Adam Fetcher, a former deputy national press secretary for the Obama administration, was fired from his nearly $190,000-a-year job as Minneapolis's chief communications officer after city officials accused him of stealing cash and credit cards from fellow employees and racking up fraudulent charges at a local tobacco shop.
Margaret Anderson Kelliher, the city's operations officer, terminated Fetcher on July 1 amid a pending criminal referral. The case has been submitted to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office for possible felony charges, the Washington Examiner reported.
The allegations paint a grim picture: a high-profile political operative, freshly back from a city-approved rehabilitation program, allegedly rifling through coworkers' purses and desks to fund purchases of kratom, an herbal substance often used to treat opioid withdrawal, at a south Minneapolis smoke shop.
Fetcher, 42, became Minneapolis's first-ever cabinet-level chief communications officer in July 2025. Earlier that year, he took a nine-week leave for treatment of a substance abuse disorder. He returned to work in mid-April.
Within weeks, three city employees reported that cash, debit cards, and credit cards had gone missing from their desks and purses. The alleged thefts occurred between May and June, Just The News reported.
One stolen card was traced to Minneapolis Tobacco & Vapor, where surveillance footage allegedly captured Fetcher making a $481 purchase of kratom. A woman whose card was used called the store to report an unauthorized transaction. When Fetcher returned to the shop, employees recognized him.
Store manager Hamza Zamara told reporters that staff photographed Fetcher, confronted him, and recorded his vehicle's license plate number for police. As Fox News detailed, Zamara described the moment bluntly:
"We told him, 'Hey, we know what you're doing.'"
The license plate and surveillance images gave investigators what they needed. Police assembled a case file and forwarded it to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office. A spokesman for County Attorney Mary Moriarty confirmed the case "has been submitted for charging consideration and is currently under review."
Fetcher's career arc makes the allegations all the more striking. He served as a press aide during Barack Obama's first term and worked on Obama's 2012 reelection campaign. He later landed the newly created Minneapolis communications post, a role that came with a salary approaching $190,000 a year, Breitbart reported.
The city approved his weeks-long rehabilitation absence. He returned in mid-April. The alleged thefts began shortly after.
The timeline raises hard questions about whether the city had any safeguards in place for an employee returning from substance abuse treatment, or whether anyone noticed red flags before coworkers started reporting missing property. Those questions remain unanswered. Neither the City of Minneapolis nor the Minneapolis Police Department has publicly responded to media requests for comment.
Fetcher himself has made no public statement regarding the accusations. The Obama administration, of course, left office years ago, but Fetcher's political pedigree has drawn attention to the case far beyond Minneapolis city hall. Coverage of Obama-era figures and their post-White House conduct has become a recurring feature of the political landscape.
The Hennepin County Attorney's Office has indicated the case could qualify as a felony-level offense. The $481 purchase alone, combined with the additional "hundreds of dollars" in alleged fraudulent charges, puts the total well into territory that Minnesota law treats seriously.
Whether Moriarty's office will actually file charges remains an open question. Moriarty, a progressive prosecutor, has faced scrutiny over her charging decisions in other cases. The fact that a spokesman confirmed the referral without elaboration suggests the review is still in its early stages.
Kelliher, the city operations officer who fired Fetcher, addressed city staff directly. As the New York Post reported, she acknowledged the situation's gravity:
"I know this information may be concerning and troubling, and I want to assure you that the City takes this sort of report seriously and has acted accordingly."
That assurance will ring hollow for the three employees who had their belongings stolen at work, inside a government building, by a colleague earning close to $200,000 a year.
Kratom, the substance Fetcher allegedly purchased with stolen funds, occupies a gray area in American drug policy. Sold legally in many states at gas stations and smoke shops, it is an herbal supplement derived from a Southeast Asian plant. Users often take it to manage opioid withdrawal symptoms. Its addictive potential has drawn warnings from federal health agencies, though it remains legal in Minnesota.
Fetcher's nine-week rehabilitation stay, approved by the city, suggests the substance abuse issues predated the alleged thefts. The city apparently welcomed him back without incident. What happened next suggests the underlying problem was far from resolved.
The pattern described in the case, stealing from coworkers' purses and desks, making repeated trips to the same store, getting caught on camera, does not suggest sophistication. It suggests desperation. But desperation does not excuse theft from the people you work alongside, and it certainly does not excuse a public official abusing the trust of a government workplace.
Political scandals involving former administration figures and their families have become a familiar genre. The Biden family's recurring controversies offered one template. This case is smaller in scale but sharper in its specifics: a man entrusted with shaping a city's public message allegedly couldn't stop himself from picking his colleagues' pockets.
Minneapolis created the chief communications officer role specifically for Fetcher. The city invested a cabinet-level salary, a nine-week paid rehabilitation absence, and institutional goodwill in a hire whose primary credential was his proximity to a former president.
What did taxpayers get in return? An employee who lasted roughly a year, spent weeks in rehab on the city's dime, and, if the allegations hold, spent his final months stealing from the people sitting next to him.
The case also lands in the lap of a county attorney's office that will now decide whether to pursue felony charges against a politically connected defendant. Progressive prosecutors in major cities have not always inspired confidence when it comes to holding well-connected figures accountable. Whether Moriarty's office treats this case the way it would treat any other alleged felony theft will say something about the state of equal justice in Hennepin County.
The Washington Examiner noted that Fetcher's purchases included kratom among other items at the tobacco store. The full scope of the alleged fraud, beyond the confirmed $481 charge, has not been publicly detailed. Whether additional victims or transactions surface as the county attorney reviews the file remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, three city employees in Minneapolis went to work, left their belongings at their desks, and discovered that the colleague the city had hired to manage its reputation was allegedly helping himself to their wallets. The city's Obama-connected hire turned out to be a liability, not an asset.
Fetcher has been fired. That much is done. But firing is not accountability, it is the minimum. The real test comes when the Hennepin County Attorney's Office decides whether to file felony charges against a man who allegedly stole from public employees inside a government building, on camera, using their own credit cards.
If this were a janitor or a clerk, no one would hesitate. The question is whether a former White House spokesman gets the same treatment.
Taxpayers and city workers deserve an answer. And the answer should not depend on whose press badge the accused used to carry.