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ILHAN OMAR TRIED TO STEER 1.46 MILLION TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO A NONPROFIT ABOVE A SOMALI RESTAURANTHouse Republicans just killed a quiet earmark that Rep. Ilhan Omar wanted for Generation Hope MN, a Somali-led group that claims to fight addiction and help people reenter the workforce. Omar asked for 1,460,877 dollars. The spending bill settled on 1,031,000. Both numbers came out of the Department of Justice pot. Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith backed the request.The address listed for the money was 326 Cedar Avenue South in Minneapolis. That is the same building as Sagal Restaurant and Coffee. The restaurant owner told reporters the nonprofit uses office space upstairs. IRS paperwork showed the three directors of Generation Hope all listed the same residential address. One year of tax filings showed modest revenue and heavy spending on travel and contractors. Senator Joni Ernst called the setup an East African addiction center full of red flags. She said it is almost too insane to believe that Congress would send a million dollars to a group operating above a Somali restaurant, run by three people who live in the same house, with a relative who once tried to join ISIS.House conservatives threatened to block the larger funding package until the earmark was removed. It was stripped. Ernst and Senator Mike Lee then wrote the Justice Department asking for an investigation. They noted the pattern matches other fraud schemes that have already produced dozens of convictions in Minnesota, most of them involving Somali-led organizations. Governor Tim Walz dropped his re-election bid amid the broader scandal. Local officials have said the total fraud in the state could exceed a billion dollars.Omar’s office described the project as job training, peer support, and addiction recovery aimed at the East African community. Critics say the paper trail looked thin for that much cash. The earmark is gone. The questions about how it got this far are not.Sources: Fox News reporting on the earmark and restaurant address, Washington Times coverage of the Ernst-Lee letter to the Justice Department, RedState and Federalist accounts of the removal, and Ilhan Omar’s own earlier community project funding listings.