Investigating Ilham Omar - "squad" charter member and Representative from Minnesota - is turning out to be a full employment gig for a lot of people.
But it ain't easy.
The Minnesota House Fraud Prevention Committee has been run for the past two sessions by Representative Kristin Robbins. And as the Feds raided dozens of allegedly fraud-linked businesses last week, Robbins's committee went looking for answers about Representative Omar's ties to the various scammers, alleged and convicted:
The most significant fraud case, 'Feeding Our Future,’ resulted in over $250 million being stolen from a pandemic-era school program. Robbins recently sent a letter to Democratic Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, requesting records and an explanation of her alleged ties. Robbins pointed to the MEALS Act, which was introduced by Omar in 2020, but later scrutinized for potential links.
Robbins sent Rep. Omar a letter asking for any records and looking for answers about those proposed links:
My letter to Ilhan Omar.
— Kristin Robbins (@KRobbinsMN) April 24, 2026
She REFUSED to testify before the Fraud Prevention Committee.
She DUCKED reporter questions.
She AUTHORED the bill that created conditions for MN’s fraud.
Taxpayers deserve answers! pic.twitter.com/4i7DB1V6J5
As a tangent - that brought the wags out of the woodwork about the futility of sending a "sternly worded letter", demanding subpoenas, arrests, and prosecutions, apparently unaware that House committee chairwomen don't have arrest and prosecutorial powers; those belong to the attorney general, who in Minnesota is Keith Ellison. And I'm sure you're seeing the problem here.
Representative Omar ghosted Robbins's request.
"We have reached out to Representative Ilhan Omar on multiple occasions, inviting her to testify and inviting and requesting documents," State Rep. Kristin Robbins, chair of the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee, said ahead of the vote. "We have endeavored in multiple ways to get access to [information] because, as everyone knows, Representative Omar had had some role, whether inadvertent or not. She passed the MEALS Act in March of 2020, and that took the guardrails off the federal school nutrition program, which created the conditions for [fraud]."
While Robbins's committee has no police powers, it can issue subpoenas.
But the Minnesota House is tied 67-67, and most of its committees are deadlocked as well - meaning all "tie" votes fail. Now, government gridlock is a wonderful thing when times are good; when Jesse Ventura was governor, the state's economy was roaring along, and the government was too deadlocked to do anything to screw it up.
But times are different in Minnesota; DFL constituents have been plundering the state's budget for over a decade, now.
So there's the downside to gridlock: the DFL half of the committee blocked the motion to subpoena Omar:
NEW: Democrats BLOCKED a motion to subpoena documents relating Rep. Ilhan Omar’s involvement in the Minnesota fraud scandal. pic.twitter.com/VhcJJ9h9Bm
— Kristin Robbins (@KRobbinsMN) May 5, 2026
That's the problem with the Democrats in Minnesota - when they're not busy telling us how hard they're fighting fraud, they're busy making it impossible to investigate fraud.
Weird.
The next steps?
Well, there's the problem - there's just so much fraud that not only can Robbins's committee not get to it all, even the Feds are overwhelmed:
Fox News Digital touched base with Robbins on Tuesday about possible next steps.
"They're fading," Robbins said about the committee’s options after a failed subpoena vote. "But I'll certainly talk to our friends in Congress to see if they would be willing to issue a subpoena. I don't know if they are, but they would have the same authority and it's still relevant to them because it's a federal program that's been swindled. So I don't know if they would be willing to do it, but it's worth asking."
Robbins added that the federal government has a "whole menu of legal options" given that Omar is a member of Congress.
Omar appears to be trying to run out the clock on the session, and hoping the midterms make the environment less challenging.
