Members of Minnesota’s House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee want their U.S. congresswoman, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, to answer questions regarding the role, they say, she had in the state’s massive federal food aid fraud scheme.
Kristin Robbins, Republican chair of the committee who is also running for governor, said in Tuesday’s meeting that the Legislature’s audit report linked one of Omar’s bills in 2020 to the nonprofit Feeding Our Future.
In 2022, the nonprofit, which said it was using funding to help feed children in need, was raided by the FBI. Authorities accused those involved of taking advantage of government oversight during the pandemic, allegedly stealing $250 million in taxpayer dollars.
“The Feeding Our Future happened because guardrails were taken up in the federal school nutrition program. And that is absolutely true,” Robbins said, adding that the first time it occurred was in 2020 when Omar’s MEALS Act bill was incorporated into the state’s coronavirus relief package.
“The Meals Act really is what loosened the guardrails on the whole federal nutrition program that led to the scandal we have seen,” Robbins continued.
The committee then watched a 2020 video that aired on Somali TV of Minnesota, in which Omar explains her bill, showing her preparing food at a restaurant called Safari and loading meals into cars as people come to pick them up.
Safari “was the No. 1 meal site sponsor in all of the Feeding our Future site sponsors. They got $12 million, and they were later indicted,” Robbins said. “So I think understanding her role in this is very important for the history of understanding this case.”
On April 22, Robbins wrote Omar a letter requesting that she attend the committee for questioning, but Omar failed to appear. Robbins told Fox News that Omar “ghosted them.” Robbins wrote a letter to Omar demanding a response by May 5.
How much is Omar actually worth?
Since independent journalist Nick Shirley reported on an alleged fraud scheme involving day cares in Minneapolis last December, it seems state and federal GOP officials have cast a sharper spotlight on the U.S. congresswoman.
Earlier this year, the U.S. House Oversight Committee accused Minnesota state leadership of being aware of fraud in federally funded social services programs that stole an estimated $300 million in federal child nutrition funds and an estimated $9 billion in Medicaid-related funds.
Last year, a congressional financial disclosure revealed that Omar and her husband had an estimated net worth of $30 million, nearly 3,500% higher than the year before. A recently updated financial filing reviewed by The Wall Street Journal apparently shows Omar and her husband’s new net worth between $18,004 and $95,000, attributing the discrepancy in the previous filing to an accounting error.
“Who makes a multimillion-dollar mistake on their financial disclosure form?” House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “She’s never explained to the public how her net worth was $30 million and if she made a mistake, how the mistake happened. ... This isn’t going to go away from her. So we’re going to continue to try to push for answers and see if her name pops up in any of these frauds that Vice President Vance and the House Oversight Committee are detecting in Minnesota.”