Lawmakers on the Minnesota House fraud prevention and oversight committee say that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is refusing to turn over records of her office’s past correspondence with Feeding Our Future’s ringleader. State legislators suspect that the missing messages show proof that the Minnesota congresswoman was involved in the $250 million reimbursement scheme originating in her congressional district.
Documents containing their communications were entered as government exhibits in the federal fraud trial of Aimee Bock, the convicted mastermind of Feeding Our Future. While the list of exhibits is public, their contents were sealed by the court, as other defendants are still facing charges.
Omar was named in multiple trial exhibits submitted by federal prosecutors in United States v. Bock, according to accompanying descriptions of the entries.
The court documents indicate that congressional staffers in Omar’s office were corresponding with Bock over email and text at the time that Feeding Our Future was stealing millions of dollars in child nutrition funds from a free food program meant to feed children during the COVID-19 crisis.
Trial exhibits capture Omar’s office communicating on multiple occasions with Bock
Exhibit A-53 cited an email chain, dated Feb. 5, 2021, between Bock and Omar’s deputy district director, Ali Isse, who spoke at a fundraising gala that same year praising Feeding Our Future’s “vital work.”
In the fundraiser speech, Isse said he was “tired” of state agencies scrutinizing Feeding Our Future’s operations and blamed their inquiries on racial discrimination. “How many more do we have to fight against?” the top Omar aide said, rallying the “community” to stick together.
Carbon copied on the February 2021 email chain was Natasha Rice, then-Omar’s community representative. The title of the email thread, “Re: Help with USDA Food Program,” suggested that they were discussing assistance with accessing federal nutrition programming regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Less than two weeks later, Bock and Rice exchanged emails on Feb. 17, 2021, per Exhibit A-55, with the subject title, “FW: FNS approves Minnesota School P-EBT Plan.”
At the height of the pandemic, the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service allowed economically disadvantaged students across Minnesota, who no longer had school-provided lunches due to the school shutdowns, to temporarily receive free or reduced-price meals through Pandemic EBT benefits.
Rice, the community representative in Omar’s office, appeared to continuously engage in the email chain regarding P-EBT benefits in Minnesota, though Exhibit A-59 did not specify whether she was replying to Bock, but made clear a reply was sent mid-March 2021 in response to the initial forwarded email.
On Feb. 18, 2021, a day following that first email exchange between Bock and Rice, Bock emailed Abdikerm Eidleh, a Feeding Our Future employee who fled the country after he was indicted in 2022. Bock titled the email, “Ilhan’s Office,” according to Exhibit A-56 in the court filings.
Exhibit BB-35 mentioned a “Text message string between Aimee Bock and Ilhans Office [sic].”
The text thread was recovered from a search of Bock’s residence on Jan. 20, 2022, the day that the FBI raided sites belonging to the Feeding Our Future network, and investigators subsequently extracted digital evidence.
Omar’s suspected involvement in Feeding Our Future conspiracy
Members of the GOP-led Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee have been seeking the sealed records from Omar directly on suspicion that she played a part in the Feeding Our Future scam.
“Representative Omar had some role, whether inadvertent or not,” Minnesota state Rep. Kristin Robbins, the committee’s Republican congresswoman, said at an oversight hearing on Tuesday. “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 Feeding Our Future.”
MINNESOTA FRAUD COMMITTEE SUSPECTS ILHAN OMAR OF INVOLVEMENT IN FEEDING OUR FUTURE SCHEME
In 2020, Omar introduced the Maintaining Essential Access to Lunch for Students Act, which drastically relaxed USDA regulations governing which entities could enroll in its school meals delivery program.
Omar’s MEALS Act granted waivers allowing outside organizations, not just school-based catering services, to participate and claim compensation for the cost of meals supposedly served.
In what was dubbed the largest-ever pandemic-era scam, officials say Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota nonprofit organization owned by Bock, exploited the program’s expanded enrollment provisions by registering dozens of shell companies as food distributors.
The group’s fraud ring raked in more than $250 million in reimbursed child nutrition money, although many of its purported meal providers, primarily operated by Somali immigrants, never actually fed any children.
