Republican Iowa Sen.
Joni Ernst is sounding the alarm over what she describes as a brazen attempt by a far-left Democrat in Congress to quietly steer more than $1 million in taxpayer money to a dubious substance abuse clinic operating out of a Somali-owned restaurant.
In a Jan. 8 appearance on Varney and Company that resurfaced Tuesday via the Libs of TikTok account on X, Ernst drew a direct line between the alleged scheme and the broader pattern of welfare abuse that has plagued Minnesota, according to the Daily Caller. She warned that the same kind of fraud exposed in the Somali day care scandal may now be seeping into congressional earmarks requested by members of Congress.
One of our spending bills making its way through Congress was a $1 million earmark from Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, which was an earmark that was supposedly going to a substance abuse clinic, which actually happened to be housed in a restaurant and run by three individuals that share the same residential address, according to their IRS paperwork, Ernst told Varney. Tons of red flags. So this is what we saw with the fraud involving the daycare centers, Ernst continued. Now we see other earmarks coming directly from members of Congress where it seems fraud is being perpetrated as well.
Ernst said that once she raised concerns, the earmark was ultimately stripped from the spending bill before it could move forward. But again, this is how easy money has been flowing to bad actors in Minnesota, she told Varney, underscoring how lax oversight in Democrat-run jurisdictions can invite abuse of federal funds.
Ernst and Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee have since asked the Department of Justice to investigate the purported clinic, formally outlining their suspicions in a Jan. 15 letter. The earmark in question appeared on page 21 of a 42-page list of member requests, identifying Omar as the initiator, with Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith also backing the funding.
Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. That earmark was removed from the appropriations bill and was not included in any version of the bill that came up for a vote in the Senate, a spokesperson for Klobuchar told the DCNF.
The controversy comes on the heels of a 42-minute YouTube investigation by independent journalist Nick Shirley, who visited multiple Somali-run day care centers and helped thrust Minnesotas welfare fraud problem into the national spotlight. Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced on Jan. 5 that he would not seek a third term, just days after Shirleys video was released, leaving voters to question how deeply entrenched this culture of mismanagement and alleged corruption has become under progressive leadership.
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