A portion of SD49 is within MN US Congressional District 5, currently represented by Ilhan Omar (D). Dinner attendees expressed surprise January 28 to learn the extent of unethical, possibly criminal, actions that Omar has committed.
Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa) was the featured speaker at the January 28 dinner program hosted by Senate District 49 Republicans. He has been one of the strongest advocates for an investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN5).
Drazkowski served in the Minnesota House of Representatives with Omar before she was elected to Congress. He noted that she filed a required Minnesota Campaign Finance report several months late, despite reminders from the Campaign Finance Board. She finally filed after she had secured the DFL endorsement for her candidacy in the 5th Congressional District.
In looking into the report she filed, Drazkowski noted expenditures that did not appear to be true campaign expenses. An investigation by the Campaign Finance Board essentially agreed and fined her campaign. During this period, other investigative journalists such as David Steinberg, Praya Samsunder, and Scott Johnson reported on inconsistencies with Omar’s statements about her background as a refuge, her marriages, and her contacts with her brother.
Rep. Steve Drazkowski has pushed the US House Committee on Ethics and the Internal Revenue Service to determine if the allegations that have been raised are valid and constitute illegal activity. He and others have created a new site OmarTruth.com which includes a short video and links to the source-documents that highlight the questionable actions.
Last October, Erica Macdonald, the US Attorney for the District of Minnesota, directed the FBI to review a complaint that Drazkowski filed At that time, the FBI indicated that the evidence against Rep. Omar may lead the FBI to expand the review to other federal departments. First, Rep. Omar’s 2009 marriage to a UK citizen may have been an attempt to facilitate federal student loan fraud. Second, Omar may have committed a number of immigration-related felonies.
Rep. Steve Drazkowski noted that US Rep Dean Phillips is on the US House Committee on Ethics. That committee is equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. As of yet, the committee has not voted to take up his request for an ethics investigation of Omar, despite the information that Drazkowski and others have uncovered. Drazkowski invited attendees to go out to website OmarTruth and sign the petition urging the Ethics Committee to initiate that investigation.