The public record identifies David clearly
By January 2026, the Minnesota Star Tribune had already answered the basic question. The man in Shirley's video was David Hoch, a 65-year-old Fridley resident and former candidate for governor and attorney general in Minnesota.
That same profile identifies Hoch as the registered lobbyist and president of Minnesotans for Responsible Government.
He was part of the information pipeline, not a spontaneous witness
Shirley's own House testimony says a man named David supplied the addresses, enrollment figures, and CCAP funding totals before the Dec. 16 Minnesota trip.
GPB quoted Minnesota House GOP floor leader Harry Niska saying much of the information used by one of the men in the video came from House Republican staff.
The anti-Somali and anti-Muslim trail is documented
A House hearing attachment preserving later reporting describes accounts bearing Hoch's name as carrying a long online record of anti-Somali and anti-Muslim statements.
The attached reporting says those posts included sweeping claims that Somalis in Minnesota were engaged in fraud and other demonizing language about Muslims.
The video claims remain unsupported
Another congressional hearing attachment preserved a fact-check of the Shirley-Hoch video that said the footage showed nothing conclusive and that much of the narrative was misleading. The same attached reporting also described Hoch as a longtime figure focused on pairing fraud claims with Somali communities.
The fact-check attachment belongs beside Hoch's political role, staff-linked information pipeline, and posting history.
