In a tense “Face the Nation” interview with Margaret Brennan, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) dismissed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s claims of campaign ties to Minnesota’s $1B+ Feeding Our Future fraud, mostly involving Somalis, as baseless, noting returned donations and her early calls for probes.
For context, the United States Representative from Minnesota decried the theft’s harm to her community, blamed lax oversight, and laughed off terrorism funding allegations, insisting no evidence emerged in prosecutions despite persistent rumors of cash transfers to Somalia.
“@IlhanMN on the possibility that money from the Somali fraud scandal in Minnesota is being funneled to foreign terrorist organizations: *giggles*” an official White House Twitter account posted much to the joy of online conservatives, who find Rep. Omar very grating and her views abhorrent.
In any case, kicking off the interaction in which Omar was caught giggling after asked about terrorism ties, Margaret Brennan asked, “House Republicans and the Treasury Secretary just now talked about a link to terrorism, a possible link. He said they’re just now beginning to look into it. How confident are you that that’s a false claim?”
Reacting after giggling, the entitled Minnesota Demcorat whined, “I’m pretty confident at the moment, because there are people who have been prosecuted and who have been sentenced, if there was a linkage in that the money that they had stolen going to terrorism, then that is a failure of the FBI and our court system in not figuring that out and basically charging them with with these, charges.”
Concluding her absurd claims, she said, “And so I do know that for many years, this sort of alarm, that there is money being transferred through the airport in bags and going to terrorism has always existed, that has never been here and there in those accusations.”
In another segment of the same interview, Margaret Brennan asked about the major allegations of fraud surrounding her career. “We have a lot to get to with you, but I want to pick up on where the Treasury Secretary just left off. He alleged that people who were tied to you or your campaign were involved in this broad, brazen scheme to rip off the Minnesota state welfare system,” as he asked, “Do you want to respond to that? Do you know what he is referring to?”
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Omar retorted, “I really don’t, and I don’t think the Secretary himself understands what he’s referring to. We obviously had people who were able to donate to our campaign who were involved. We sent that money back a couple of years ago. And actually, I was one of the first members of Congress to send a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture asking them to look into what I thought was a reprehensible fraud that was occurring within the program.”
Watch the clip here:
Still not done with dining responsibility, she added, “I want to say, you know, this also has an impact on Somalis, because we are also taxpayers in Minnesota. We also could have benefited from the program and the money that was stolen. And so it’s been really frustrating for people to not acknowledge the fact that we’re, you know, we’re also as Minnesotans as taxpayers, really upset and angry about the fraud that has occurred.”
Featured image from embedded video