$1 million to suspicious Somali nonprofit

The controversy around the Generation Hope congressional earmark deserves more attention. From WCCO-4 TV’s Esme Murphy last week,

Amy Klobuchar pushes back on GOP fraud attack as Minnesota governor’s race heats up.

The “fraud attack” in this instance consists of an ad being run in the race for Minnesota Governor by Klobuchar’s Republican opponent, state Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth. Murphy reported,

One major strategy of the Demuth campaign is to link Klobuchar to an estimated $9 billion in fraud schemes that have occurred during the Walz Administration. Demuth’s first campaign ad says Klobuchar supported a $1 million earmark for a Somali charity. That is true, but there have been no findings of fraud or charges connected to the group, which never received federal funding.

“I was the one that made the calls to say we shouldn’t put in funding requests and guess what? It was never funded,” Klobuchar said.

I’ll return to the Klobuchar “push back” momentarily, but the entire episode shows a staggering lack of judgement on her part.

I first wrote on this exact topic back in January, when it was still a live issue. I mentioned Klobuchar at the time because The Hill newspaper had already written on this misbegotten earmark, mentioning Klobuchar by name. The Hill‘s headline,

GOP backlash to Omar earmark slows government-funding bill

Klobuchar didn’t “make the calls” to pull the earmark, it got yanked because the bill wasn’t going to pass with that specific item included. The controversy involved a $1,031,000 earmark (“Congressionally directed spending requests”) for a Minneapolis-based nonprofit Generation Hope. The Hill reported back in January,

The initiative provides those in the East African community of Minneapolis with substance use recovery and mental health support, as well as job training, according to the organization’s website.

But the funding request comes amid GOP uproar over an alleged sprawling fraud scandal in Minnesota, in which many people charged were of Somali descent.

So Klobuchar wants credit for not moving forward with a thing that would not have ever moved forward and was at every stage of the process a terrible idea.

According to records on file with the MN Secretary of State’s office, Generation Hope was first incorporated in April 2021. According to IRS records, the nonprofit has only ever filed a single tax return and that for 2023. That year, the nonprofit filed the 990-EZ form, showing total revenue of 167,000 and a modest loss of $4,000.

The state Attorney General’s office regulates nonprofits, and their database shows Generation Hope financials for 2024. That year, the nonprofit took in over $400,000–including more than $100,000 in government grants–yet, somehow, the nonprofit’s net worth had plunged to a negative $35,000.

In other words, there was nothing in the public record available in January 2026 to suggest that this nonprofit was a viable candidate to handle a million-dollar federal grant.

But wait, that’s not all. The Washington Times reported in January,

Senators request fraud probe of Minneapolis charity favored by Ilhan Omar

Details,

The senators said a brother of one of the Generation Hope founders was arrested in 2015 on charges of plotting to join the Islamic State group.

Quoting Iowa U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R),

It is almost too insane to believe: Congress trying to send $1 million to an ‘East African’ addiction center operated above a Somali Restaurant and run by three people who live in the same house, with a relative who tried to join ISIS,

The Times reminds readers that the initial ask for the earmark was $1.5 million. They report,

The spending committees designated $1,031,000 in taxpayer money from the Justice Department’s Byrne Grant program for the project. That money was stripped after Republicans raised their concerns.

Klobuchar got involved only when the earmark was already nonviable. You have to wonder why she said “yes” in the first instance. Was it as a favor to Rep. Omar? Why didn’t Klobuchar’s office do any independent vetting?

Whoever is elected governor this year will have the first task in January 2027 of putting together a $70 billion two-year budget for state government. If this is Klobuchar’s idea of how to vet spending proposals, the state will be bankrupt by 2028.