.
There's also the executive-branch code of ethics, Minn. Stat. § 43A.38, subd. 2. Executive-branch employees "shall not directly or indirectly receive or agree to receive any payment of expense, compensation, gift, reward, gratuity, favor, service or promise of future employment or other future benefit from any source, except the state for any activity related to the duties of the employee unless otherwise provided by law." One exception covers travel and meal reimbursements "which have been approved in advance by the appointing authority as part of the work assignment." Does that code reach an elected attorney general? Chapter 43A lists positions held by employees "chosen by election" in the unclassified civil service, so there's an argument it does. And who's the "appointing authority" for an official the voters hired? The statute doesn't say.
Notice what both of those rules are about. They're about whether an official may accept something. Neither one requires anybody to tell the public that he did.
The disclosure rule is Minn. Stat. § 10A.09. Constitutional officers file a statement of economic interest with the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, and subdivision 5 lists what it has to contain. There are nine items: your name, address and occupation; associated businesses; Minnesota real estate other than your home that you or your spouse hold; real estate held through a partnership; any interest in pari-mutuel horse racing; certain business income; independent-contractor income over $2,500; securities worth more than $10,000; and contracts, licenses, leases or franchises with your own agency. That's the list. Travel isn't on it. Neither is lodging, or who paid for either one.
The annual update under subdivision 6 adds one more item: "the amount of each honorarium in excess of $250 received since the previous statement and the name and address of the source of the honorarium." That's the one line on the form that might reach a sponsored trip, and the Board describes it two ways. Its handbook says the honoraria section applies if you received "a payment of more than $250 for a service when there is no obligation on the part of the giver to pay." Its candidate form, updated in May 2026, says "An honorarium is anything of value received for a service when there is no obligation on the part of the giver to pay." Both give speeches, presentations and articles as examples. Under the form's wording, a hosted trip given in exchange for a speech might be reportable. A trip given for showing up doesn't obviously fit either definition. That's a legal question, and this piece doesn't decide it. What's plain is that the form never asks about travel by name.
Ellison's own statement is public. As last updated January 26, 2026, it reports "None reported" under honoraria and "None reported" under compensation from a lobbyist, lobbyist principal, or interested person for services as an independent contractor or consultant. Nothing on it mentions the Attorney General Alliance or any trip. Keep the dates straight, though. The South Africa trip was in 2023, and the Board's public page shows one statement, his current one, with no link to earlier years. So that page can't tell you what he reported for 2023. It can tell you the form gave him no line that asks about travel by name.
The Legislature had a fresh chance at this list in May. 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 101, § 12, signed May 18, 2026, amended subdivision 5. It added a new paragraph letting officials keep certain home addresses private for safety reasons. It didn't add travel.
I went through the Board's own paperwork, too. Its Public Officials Handbook uses "gift" or "gifts" 30 times and never once uses "travel", "lodging" or "trip". Its statement of economic interest form for candidates, last updated in May 2026, doesn't use any of those three words either.
The one place a gift to an official does get reported is on the other side of the ledger. Minn. Stat. § 10A.04, subd. 4(g), says "A lobbyist must report the amount and nature of each gift, item, or benefit, excluding contributions to a candidate, equal in value to $5 or more, given or paid to any official, as defined in section 10A.071, subdivision 1, by the lobbyist or an employer or employee of the lobbyist." That puts the reporting on the giver. Whether a trip run by a national nonprofit out of pooled corporate sponsorships counts as a gift "by the lobbyist or an employer or employee of the lobbyist" is the kind of thing lawyers argue about. And either way, the official's own filing never asks about travel by name.
What other people already make their officials do
None of this needs inventing. It's sitting next door, and it's sitting in Washington.
Wisconsin. Wisconsin's attorney general is a state public official who has to file a statement of economic interests, and Wis. Stat. § 19.56(2)(a) says what goes on it. An official who receives "any lodging, transportation, money or other thing with a combined pecuniary value exceeding $50" for a talk or for participating in a meeting must report "the identity of every person from whom the official receives such lodging, transportation, money or other thing during his or her preceding taxable year, the circumstances under which it was received and the approximate value thereof." Fifty dollars. Who paid, why, and how much. On the form.
The U.S. House. The chamber Ellison used to serve in runs on a tighter rule today. Under clause 5(b) of House Rule XXV, a member who takes privately paid travel connected to official duties must disclose "the expenses reimbursed or to be reimbursed and the authorization to the Clerk within 15 days after the travel is completed." The disclosure has to include good-faith estimates of transportation, lodging and meal costs and "a description of meetings and events attended". Events that are "substantially recreational in nature" don't count as official duties. And clause 5(c) bars a member from accepting reimbursement "for a trip on which the traveler is accompanied on any segment by a registered lobbyist or agent of a foreign principal." Federal law, 2 U.S.C. § 4712, makes the Clerk post these filings online "in a format that is searchable, sortable, and downloadable, to the extent technically practicable". I searched that database for Minnesota members this week. It works.
