House Oversight Chairman James Comer says Rep. Ilhan Omar is “right in the middle” of Minnesota’s Somali fraud schemes, and the earmarks she pushed helped steer money to the groups in the thick of it.
On Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Night in America,” Comer told host Trey Gowdy that the Minnesota Democrat’s financial disclosures, proposed earmarks, and family ties give investigators multiple paths to a search warrant. Breitbart reported the exchange from the broadcast.
Gowdy opened by noting that reporting points to an immigration-related probe and asked what is known about the warrant and the underlying crime.
"Reporting indicates this investigation is immigration related. I’m not a huge fan of law enforcement leaks, but they do happen. So here we are. What do we know about the search warrant and the predicate crime?"
Comer answered from the House Oversight Committee’s early review of Omar’s financial disclosure form. He said investigators already see several fronts that could support a warrant.
The first, he said, is a major gap on that form. A winery formed the core of a $25 million listing. Press accounts, Comer said, show the winery later shut down over fraud after selling investors barrels of wine that turned out empty, a scheme he compared to fly-by-night bourbon operations in Kentucky.
Comer went further. He placed Omar directly inside the Somali fraud networks that drained Medicaid and welfare programs in Minneapolis, tying that role to earmarks she proposed for groups he said sat “right in the thick” of the schemes. He also pointed to her sister’s reported $20 million fraud involvement and press reports that Omar may have misstated her age when she entered the United States.
"But also, she’s right in the middle of all of the Somali fraud with the earmarks that she proposed, they were going to go to groups that were right in the thick of all the Somali fraud, all the Medicaid and welfare fraud in Minneapolis, as well as her sister. Her sister was involved in some of these frauds, reportedly $20 million worth of fraud from her sister. So then you add into the fact that something that I didn’t know till it came out in the press that she may have lied on her age when she came to the United States. We know about her brother in that situation, but if she lied on her age, there are four or five different angles where you could obtain a search warrant."
That warrant, Comer stressed, won approval from a judge he described as an Obama appointee and a donor to Democratic presidential candidates, not a Republican jurist. He added that the timing fell inside 60 days of an election, a window that demands the application meet the strictest legal standard.
"And I want to add, Trey, that search warrant was approved by a judge that was appointed, I believe, by Obama, but was a donor to many Democrat presidential candidates. So this wasn’t a Republican judge. This was a Democrat judge, and as you said in your monologue, this was given within 60 days of an election, which means it has to be 100% lawful for that to happen."
Federal agents have already searched Omar’s home and issued family subpoenas in the immigration probe, a step that raised the stakes beyond committee paper reviews. Democrats have split over the raid while party leadership has stayed quiet.
Comer’s public case against Omar did not start on that Sunday broadcast. In a separate interview, the Kentucky Republican told the New York Post she is “in a lot of trouble” because earmarks she sought for her district lined up with fraudulent Minnesota schemes.
Staff caught at least one request that was not a legitimate project, he said. Omar had also championed the 2020 MEALS Act, which eased federal oversight on pandemic meal programs and later figured in the $250 million Feeding Our Future scam. She sought more than $1 million for a Somali-led addiction recovery group that shared an address with a Minneapolis Somali restaurant; that earmark was later pulled.
"I do think Ilhan Omar is in a lot of trouble. You got a situation there where you look at some of the earmarks she requested for her district were for some of those fraudulent schemes."
Minnesota’s pandemic-era fraud dwarfed a single meal program. Just the News detailed how Omar’s MEALS Act support expanded USDA waivers, stripped oversight barriers, and left the door open for the Feeding Our Future network. More than 70 defendants face charges in the $250 million diversion of money meant for children; then-Attorney General Merrick Garland called it the largest pandemic fraud case identified. Related Somali-community schemes in the state have topped $1 billion.
Campaign donors Ahmed Ghedi and Abdihakim Ahmed, linked to the Safari Restaurant where Omar held her 2018 victory party, later pleaded guilty in related cases. Former campaign staffer Guhaad Hashi Said pleaded guilty after allegedly pocketing $3.2 million through a fake food site. Asked whether she regretted the MEALS Act vote, Omar answered, “Absolutely not, it did help feed kids.”
A Biden-era finances review already undercut claims that the latest scrutiny is pure political targeting after the federal raid. Taxpayers still deserve a full accounting of where the money went and who signed off.
Comer framed the Oversight work as an “initial investigation” of the disclosure form and the earmark trail. He listed the winery valuation gap, the empty-barrel sales, the Minneapolis Medicaid and welfare losses, the sister’s reported $20 million role, and the possible age misrepresentation as separate routes to the same warrant. Gowdy’s question about an immigration-related predicate remains unanswered in public detail. No charging documents or case numbers appeared in the broadcast remarks.
Omar has offered no on-air reply in the Comer-Gowdy segment. The pattern Comer described is straightforward: member-directed earmarks, weakened program rules, and a web of local groups later charged with draining programs built for the poor. Squad allies have faced their own clashes with immigration enforcement, including fights over ICE itself.
When a senior Oversight chairman says a sitting member sits “right in the middle” of fraud that cost Minnesota families hundreds of millions, the next step is documents, not denial. The judge’s signature and the election-window standard only raise the bar for proof, they do not erase the questions.
Voters in Minneapolis and across the country can follow the earmarks, the disclosures, and the guilty pleas without a translator. Clean government starts with members who do not steer public money toward the same networks later hauled into court.
If the facts hold, no amount of party cover will make the losses disappear.
