Being Ilhan Omar's husband is clearly very good work if you can get it

As the FEC reports from the 2020 campaign cycle continue to trickle in, we’re seeing further data showing that Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s husband’s political consulting firm made out like a bandit. We’d already known that Tim Mynett’s E Street Group had been cashing in big time from his wife’s campaign before she finally claimed to have cut him loose in November after the last election. But the cozy arrangement was still providing Mynett’s firm with a steady stream of money from his wife’s campaign donations well into the fourth quarter. On top of that, as we’ll get to in a moment, the E Street Group also managed to land itself a very generous COVID bailout from the federal government. (Free Beacon)

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Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D., Minn.) campaign payments to her husband’s firm accounted for nearly 80 percent of its cash haul during the 2020 elections, federal filings show.

The E Street Group, a D.C. consulting firm owned by Tim Mynett, Omar’s husband, and his partner Will Hailer, received $3.7 million from political committees this past cycle. Omar’s campaign was by far its biggest moneymaker, doling out 146 checks for $2.9 million, or 78 percent of the firm’s payments…

Omar’s payments to E Street constituted a large part of her campaign expenditures. Her committee spent $5.2 million, meaning that the $2.9 million that she funneled to her husband’s firm was 56 percent of the campaign’s operational costs.

It’s not that the E Street Group didn’t have any other clients, but they were few in number and spent far less money. Compared to the nearly 3 million that Mynett took in from his wife, the next closest client in terms of total spending was Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) who dropped $195K on Mynett’s services. Jayapal also just happens to be someone that Omar refers to as her “mentor,” though I’m sure that’s a total coincidence. Between the two of them, they accounted for all but 15% of the total revenue for the E Street Group, which apparently existed solely to siphon money out of his wife’s campaign coffers. The firm also received smaller payments from the Minnesota DFL and the DNC.

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All of that information offers some context for the next portion of this story. As already mentioned, the E Street Group also managed to land more than half a million dollars in COVID relief from the federal government. It came in the form of Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster payments.

A political consulting firm co-owned by Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D., Minn.) husband, Tim Mynett, received more than half-a-million dollars in pandemic bailout cash—even as it was raking in millions from Omar’s campaign.

The E Street Group, a D.C.-based company run by Mynett and Will Hailer, received $134,800 in Paycheck Protection Program loans and $500,000 in Economic Injury Disaster loans, new data show. Both funds were established to help small businesses cope with the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Those loan and grant programs were specifically established to help small businesses impacted by the government shutdowns ordered in response to the pandemic. How did Mynett’s firm manage to qualify for those programs? Not only was he still collecting cash all through the year at an impressive clip, but he was demonstrably doing better than he did in the previous two years before the plague struck. How were the jobs of his workers or the stability of his company in any way negatively impacted?

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If Mynett’s firm was really struggling as a result of the lockdowns, he should be able to demonstrate that. But the FEC reports certainly don’t make it seem that way. And if he didn’t need the money he should be forced to return it or face repercussions for what could easily be perceived as fraud.

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Karen Townsend 2:00 PM | April 25, 2024
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