Amid the controversy currently surrounding Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s immigration status, attention is also being paid to an older controversy from 2020 regarding her 2020 Democratic primary battle.
Roughly two years into the Democratic lawmaker’s congressional career, she was challenged by attorney and mediator Antone Melton-Meaux, a well-funded opponent. But according to an investigation, there was a problem.
Project Veritas, then run by James O’Keefe — currently head of the O’Keefe Media Group — alleged in September 2020 that a cash-for-ballots and ballot harvesting operation was being carried out in Minneapolis.
In addition, insiders like Omar Jamal of the “Somali Watchdog Group” alleged to Project Veritas at the time that it was an “open secret” that Omar’s staffers were openly participating in the potentially illegal operation.
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“It’s an open secret,” Jamal said. “She [Omar] will do anything that she can do to get elected and she has hundreds of people on the streets doing that.”
When asked why he was trying to expose her, he said he wanted to eliminate corruption because it was weakening his community.
“If American people don’t pay attention to what’s happening, the country will collapse,” he said. “The regulations, if you ignore that and you let corruption and fraud become a daily business and then tough luck, the country will not exist as they [Americans] know it.”
He warned at the time that it may have already been impossible to shut down the alleged fraud.
“I’m afraid it’s already too big to stop, you know, maybe it’s too late,” he said. “Maybe it’s already too big to stop. There’s a lot of people invested in this, you know, and they don’t care how they did it: ‘We win,’ and that’s it.”
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The investigation from Project Veritas included undercover video footage showing “a man buying a registration form for an absentee ballot for a voter, giving him ‘pocket money’ of $200, and expecting to collect his ballot when the voter receives it,” as reported by O’Keefe.
The video also contained an interview with Osman Ali Dahquane, another individual who alleged that he’d been paid to participate in the scheme.
“They spent a lot of money,” he said. “I was given money so I could vote… $800.”
After Project Veritas published the results of its investigation, liberal media outlets pounced, accusing the group of spreading misinformation.
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“A deceptive video released on Sunday by the conservative activist James O’Keefe… was probably part of a coordinated disinformation effort, according to researchers at Stanford University and the University of Washington,” The New York Times alleged.
Meanwhile, Jamal backtracked on his allegations, suddenly telling a Minnesota-based Somali American TV channel that he’d never met anyone who received cash in exchange for a vote, as reported by the Sahan Journal.
All of this happened years before a recent immigration investigation into Omar. The ongoing investigation centers on credible allegations that the lawmaker committed fraud while seeking U.S. citizenship.
Critics said that the latest allegations fit a wider, long-term pattern of corruption emanating from the outspoken Somali lawmaker.
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