Omar, herself a Somali refugee, promoted the MEALS Act specifically to Somali constituents. In a 2020 media hit, broadcasted on Somali TV of Minnesota, Omar filmed a promotional video at Safari Restaurant, one of the implicated Feeding Our Future food distribution sites.
SOMALI FUGITIVE FLEEING MINNESOTA FRAUD CHARGES IS AN ILHAN OMAR DONOR
The footage showed Omar thanking Safari Restaurant, whose owner was a high-ranking coconspirator jointly tried with Bock years later, for “helping those kids’ families in need of food.”
After the congresswoman declined to appear before the oversight committee on April 22 to answer questions about the MEALS Act’s intended purpose, Robbins addressed a letter to Omar requesting that she voluntarily hand over “any and all” records mentioning her and her staff in the Bock case.
The letter also flagged Omar’s appearance on Somali TV, “in which you touted the MEALS Act and highlighted Safari Restaurant as a place where meals were available.”
Robbins asked Omar to additionally provide “all communication, including but not limited to, emails, texts, phone calls, and online meetings you had with the owners and staff of Safari Restaurant regarding how to apply for the program, becoming a site under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future, and the planning and production of the video.”
Omar had until this week’s hearing to reply with the requested records.
“They’re under a protective order of the court, meaning Ms. Bock and the federal government cannot release them themselves, but they are still public documents,” Robbins said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
The court order only applies to the parties involved in the case. “We are not bound by it,” Robbins said. “These were emails sent in [Omar’s] official capacity. I’m sure they’re sitting on the server in her congressional office. We should be able to access them regardless.
“I, as a legislator, can request documents from a member of Congress for the public good,” Robbins said further. “Anybody in the public could request it. It’s outside of the purview of the court, so the only option is to try to get them from Representative Omar herself.”
Minnesota oversight committee votes to subpoena Omar for sealed records, falling just short
“[Omar] has never responded to our multiple inquiries,” Robbins said when the oversight committee convened on Tuesday. “And so the only tool left for us as a committee, if we want to get these documents, is to issue a subpoena.”
Robbins noted, “We have never done this, members, in the history of this committee. We have never done this in the history of this body except for ethics investigations, and I don’t do it lightly.
“But Representative Omar is a public servant,” Robbins said. “She had a direct involvement in creating the conditions for Feeding Our Future. And as a representative from Minnesota, I believe it’s important for the taxpayers to understand the role she played, the role her office played, in communicating with the defendants in this case.”
Minnesota state Rep. Dave Pinto, the committee’s Democratic minority leader, questioned why Robbins is so hyperfocused on the MEALS Act, its author, and how Omar’s sponsorship of it warrants a legislative subpoena.
“It’s just interesting to me that we would look into that,” Pinto said. “That it’s the one place where we’re going to break all the precedents that ever happened in the state legislature to go after this particular piece [of legislation].”
Robbins replied, “We have been absolutely ignored by a sitting member of Congress. As you see, the public is so angry. The public is demanding answers. And this is part of our process and getting those answers.”
ILHAN OMAR’S OBSCURE FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES UNDER SCRUTINY AMID MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
Minnesota state Rep. Isaac Schultz, a Republican committee member, agreed with Robbins that it is in the public’s interest that the oversight panel seeks answers.
“Do we want the information public for the media, for the investigators, for the accountability, for the people?” Schultz said. “Or do we want to refuse to use the tools that we have in our toolbox, not from a partisan lens, but from a perspective of trying to stop the fraud and to protect taxpayers. Full stop. That’s what I see is our opportunity here.”
Schultz argued that the findings from a subpoena would either absolve Omar or prove her wrongdoing. “If there’s nothing to be found here, then there’s no problem issuing the subpoena,” Schultz reasoned. “So let’s bring light to the darkness.”
The eight-member committee, composed of five Republicans and three Democrats, ultimately voted along party lines, falling one vote short of the two-thirds majority, or six votes in favor, required to issue a subpoena against Omar.
Following the failed subpoena vote, Robbins told the Washington Examiner that she had hoped at least one Democrat on the oversight committee would have broken ranks.
“We only needed one of our colleagues from the other side of the aisle to join us,” Robbins said. “They say they’re for transparency and accountability, but really they’re for protecting their base and their benefactors.”
Omar’s office was contacted for comment.