Federal Election Commission filings reveal payments from Rep. Ilhan Omar’s campaign made up the vast majority of money her husband’s consulting firm earned during the 2020 election cycle.
E Street Group, which is partially owned by Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, drew in $2.9 million from Rep. Omar’s 2020 campaign and $3.7 million in total political spending from other candidates.
Between January 2019 and November 2020, Omar’s campaign contributed 78 percent of the total campaign funds received by the E Street Group.
According to Fox News, Omar promised not to have further ties with E Street Group in mid-November – payments in the FEC filings were made before then.
Rep. Ilhan Omar is under fire due to the political contributions she made to husband’s firm
Omar is married to Tim Mynett (right), part-owner of political consulting firm E Street Group
The two married in March, which was discovered after they were seen in secret
‘Every dollar that was spent went to a team of more than 20 that were helping us fight back against attacks and organize on the ground and online in a COVID-19 world,’ Omar wrote in a campaign email.
‘And Tim — beyond his salary at the firm — received no profit whatsoever from the consulting relationship the firm provided.’
Prior to that, however, Omar pushed back against the idea of cutting ties with the E Street Group, despite the potential optics of impropriety.
‘You don’t stop using the service of people who are doing good work because somebody thinks it means something else,’ Omar said in an interview with The New York Times in September.
Omar’s campaign gave $2.9 million to E Street Group from 2019 through November 2020
E Street Group took in a total of $3.7 million from political campaigns during that same span of time
‘Why would I not work with people who understand my district, who have been working there for 10 years, who understand what it means to raise resources for a candidate like myself and manage and target our communications to our district to battle the misinformation and narratives that the media and our adversaries continue to put out?’
‘I believe that the narratives exist because those that are putting that narrative out understand what they gain when I’m disadvantaged that way,’ Omar added.
Other political candidates who paid the E Street Group between January 2019 and November 2020 include Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Rep. Peter DeFazio, and Rep. Earl Blumenauer.
GOP members are looking to strip committee assignments from Omar for unrelated reasons
Omar has previously used what was considered an anti-Semitic trope in criticism of Israel and AIPAC
FEC rules allow campaign funds to contribute to the salary of a family member, so long as they are being paid fair value and are providing a legitimate service to the campaign.
The disclosures come as Omar looks to raise money while the GOP threatens to target her committee assignments for past comments that were accused of being anti-Semitic.
‘Let’s be clear: This resolution to remove Ilhan is rooted in racism, xenophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry and we must call it out,’ said a fundraising email obtained by Fox News.
In mid-November, Omar vowed to stop having ties with E Street Group going forward
(Sen. Majorie) ‘Taylor Greene is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars off of it. So, we’ve set a goal to raise $150,000 in the next 48 hours to fight back.’
In February 2019, Omar used what could be considered an anti-Semitic trope while criticizing support for Israel, writing ‘It’s all about the Benjamins baby,’
That comment is being compared to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s writings that a ‘Jewish space laser’ was responsible for California wildfires.
Democrats this week voted to strip Greene, a Georgia senator, of her committee assignments after the GOP failed to take punitive action in reaction to her past support of the QAnon conspiracy, extreme remarks advocating violence against Democrats, and comments considered anti-Semitic and bigoted.
Omar and Mynett married in March, at which point the two already had a professional relationship.
Previously, Omar was married to Ahmed Hirsi in 2002 in an Islamic ceremony that was unregistered. She had two children with Hirsi.
In 2009, she had a civil ceremony with British citizen Ahmed Elmi after she had an Islamic divorce from Hirsi.
Elmi and Omar broke up in 2011 and divorced in 2017, after which Omar reunited with Hirsi and had a third child, before divorcing in November 2019.
In addition to the campaign contributions from Omar, E Street Group also received almost $135,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program and $500,000 from the Economic Injury Disaster program, both loan payments from COVID-19 stimulus bills.