So the standard Minnesota would be adopting isn't exotic. It's what a member of Congress does after a trip, and what a Wisconsin official does when somebody else covers the hotel for a meeting.
What I'd ask the office
These are questions, not accusations. A good answer to each would end this.
Which AGA trips has the attorney general taken since 2019, and on what dates? Who paid for each one: AGA, the state, the campaign, or somebody else? Does the Minnesota attorney general's office pay AGA or the Conference of Western Attorneys General membership dues from its appropriation, and how much? (CNN reports that attorneys general generally do. In 2021, South Dakota's attorney general listed Minnesota among the associate member states of the Conference of Western Attorneys General, the group AGA grew out of. I couldn't find Minnesota's dues figure anywhere public.) Which sponsoring companies had representatives on each trip? Were any of those companies under investigation by, or in litigation with, the office at the time? And will the office post every sponsored trip going forward?
What we can do
Post it. Starting tomorrow. The attorney general can do this without a single new law. One page on the office's website: every trip paid for by anyone other than the State of Minnesota, with the dates, the destination, who paid, a good-faith estimate of what it cost, the meetings attended, and which companies' people were there. Back-fill it to 2019. The House already makes its members do almost exactly this within 15 days, and its rule already lists what the page should say.
Add a tenth line to the form. The Legislature should amend Minn. Stat. § 10A.09, subd. 5, to add sponsored travel, lodging and hospitality to the statement of economic interest, with a low threshold like Wisconsin's $50, the identity of the payer, the circumstances and the approximate value, and the House's "description of meetings and events attended". It amended that exact subdivision this year for address privacy. This is one more sentence.
If the trip's worth it, let the state pay. Minnesota's executive-branch ethics code already starts from "except the state". If a trip to talk about fentanyl with Mexican prosecutors serves Minnesotans, put it in the office's travel budget, where it shows up in the books and the Legislature can ask about it. Wisconsin's statute already lets a state official take travel paid "on behalf of the state" when it's primarily for the state's benefit. That's the honest way to do work abroad.
Don't ride with the other side's lobbyists. With one narrow exception, the House won't let a member take a reimbursed trip if a registered lobbyist comes along on any leg. Minnesota could adopt the same rule for its constitutional officers, at least for any company the office is investigating or suing. A prosecutor wouldn't take a free trip with the defendant's lawyer. An attorney general suing Amazon shouldn't be on a guest list with Amazon's public policy team.
I'm not asking anybody to stop meeting people. I'm asking them to say who paid for the plane ticket.
First the facts. Then the fix.
Sources
The CNN investigation is Corporate interests pay for luxury foreign trips. State attorneys general join for free, by Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Curt Devine and Kyung Lah, published March 27, 2025, at cnn.com/2025/03/27/politics/attorney-general-luxury-foreign-trips-invs. I read the full text, fetched October 8, 2026. Every quotation attributed to CNN's article, including Ellison's "game is played" remarks, the quotations from Tania Maestas, Jon Bruning, Brian Kane, Richard Painter, Kwame Raoul and the AGA staffers, the dollar figures for AGA's sponsorships, the Amazon and Pfizer tiers, the Yost and Brown airfare, the Utah auditor's finding on Sean Reyes, the source of the records, and the sentence that the documents do not show any discussion of active litigation, is taken from that text.
CNN's companion video report by Kyung Lah, Corporate interests pay for luxury trips. State attorneys general join for free, runs 5:19 and sits at cnn.com/2025/03/28/politics/video/state-attorney-general-trips-luxurious-invs. Every quotation attributed above to CNN's video, including the question put to Ellison, his fentanyl answer, his line about ending the conversation, the narration that his office had not answered two emails, that he did not mention South Africa or France, that he was on the South Africa trip, that no Republican attorney general agreed to an interview, the $26,000 flight allowance, and Kris Mayes's answer, is taken from CNN's own closed-caption file for that video, served from CNN's media server alongside the video and downloaded October 8, 2026. A caption file is CNN's transcription, not a certified transcript. I searched CNN's published broadcast transcripts for March 26 through 29, 2025, 150 transcript segments in all, and the report doesn't appear in any of them, which suggests it ran online only.
The October 2026 recirculation is documented in Amy Curtis, Keith Ellison Was Busted by CNN for Taking Lavish Overseas Trips Funded by Corporate Lobbyists, Townhall, October 6, 2026, at townhall.com/news/amy-curtis/2026/10/06/ellison-interview-n2684171, which embeds the October 5 X post quoted above. Townhall's write-up says Ellison "did not mention the trip to South Africa or France"; CNN's article does not say Ellison went to France, and nothing above says he did.
