by Chuck Ross
Over half of Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s campaign expenditures in the last quarter of 2019 went to her alleged boyfriend’s consulting firm, according to Federal Election Commission filings released Friday.
Omar’s campaign paid $217,000 to E Street Group LLC between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 for research services, digital advertising, fundraising consulting, travel and more, filings show. The firm is run by Democratic consultant Tim Mynett, who was accused by his ex-wife in August of having an affair with Omar.
The fourth-quarter spending figures represent yet another significant uptick in the level of campaign funds Omar has dedicated to Mynett’s firm.
In the third quarter of 2019, Omar disbursed about $146,713 to E Street Group, and in the 10-month period prior, from August 2018 to June 2019, her total spending with the firm was $223,000.
In total, Mynett’s firm has received $587,000 from Omar’s campaign, the bulk of which was received after he was alleged to be dating the congresswoman.
The Washington Free Beacon first reported Omar’s fourth-quarter campaign payments to Mynett’s firm.
A Washington, D.C., judge finalized Mynett’s divorce from his ex-wife, Beth Mynett, in December.
“[Through] extensive documentation and his own words, Tim acknowledged he has been engaged in an extramarital romantic relationship with Ilhan Omar, which proceeded and precipitated the divorce,” Beth Mynett said during the final divorce hearing, only to be interrupted by a seemingly stunned Tim Mynett, who asked that she stop when Omar was brought up, according to Fox News.
Omar also finalized a divorce with her ex-husband, Ahmed Hirsi, in November amid her alleged infidelity.
Tim Mynett has been living on and off with Omar at a D.C. apartment, the Daily Mail reported in October. The two have been pictured together at various events across the country in 2019.
Omar continues to divert campaign funds to Tim Mynett’s firm as her campaign faces an FEC complaint by a conservative watchdog group over the payments.
The complaint honed in on the $21,547 in travel expenses Omar’s campaign paid E Street Group starting in April, which coincided with the start of her alleged affair with Tim Mynett.
“If Ilhan for Congress reimbursed Mynett’s LLC for travel so that Rep. Omar would have the benefit of Mynett’s romantic companionship, the expenditures must be considered personal in nature,” the National Legal and Policy Center said in its complaint, which was filed in August.
NLPC investigator Tom Anderson previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation: “We believe Representative Ilhan Omar may have touched the third rail of campaign finance law: disbursing campaign funds for personal use. It’s a brazen act Representative Omar was caught doing before in Minnesota and all of the evidence we’ve seen tells us she’s probably doing it again.”
Omar’s campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Chuck Ross is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Ilhan Omar and Boyfriend” by CAIR.
