Republican John Nagel, who is running against Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar in her Minneapolis district, alleges that she is deeply involved with the recent $1 billion fraud scandal in her home district.
"Where did this actually start?" Nagel said. "She passed legislation. Her legislation actually started, and it allowed people to get into Feeding Our Future. If you look at where the fraud is, it's primarily her [5th Congressional District], the district that I'm running in against her. And it's really odd to think that you know all the fraud just happened in a particular area, and it was a bill that she, you know, particularly put together."
Ilhan Omar. Crafted the legislation for the programs. She associated with many of the convicted fraudsters. FBI evidence shows emails from her office to convicted fraudsters. Somalilanders say to speak out against llhan Omar brought threats against them. Which kept much of her… https://t.co/fvuQ6DRuPY
— John Nagel for Congress MN-5 (@Nagel4Congress) December 12, 2025
Omar introduced the "Maintaining Essential Access to Lunch for Students Act," or MEALS Act, which enabled states to provide free meals during closures via alternative methods like grab-and-go, ensuring food security for children when schools shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also reduced the requirements for eligibility.
The bill passed with bipartisan support.
Nagel said members of Omar’s inner circle cashed in on the $1 billion welfare scam in her district. He added that Omar held events at Safari Land, a restaurant tied to the scandal, knew one of its convicted owners, and even had a staffer who was convicted as well.
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"If you look at the Safari Land restaurant, if you're gonna be in politics, you need to go through the people at the Safari Land restaurant," Nagel said. "They kind of control the politics. She had all of her fundraising things. I mean, that was sort of her hangout. That's where she spent money, got donations."
"There's a lot of really deep, deep ties," Nagel continued. "I think time will tell with the investigation. But again, there's just too much circumstantial evidence to look at this and say, she had to have known something, or what staff member knew something?"
"A whole lot of people that were convicted donated a whole lot of money. Omar says that she gave the money back," Nagel said. "Well, if you go into public records, she gave some money back, but there's a whole lot more money there that she didn't report. And I think if people were just to go through the everyday records that are out there, you'll find out that her involvement in the money that she has is questionable."
If she truly cared about the fraud, her name wouldn't be attached all over to these other people. She came on and she made a statement about how terrible it is to basically steal food from children. Yeah, okay, that's a really nice thing to say, but you have way too many people that you're associated with that actually did that. Now she yells racism anytime somebody puts any pressure on her.
However, Nagel said the solution was simple: new politicians.
"The things that we can do to fix this is you get yourself a new competent, honest governor, you get yourself a new honest, competent AG," Nagel said. "We get rid of Ilhan Omar, and we put people in the state of Minnesota that actually want to do the right thing. They're not in it for the money, they're in it because they're great state employees and they're serving the public. That's what we're gonna have to do. You're gonna have to entirely root the Democratic Party, and then anybody that's been appointed to a position, we're gonna have to root them out too, to find out if you know they've been letting things slide."
Omar's excuses have been lackluster, with her saying last week, "I think what happened is that, you know, when you have these kind of new programs that are, um, designed to help people, you're oftentimes relying on third parties to be able to facilitate. And I just think that a lot of the COVID programs that were set up — they were set up so quickly that a lot of the guardrails did not get created."
Whether that was on purpose or a pure coincidence remains unknown. Rep. Omar so far has not faced any pressure from law enforcement or prosecutors.
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