House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) should garnish leftist Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) taxpayer-funded salary to keep her up to date on her student loan payments, a watchdog said Thursday.
Omar has fallen behind on her student loan payments and has attempted to “bully” federal officials over her debts, the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) alleged in a Thursday letter to Johnson. In his letter, AAF President Tom Jones asked Johnson to impound Omar’s Congressional salary to pay her student loans.
“We are writing today to share serious concerns about abuse of office and abuse of government loans by a member of the House of Representatives, Representative Ilhan Omar,” Jones wrote on Thursday in a letter shared with The Daily Wire. “It has come to AAF’s attention that Representative Omar is in collection proceedings on her federally guaranteed student loans.”
Omar, who has supported plans to cancel student loan debt, has between $15,000-$50,000 in student loan debt, according to her most recent financial disclosure. The date the loans occurred is listed as October 2005.
“As you know, these loans are guaranteed by the United States Government and Representative Omar’s default would shift the cost of her student loans onto the U.S. taxpayer,” Jones wrote. “The fact that someone making $174,000 as a Member of Congress cannot pay their student loans is unconscionable and embarrassing.”
Omar is also reportedly attempting to pressure the Education Department over her student loan repayment, a source told AAF.
“Adding insult to injury, there are credible claims that she is using her influence as a Member of Congress to bully the Department of Education into not collecting the past-due payments,” Jones wrote.
Jones has filed a freedom of information request for correspondence between Omar and the Education Department to “fully understand the scale of her abuse of office.”
This request, Jones believes, may take a while because of the ongoing government shutdown. In the meantime, Jones said that Johnson should take action to ensure that Omar’s payments are made.
“What we’re asking is the speaker to garnish our wages and impound them and to work with the Department of Education to find out how much she owes the federal government and pay that until her loans are current,” Jones told The Daily Wire.
The letter asks Johnson to work with the Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives, the official who stewards House operations and oversees administrative, technical, and operational needs.
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