CHICAGO: US Rep. Ilhan Omar’s landslide reelection victory in Minnesota does not protect her from federal prosecution or possible expulsion from Congress, a prominent election law attorney has told Arab News. Burton S. Odelson, who represented George W. Bush’s campaign during the disputed 2000 presidential election recount in Florida, said that Omar could still face removal from the House of Representatives if sufficient support emerged among her congressional colleagues. The Minnesota Democrat secured a fifth term in Congress on Tuesday, winning more than 76 percent of the vote in the state’s 5th Congressional District, despite an ongoing federal investigation into allegations involving her immigration history. Odelson, founding partner of the Chicago-area law firm Odelson, Murphey, Frazier & McGrath Ltd., said that her electoral victory would not prevent federal authorities from pursuing criminal charges should investigators uncover evidence of wrongdoing. “Election does not make them immune from criminal prosecution. It has happened to several members of the House in the past,” Odelson said. Under the US Constitution, the House can expel a member with a two-thirds majority of those present and voting. A criminal conviction is not required for expulsion, although conviction alone does not automatically remove a lawmaker from office. Odelson acknowledged that he was unfamiliar with the specifics of the federal investigation involving Omar but said that the House had the constitutional authority to expel its members. He cited previous cases involving lawmakers who faced removal or exclusion from Congress. One involved New York Democrat Adam Clayton Powell Jr., whom the House refused to seat in 1967 following allegations of misconduct. Powell was subsequently reelected and the US Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that the House had acted unlawfully in excluding him. Another was former Republican congressman George Santos of New York, who was expelled from the House in December 2023 following a congressional ethics investigation into allegations of financial misconduct and other violations. In August 2024 Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and in April 2025 was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison. President Donald Trump commuted his sentence in October 2025, less than three months after Santos began serving his prison term. Omar, who was born in Somalia in 1982, fled the country’s civil war with her family and spent several years in a refugee camp in Kenya before arriving in the US in 1995. She became an American citizen in 2000 and was first elected to Congress in 2018. The lawmaker has repeatedly faced allegations from Trump and other critics concerning her immigration history, citizenship and family relationships. Federal scrutiny intensified in October when Department of Homeland Security investigators searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., residence as part of an investigation involving immigration paperwork submitted on her behalf when she was a child. Omar has denied wrongdoing and accused the Trump administration of politically motivated efforts to target her. No criminal charges have been filed against her and federal authorities have not publicly established evidence of wrongdoing. Questions surrounding Omar have also emerged amid wider investigations into fraud involving public assistance programs in Minnesota, home to one of the largest Somali American communities in the US. Trump has alleged that as much as $19 billion in public funds was stolen through fraud schemes in Minnesota, although that figure has not been independently substantiated. One of the largest cases involved Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota nonprofit at the centre of a roughly $250 million fraud scheme involving federal child nutrition funds during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its founder, Aimee Bock, was convicted of fraud and subsequently sentenced to more than 41 years in federal prison. In a May interview with Arab News, Bock called for investigators to examine whether Omar and other elected officials had been aware of irregularities involving the program. Bock alleged that warnings about fraud had been ignored by state officials and maintained that she had been unfairly singled out for prosecution. However, no evidence has been publicly established linking Omar to the criminal conduct uncovered in the Feeding Our Future case and she has not been charged in connection with it. Omar represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, which includes Minneapolis and a substantial Somali American population. Her latest electoral victory was decisive. According to Minnesota’s unofficial election results, she secured 262,702 votes, or 76.5 percent, compared with 55,765 votes, or 16.2 percent, for Republican challenger John Nagel. Independent candidate DeVelle Jackson received about 7 percent of the vote. Despite the scale of her victory, Odelson said that reelection did not place a member of Congress beyond the reach of federal law or the House’s constitutional disciplinary powers.