Rep. Ilhan Omar has refused to answer a Minnesota legislative committee investigating her possible ties to the quarter-billion-dollar Feeding Our Future fraud. But her former district director broke silence on her behalf, and the defense he mounted contradicts what Omar herself has said for years.
Kendal Killian, who served as Omar's district director from 2019 to 2022, fired off an email to the chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee disputing the panel's characterization of Omar's role in the scandal. The email, obtained by Fox News Digital, landed Wednesday afternoon, well after Omar blew past a May 5 deadline to turn over records the committee requested.
The core argument from Killian: Omar cannot be blamed because her standalone MEALS Act (H.R. 6187) never became law on its own. The fraud, he wrote, happened "under broader COVID-19 legislation and by taking advantage of USDA emergency waivers granted by the Trump administration." He pointed the finger squarely at Gov. Tim Walz, writing that Walz "deserves the same level of scrutiny as this Fox inquiry" and adding bluntly: "At the end of the day, it was Governor Walz who [expletive] this up."
Committee Chair Kristin Robbins called Killian's email what it was: a coordinated deflection. She told Fox News Digital that Killian was "lying" and said the committee had received "no official response from the congresswoman." Instead, Robbins said, a former senior staffer sent the email to her and to the committee's lead Democrat, Rep. Dave Pinto, an apparent effort to arm Democrats with talking points.
"So he's clearly wanting to have Democrats push back on me and say, 'Robbins doesn't know what she's talking about, this wasn't really Ilhan's bill, it never passed,' which is just BS."
Robbins explained that she was referring not to the standalone MEALS Act but to its language, which was incorporated into the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (H.R. 6201) that became law in 2020. Congress.gov, run by the Library of Congress, lists Omar's MEALS Act as "related legislation" to that broader bill. The language in both, Robbins said, "is identical."
And here is where the Omar camp's new defense runs into a wall built by Omar herself. Her own September 2020 press release stated she had "passed into law this spring" the MEALS Act provisions and that the legislation "directly authorized these school meal waivers." Her campaign website still says: "Ilhan's MEALS Act, a bill aimed at protecting students' access to school meal benefits during school closures, was passed into law as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act."
In an August letter to the Trump administration, Omar wrote: "In March, Congress authorized the use of waivers in the MEALS Act and the COVID-19 Child Nutrition Response Act in order to continue to provide school meals for children during the pandemic." And a LinkedIn post by Killian himself, written roughly a year before his email to the committee, said Omar "wrote and passed the MEALS Act."
So Omar's office claimed credit for passing the legislation when it was politically useful. Now that the legislation is linked to a massive fraud scheme, a former staffer insists the bill "never passed" and the real blame belongs elsewhere.
The committee's requests to Omar were specific and sweeping. Lawmakers asked for communications showing how she promoted expanded access to federal child nutrition programs, emails, texts, and meeting records with the Minnesota Department of Education and constituents. They sought all records related to Omar's public promotion of Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis as a meal distribution site. The restaurant's participation in the program has drawn scrutiny in the fraud investigation.
The panel also requested records of any contact between Omar and individuals charged or implicated in the Feeding Our Future case, including nonprofit founder Aimee Bock and dozens of alleged co-conspirators. The committee asked for information about political donations Omar received from individuals later charged in the case, requesting "any and all" communications with those donors.
Omar provided none of it. She missed the May 5 deadline without any public explanation. As we previously reported, Minnesota Democrats then blocked a subpoena the committee attempted to issue, voting it down on party lines.
Robbins described the situation plainly on X: "It's the same story every time. Fraud is committed, information is suppressed, and the dysfunction continues."
The email from Killian was not the first time the committee tried to hear from Omar. National Review reported that Robbins said Omar "completely ghosted" state lawmakers after being invited to testify before the panel. Robbins later sent Omar a letter expressing disappointment that she failed to appear.
The pattern of avoidance has drawn bipartisan frustration in Minnesota. Just The News reported that Robbins told The Center Square: "They are both key players in the child nutrition scandal and fraud, billions of our tax dollars that were stolen, and neither of them came to answer questions about their involvement," referring to both Omar and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Omar's refusal to engage comes amid broader scrutiny of her connections to the fraud case. Her name surfaced six times in trial exhibits during the $250 million Feeding Our Future prosecution, a detail that has intensified Republican interest in her role.
When asked in December whether she regretted her support for the MEALS Act, Omar said: "Absolutely not, it did help feed kids." That answer sidestepped the central question, not whether the program fed children, but whether it also fed a fraud operation that federal prosecutors say siphoned roughly $250 million in taxpayer money.
Killian's email tried to distribute responsibility broadly. He argued that the Families First Coronavirus Response Act "was supported by McConnell and signed by Trump," and that the waiver authority it created "facilitated much of the Feeding Our Future fraud." He wrote that "those flexibilities, combined with weak oversight and rapid funding expansion, created conditions that were later exploited."
He also drew a distinction between public schools and nonprofits, claiming "no fraud took place at actual public schools" and that "the nonprofits did" the defrauding. "Ilhan's bill was focused on the former," he wrote.
Robbins rejected the framing. She said Omar "fought to keep the waivers in place during the time that Safari and the other fraudsters were making their money." The Washington Examiner reported that the committee played video of Omar promoting the MEALS Act to Somali constituents and thanking Safari Restaurant, a location later identified as connected to convicted co-conspirators in the fraud case.
Killian, for his part, told Fox News Digital the email represented his personal "perspective." He also acknowledged that "very similar language" from the MEALS Act was included in the broader coronavirus relief package that became law, a concession that undercuts his own argument that Omar's bill had nothing to do with the fraud.
Meanwhile, Omar's congressional office did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. The silence from her official channels, paired with an unofficial email from a former staffer, left the committee no closer to the records it sought.
The broader picture around Omar continues to darken. Separate investigations have touched her family's finances, and a recent violent incident at a town hall has added a personal security dimension to her lower public profile.
The committee's subpoena effort fell one vote short after Democrats on the panel voted as a bloc to protect Omar from compelled testimony. That leaves the investigation reliant on voluntary cooperation from a congresswoman who has offered none.
Robbins framed the stakes clearly: "It's shameful." The committee wants documents. Omar's camp sent a condescending email blaming everyone from Trump to Walz. The records remain unproduced.
Federal prosecutors say a quarter of a billion dollars was stolen. A state committee asked straightforward questions. The congresswoman who once boasted about passing the law at the center of it all now won't even pick up the phone. Minnesotans deserve better than deflection dressed up as an explanation.