The Amazon case is Federal Trade Commission v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 2:23-cv-01495 (W.D. Wash.), read on CourtListener. Minnesota's status as an original plaintiff is from Attachment A to the civil cover sheet filed September 26, 2023, which lists the FTC and 17 states. Minnesota's continued participation and the December 4, 2026 hearing are from the joint status report filed October 2, 2026, which lists Minnesota among the plaintiff states and carries the signature of counsel from the Minnesota Attorney General's Office. AGA's description of its Mexico program and its history is from its own website, agalliance.org/about, fetched October 8, 2026. The 2021 associate-member list is from the South Dakota Attorney General's press release of July 2, 2021, announcing Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg's election as vice chair of the Conference of Western Attorneys General, at atg.sd.gov.
Minnesota law was read in the 2025 Minnesota Statutes at revisor.mn.gov, fetched October 8, 2026: §§ 10A.01 (including subd. 33, which defines a principal, and subd. 35, which defines a public official to include a "constitutional officer in the executive branch"), 10A.04, subd. 4, 10A.071, 10A.09, 43A.02, 43A.08 and 43A.38, and the full text of chapter 10A. The Revisor flags § 10A.09, subd. 5, and § 10A.04, subd. 4, as amended by 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 101, so I read that session law directly. Section 12 amends § 10A.09, subd. 5, and adds only the address-privacy paragraph; section 9 amends § 10A.04, subd. 4, and leaves the gift-reporting sentence quoted above in place while changing what identifying information the lobbyist lists. The general election date is from Minn. Stat. § 204D.03, subd. 2, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which is November 3 this year. The Board's Public Officials Handbook (last revised January 2024) and its Original Statement of Economic Interest for Candidates form (last updated May 2026) were downloaded from cfb.mn.gov and searched in full; "gift" or "gifts" appears 30 times in the handbook and "honoraria" appears in both documents, which confirms the search reads them, while "travel", "lodging" and "trip" appear zero times in either. The full 2025 text of chapter 10A was searched the same way: "travel" and "lodging" appear only in provisions on campaign-committee spending and in the definition of a lobbyist, never in § 10A.09.
Wisconsin law is Wis. Stat. §§ 19.42(10), 19.43(1), 19.56 and 20.923(2), read at docs.legis.wisconsin.gov, fetched October 8, 2026. The House rule is clause 5 of Rule XXV, read in the Constitution, Jefferson's Manual and Rules of the House of Representatives for the One Hundred Nineteenth Congress, House Document No. 118-187, at govinfo.gov. The posting requirement is 2 U.S.C. § 4712, read at Cornell's Legal Information Institute. The House Clerk's gift-travel database is at disclosures-clerk.house.gov/GiftTravelFilings.
The race facts are from MPR News. Its August 11, 2026 story reports that Ellison beat me in the primary and will face Republican Ron Schutz in November. Its September 28, 2026 story spells his name Schutz throughout the body; the web address of that story misspells it.
What I searched, what I found, and what I could not establish. I could not find any public answer from the Attorney General's Office to CNN's questions, in CNN's reporting or on the office's news page. I searched the Star Tribune, MPR News, the Minnesota Reformer, Sahan Journal, MinnPost and Axios Twin Cities for any coverage of Ellison and the Attorney General Alliance or the South Africa trip, in 2025 or this month, and found none. Each search was checked with a query I knew would hit on the same outlet, Ellison and Feeding Our Future or Ellison and Schutz, and those returned stories, so the outlets were searchable; Sahan Journal and MinnPost were also searched through their own site search, and the Minnesota Reformer's own site search could not be run, so it was searched through a general search engine only. That is a search result, and a story I missed would change it. Ellison's statement of economic interest was read on the Board's site on October 8, 2026, at cfb.mn.gov/reports-and-data/officials-financial-disclosure/official/6528. The page shows the statement as last updated January 26, 2026 (the Board's listing shows a report filed June 8, 2026, registration number 6528) and lists his sources of income, a business, Keith Ellison LLC, and "None reported" for honoraria, for compensation from a lobbyist, lobbyist principal or interested person for services as an independent contractor or consultant, for securities, for real property, for government agency interests and for pari-mutuel interests. The public page shows one statement, the current one, with no link to earlier years, so I could not read what he reported for 2023, the year of the South Africa trip. The House Clerk's gift-travel database returned no filings under Ellison's name, but the whole database, about 9,600 filings, holds only three from 2018 and none earlier. Ellison left the House on January 3, 2019, so it does not reach his years in Congress, and I draw no conclusion from it. I could not find whether the Minnesota office pays dues to AGA or how much, and I could not find whether AGA is registered as a principal in Minnesota. Corrections: campaign@madgettformn.com.